WHY FOUNTAINS OF WAYNE HATED STACY'S MOM

the group Fountains of Wayne would have their commercial breakthrough in 2003 with their third record welcome Interstate managers an album which featured the song Stacy's mom but the band members have had a LoveHate relationship with the song and their story of having Commercial Success isn't your typical story today let's talk about the history behind the song Stacy's mom and how the band have had a difficult relationship with the track especially in the face of tragedy the story of Fountains of Wayne begins with frontman guitarist Chris Collingwood and basis Adam Schlesinger Collingwood would hail from Philadelphia actually a suburb called Sellersville he would end up meeting fellow student Schlesinger in Williams College in Massachusetts in 1985 they would play music together in different bands during this period but after college the two men went through separate ways with Schlesinger moving out to New York and playing in a band called Ivy while Collingwood would moved to Boston playing in a country group called Mercy Buckets while also working temp jobs at Harvard and it and Sham at Bank Callingwood would tell the Boston Globe the moment that changed his life at that point saying I was temp of the month twice in Boston then one day I woke up and realized I worked at a bank and said I've got to get the hell out of here he would end up moving to New York and reconnecting with Schlesinger and they started writing music it was during this time the pair of musicians also hooked up with Michael crumper who would end up managing them recalling to Rolling Stone I was immediately Blown Away it reminded me a lot of British bands that I Lov that weren't particularly fashionable jangle sad Boy music even on a poor quality cassette you could hear the songs were that good they would call themselves the wallf flowers at the time and they would later end up selling that name to Jacob Dylan they would rename themselves pin wheel and they even did a showcase at the legendary cbgb's venue for label Executives but no one seemed interested in the group they soon shifted their sound to more alt Rock featuring more cynicism and more of an edge and they would be become Fountains of Wayne they would take their name from a store in Wayne New Jersey that sold lawn ornaments and quirky Christmas decorations Schlesinger's Hometown was in nearby Montclair and he would tell a New Jersey paper the owner was worried at first that we were going to be heavy metal guys or gangster rappers but he was okay with it after we met him pair of musicians would record Fountains of Wayne's first album which was self-titled over the course of about a week with Callingwood on lead vocals Schlesinger on drums as well as doing guitars and keys their manager had taken up a job conveniently enough at Atlantic Records who ended up signing the group The Band during their time on Atlantic drew a lot of comparisons to label mates Matchbox 20 and they would add guitarist jod Porter and drummer Brian Young after the first album was finished the first record would produce a modest radio hit in the song radiation Vibe which would peek at number 71 on the alternative AirPlay chart Schlesinger would refer to the band's music as suburban powerp Fountains of Wayne soon became known for writing catchy hooks with humorous lyrics featuring post-modern cynicism critics would gush over their first album calling it brilliant and Perfect pop Schlesinger would tell a New Jersey paper we write to make each other laugh a lot of the time but we like to put a real anti-rock perspective into a song and make it more personal more self-deprecating and less angst ridden and heavy it was the same year as the group's debut album came out that Schlesinger entered a contest to write a song for a new Tom Hanks movie called that thing you do that chronicled a fictional British band topping the charts in America in 1964 he would end up beating out hundreds of other applicants and won the song contest and his song ended up getting featured and a possible foreshadowing of Fountains of Wayne's future career the band featured in that thing you do would become onead wonders the group's debut album would sell about 120,000 copies Fountains of Wayne would return in 1999 with their second album Utopia Parkway with which was a commercial failure selling about 60,000 copies they soon left Atlantic and despite making numerous attempts to find a new label things really just didn't work out for them and the members soon parted ways young became a session musician while Porter and Collingwood played and other bands while Schlesinger would work with verv pipe and They Might Be Giants in addition to writing some music for the 2001 film Josie and the Pussycats the band would however end up reconvening after both Collingwood and Schlesinger found themselves in in greenish Village in New York City years later both musicians would sell Finance recordings that would turn into Fountains of Wayne's comeback album welcome Interstate managers Schlesinger would tell the Washington Post when shopping around their album to labels in the early 2000s when we were looking for that new record deal we played everybody Stacy's mom and everyone passed on it I actually had one guy at a major label say this is something that I would like to listen to at home but I don't know how we would sell this they soon found a home with curve records is a boutique label for Emi in a strange twist of fate the man who signed the band for Atlantic guy named Steve Jaga well was the vice president of esur Fountains of Wayne would evolve their sound to be more commercial pop for their upcoming release marketing the band was proving to be difficult considering they called themselves pop but they weren't the same type of Pop as artists like Nelly or Shanti and they weren't the same kind of rock like Godsmack and Metallica which was being heavily played on modern rock stations so the marketing strategy behind the band was to Market them to Top 40 stations and to stations that played so-called adult contemporary music you know stations that played a LaVine and cplay as well as their label mates Matchbox 20 the band would provide the music also for the cartoon hey Joel around this time the first single released from their third record would be Stacy's mom which premiered on May 19th 2003 as Stacy's mom started to gain traction Schlesinger would tell a paper the nice thing about not having tons and tons of AirPlay if there's a nice thing is that you don't get pigeon hold as a ban from the 9s at least we don't have to worry about reminding people about something that happened 7 years ago foreshadowing of what was to come cing wood and Schlesinger would end up sharing the writing credits on all their songs but in reality they wrote apart from one another but they just split the writing credits to avoid fights over publishing and royalties Schlesinger would be inspired from a friend of his who had crush on his grandmother to write Stacy's mom telling MTV it's sort of about that period when you're first hitting puberty and suddenly everybody of the opposite sex is strangely attractive the song also took a heavy inspiration from the Cars who had their own songs about unavailable women My Best Friend's Girl as well as drive not to mention the opening Rifts sounds similar to the cars just what I needed there's also references to the cars in the music video like the iHeart Rick license plate there's the kid who looks like Rick OAS there's elements of Jesse's Girl by Rick Springfield in there and of course we have to mention Mrs Robinson by Simon a Garfunkle the band even tried to get Rick oich to be in the video but he politely declined and they initially wanted Rick oic's wife Paulina por kova to play Stacy's mom but she declined as well so they got model Rachel Hunter she was a fan of the group and was enthusiastic about the role the video for the song was a very literal interpretation of the lyrics a boy dating a girl and he soon becomes enamored with her mother the video also contains references to 80s pop culture like Fast Times Ridgemont High specifically the Phoebe Kate scene which happens to be soundtracked to the car song Moving in Stereo the members would even appear on a fictional New Wave magazine cover as well Stacy's mom would end up peing a number 21 on the Hot 100 chart in the states and was a top 20 hit in the UK it also became a staple of MTV and the band would earn two Grammy nominations one for best vote vocal pop performance and strangely enough Best New Artist in 2004 the best new artist nomination was funny considering their debut record came out 8 years prior they would follow that single up with the song Mexican wine but it just really didn't go anywhere and the third single had the same fate Callingwood would tell Rolling Stone looking at the legacy of Stacy's mom I tried to talk him out of Stacy's mom referring to Adam I was reluctant to do it at all but you don't want to kill the session by not being a good sport when it was done I didn't think it belonged on the album I knew it would be a single and I knew it would be a hit and everyone else knew it but I was the only one who didn't think a novelty hit was a good song Callingwood in a separate interview would tell the Boston Globe almost every band's most successful thing is not their best thing the song was a blessing and a curse our audience became split between soccer moms and t-shirts that said I'm Stacy's mom and everyone else and there was some bad blood between the two crowds you're may be wondering if Rick oich ever discussed the song or or even commented on it and he did in 2005 he gave an interview to Magna magazine and he was asked about the song and Fountains of Wayne and he said the following yeah in fact I even met one of the fountains guy I guess it was Adam in a studio one day and he was a little shy about bringing it up but they wrote me a letter and asked me if I would be in the video and I said no but good luck I didn't really want to partake in it but it was a nice tribute a nice little thing for them to do by 2005 Callingwood would hit the bottle pretty hard and it created issues within the band it was during a tour in 2006 throughout America and Japan Collingwood went through a terrible bout of insomnia where he didn't sleep for 4 days straight and he began to hallucinate he was soon given anti psychotic medication as well as tranquilizers and sent back home to the states and he would tell the Boston Globe I had a breakdown I completely lost it but his insomnia didn't improve once he got back home and he was now seeing Shadow People something that happens to a lot of sleep deprived people he would remark to the globe I was convinced I could see someone at the door but when I followed them they weren't there he would be admitted to a hospital for 2 weeks he stopped drinking and his sleep slowly started to return one noticeable change that happened to Collingwood after this ordeal was that his songwriting became far more serious and that would create further tensions within the group specifically with his songwriting partner Adam the band would put out two more records with 2011 sky full of holes being their last while Callingwood loved the record the process of making it he hated while the band never broke broke up it just simply dissolved and the members just drifted apart Schlesinger would move out to Hollywood becoming an executive producer on the show crazy ex-girlfriend and he wrote songs for other bands as well and had a good deal of success Callingwood would put out a solo record he played in a cover band called the gay potatoes and was even a driver for Uber for a period of time he loved being an Uber driver but the ride sharing service requires people to have a car no older than 15 years and for him he wasn't ready to get rid of his 2002 Jeep Grand Cherokee regardless of their Bittersweet relationship with the song it continues to be featured in the media and appear in video games it was in the news again in 2011 when Bowling For Soup covered it since the band has long been wrongly attributed to writing the song Bowling For Soup would release a statement at the time that read finally you can say this is your favorite song by Bowling For Soup and not look like an idiot sadly Adam Schlesinger would pass away in early 2020 due to the complications from the Corona virus upon his death many obituaries in the Press cited Stacy's mom with Callingwood telling Rolling Stone it's sad to me that people reading this obituary will all know that song and only a very tiny percentage of them will ever hear I 95 or the girl I can't forget he deserves to be remembered for more than a punchline that does it for today's video guys thanks for watching as always if you have suggestions for future topics use the link in the description box below and we'll see you again Rock rry story sticker

Channel: Rock N' Roll True Stories

Views: 48,638

Keywords: rock n' roll, rock, music, documentary, story, interview, fountains of wayne, the sopranos, Rachel hunter, Adam schlesinger, Chris collingwood, fountains of Wayne Stacy's mom, Stacys mom, Staceys mom

Id: IQGM-LQMWu0

Length: 12min 15sec (735 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 27 2024