To see just how out of touch Grammy voters are, look at Fountains of Wayne's Best New Artist nomination for its 2003 album, Welcome Interstate Managers. Not that the album wasn't award-worthy, though the band lost the trophy to goth-rockers Evanescence. It's just that you'd expect nominees for Best New Artist to be, well, new, and Managers is FoW's third album in its eight-year existence. The first two were critical successes but sales failures, exactly the kind of thing the Grammys should promote.
The band's finally getting its due, though, thanks to the insanely catchy single "Stacy's Mom," an ode to what American Pie famously dubbed MILFs, complete with a video featuring a bathing suit-clad Rachel Hunter. Just in time for Mother's Day, hot moms everywhere have their own sex anthem.
"I'm not too into moms myself," admits bassist and co-songwriter Adam Schlesinger, who, along with singer-guitarist and fellow songwriter Chris Collingwood, founded the band during their days at Massachusetts' Williams College. Taking inspiration from the guitar-pop of bands like the Cars and Big Star, Schlesinger and Collingwood craft hook-filled tunes that burrow into your skull and never leave. Ask anyone who's heard "Stacy's Mom" on the radio; you can't get it out of your head for weeks.
But FoW songs are not simply empty pop confections. "The kind of thing we do is not necessarily typical of guitar bands these days," Schlesinger says, referring to the way the band's songs tell stories about average, mostly working-class people, mostly from the New York tri-state area. Each tune, within its three-to-four-minute pop-song structure, is a little modernist short story, painting an amazingly vivid picture of a bitter salesman ("Bright Future in Sales"), a jilted lover ("Hung Up On You") or just a guy who wants a damn cup of coffee ("Halley's Waitress").
While the success of "Stacy's Mom" is vindication, then, for the band, critics, college-radio DJs and music connoisseurs who've been tirelessly promoting them for years, it also could be a double-edged sword. After all, the song is dangerously close to a novelty hit, the kind of jokey tune that doesn't drive people to seek out what else the band has to offer.
"There's worse problems to have," Schlesinger says, when asked if he's worried about being known as the "Stacy's Mom" guy forever. "If we can continue to just do what we want to do, and make records, then it doesn't really bother me. At the risk of making a pretentious comparison, I think of people like Randy Newman. For most people in the world, if they know who he is at all it's because of 'I Love LA' or 'Short People.' They don't know what else he's done."
Even if the radio success and Grammy nominations are just a fluke, those critics, DJs and connoisseurs will remain part of FoW's core fan base for as long as they keep putting out smart, literate guitar pop. Schlesinger himself has plenty of other irons in the musical furnace, including writing music for a Broadway version of John Waters' Cry-Baby. And there's always New Jersey, a favorite subject for the Wayners (the band is even named after a lawn-accessories store in the Jersey town of Wayne). Although they just as often write about other New York suburbs, for some reason the Jersey connection is the one people latch onto. The State Assembly is even set to give the band an award in coming months. In some small way, they've made it a little cooler to be from the big-hair state. "I guess just sort of the stigma of saying you're from New Jersey or writing about New Jersey has been lifted somewhat," Schlesinger says. "People almost seem to be a little proud of it now instead of embarrassed."