Top 40 Adam Schlesinger Quotes

I normally write on acoustic guitar, although piano is the instrument that I actually studied. Occasionally, I’ll write on the piano or sometimes with no instrument at all.

It would probably be better if I got involved in fewer things just because I’d have more time to write for my own purposes… But if somebody calls you up with a really cool project, it’s hard to just say ‘no’ because you don’t feel like working.

I think in most cases, when you’re writing a song, you’re just making up a little story, and you’re not really thinking about making a point one way or another about it. You’re just coming up with a little scenario and seeing it through, and that’s it.

I’m not comfortable as a lead singer. Maybe I could do it in the studio, but I wouldn’t have the confidence to play shows.

I think when we were starting out, it was more about imitating our songwriting heroes. We would try to write songs like Neil Finn, or we would try to write songs like Ray Davies, or we would try to write songs like Glenn Tilbrook.

Either I need an assignment with a strict deadline – like something for a movie or a TV show or whatever – or else I need to create a made-up deadline for myself for my own records. Otherwise, I don’t write anything.

The nature of the music business is such that it’s better to have a few chances for some things to be successful than just one, and that’s kind of been my attitude all along.

I like switching gears. I’m kind of a chameleon.

A song sometimes ends up with its own internal logic.

It’s always been my philosophy to keep a lot of balls in the air. With music, most things don’t pan out, so you try to increase your odds by being involved with a million things at once.

As a writer, I find it very satisfying when a lyric suddenly ties together more neatly than you expected it to. But for the listener, hearing a good lyric is not generally as exciting as hearing a great beat or a great riff or a great melody or even a distinctive singing voice for the first time.

Your job as a producer is to make suggestions without putting your ego in front of everything else. Also, I think you want to focus on that artist’s best qualities and really highlight them.

If you’re sitting in a place like Martha’s Vineyard, I don’t think you’re going to write a song about a ski resort.

I started taking piano lessons when I was about 5, and there was always a lot of music in my family: my parents both play instruments, my grandparents were classical violinists, and my grandfather was actually a music professor and a conductor.

With the TV stuff, we usually hand in final, finished tracks. The turnaround time is so tight that there’s no time to demo anything; you just do it.

I had a job transcribing a biotechnology-litigation seminar. You put headphones on and fast-forward and stop with your feet. There were a lot of ‘um’s.’

With Fountains Of Wayne, I almost always start with lyrics – maybe not the entire lyric, but I almost always need a couplet or something, and then I work from there. With Ivy, it’s much more about the atmosphere and the vibe.

Scotland is a picturesque country where the people are friendly yet completely incomprehensible. Also, the national delicacy is a sheep’s stomach filled with its liver, lungs, and heart.

One of the more surreal days I’ve ever had in the recording studio was Martin Fry teaching Hugh Grant his old dance moves. Showing him how to do the hair-flip and the point, and all these sort of trademark moves of his.

I’ve never really had the desire to be a front person or a solo artist. I don’t really create that much of a hierarchy in my mind.

The Ting Tings have been a huge hit in my family. I have two young daughters, and both of them love that record, so I pretty much have to listen to that ten times a day.

What should a song be about? It’s a trick question for songwriters because lots of amazing songs aren’t ‘about’ anything. Or, at least, they’re not about anything that’s obvious or logical.

In promotional mode, every day is a series of decisions. You can easily fill up your day with checklist stuff.

For me, it’s just more satisfying when you follow the rules rather than just make a bunch of sounds. The magic of just making noise in the studio goes away after a while.

I think with musicals, it’s much more part of the script. They don’t want songs that would stop the show; they need songs that keep the plot moving.

London is a vast, complex city designed by the same guy who created the Habitrail.

I don’t ever feel like I’m being an actor.

I don’t know if there’s a particular project, but one movie that I was really disappointed I didn’t get to work on was Judd Apatow’s ‘Walk Hard.’

Most of your day is spent working, and being in a band is no different. We’re just business travelers in a way.

Most of the jobs I’ve gotten are from people calling me. I don’t actively solicit a lot of work like that, but maybe I should.

Saxon, if you are unfamiliar, is a British heavy-metal band that has been around since the mid-’70s and was in no small part the inspiration for Spinal Tap.

With Fountains of Wayne, after ‘Stacy’s Mom’ happened, we started making a little bit more money and getting a little bit more known.

I just like to stay busy, and I like to work with interesting people.

The Mall Of America, outside Minneapolis, is just a mall. Yeah, it’s big. So, like, instead of your typical 12 Starbucks, there are 30.

We were called ‘Three Men Who, When Standing Side by Side, Have a Wingspan of Over Twelve Feet.’ We had that name for a week or so. We were also called ‘Are You My Mother?’ for awhile. We went through a lot of really dumb band names – almost as dumb as Fountains of Wayne.

I’m just like anybody else: I have stuff to do in the day, whether that’s writing a song or recording a song. I try to treat everything I do as just work.

I think one of the pitfalls of doing your own music is that sometimes you can never be satisfied with it: you’re afraid to say that it’s done, and you keep reworking it or re-recording it or re-writing it.

I am not very regimented unless I have to be. I wish I was someone that could just write every day, but I tend to work on specific projects for a specific period of time and then stop.

I think I initially started inventing characters in my songs because I didn’t want to write directly about myself. Also, as a kid, I loved all the character names in Beatles songs, like Eleanor Rigby and Lovely Rita and Mean Mr. Mustard and Maxwell and Rocky Raccoon.

Cheap Trick has played with every band on the planet.