​​By Joe Williams Tue., Sep. 27 2011 at 8:30 AM

A lot went into writing your favorite song–but how much do you really know about it? This week Chris Collingwood, vocalist of the power-pop four-piece responsible for the 2003 Billboard topper “Stacy’s Mom,” Fountains of Wayne, delves into Tom Hanks movies, working with your hands, and dying with a ton of money in the bank.

Song: “Workingman’s Hands”
From Album: Sky Full of Holes
Release Date: Aug. 2
Where it was written: Right here in my living room, in western Massachusetts

Favorite line in the song: “Oh, you save your money for a hole in the ground.”

I think that’s just because there’s a part in the song, “You’re [sic] Uncle John walked a mile to school.” My Uncle John actually did die when I was writing that song and it found its way into that song. He was an old Pennsylvania Dutch guy, and he died–I guess he was in his 80s or something–he died with a lot of money in the bank. It just kind of shocked everybody. He died alone, never went anywhere his entire life, never did anything, really. I’m pretty sure he never left Pennyslvania. And he had a lot of money and it was just a big shock because he didn’t even have any family left. So what was the point of that, really?

Which part was the hardest to come up with? Once I was clear on what I wanted to do with it, it was pretty easy. And I think a lot of songs are that way, where it feels like a Mad Lib or a crossword puzzle, where once you figure out the little clue and the angle then a lot of it kind of writes it self. The verses in that song are pretty much like a list, obviously until you get to that left-turn part of it.

If you could go back and change anything, what would it be? It’s really hard for me to have perspective on those types of things. I think by the time you end up writing, producing, arranging something, and made so many decisions along the way, you kind of lose track of what you imagined when you started. I mean some songs actually–there’s another song on this record called “Someone’s Gonna Break Your Heart,” and when I look at my early notes for that song and originally what was going on in that song before it became what it is now, I was like, “What the hell am I doing?” It’s really, really hard to retrace my mental steps backwards, and I think part of that is just because you’re building on a foundation of something, and then if you quickly abandon it and your brain is still focused on something else, you’ve kind of already moved five steps past where that other step would have taken you.

Odd fact about song: The title was kicking around for the longest time, and I had written three or four versions of that song and it’s kind of . . . it was not about what it ended up being about. Originally that title was based on a friend of ours [Mike Viola] who is really an amazing and poetic songwriter, he has these stubby little fingers, and he used to work in a pizza restaurant. When I first met him he was still working there, so that tells you how long ago it was. I guess it was in like 1991 or something. He’s a songwriter in L.A. now, and he’s actually the one that sang “That Thing You Do!” which [Adam Schlesinger] wrote for the Tom Hanks movie, so you know his voice probably if nothing else.

When I first met Mike, he was playing me these songs that he wrote, and he was an amazing songwriter with just like an amazing kind of melodic, tender, beautiful voice and great sense of melody, and I noticed he was playing these songs and at the same time he had these beat-up hands from working in a pizza restaurant, and that’s kind of where the title actually came from to begin with. It was supposed to be kind of contrasting his day-to-day sort of grueling life working in his family business, with his genius ability. And the title had just been sitting around for the longest time, and I hadn’t been able to make it work. I’m not really sure why. But then it ended up being used for a completely different context on that record. I actually think that one of the most interesting parts about that song is that when the record first came out, I got a lot of e-mails from people. People were talking about that song, saying they could really relate to it, and it was an homage to working people, and a lot of people really missed the little left turn that it takes at one point. It’s kind of an interesting study in hearing what you want to hear when you listen to a song.

When was your favorite time performing it live? You know we’ve only played that song live like twice. Interestingly, I think it’s one of those things where the production on that turned into such a lush, big kind of thing. There’s a 12-string guitar with a Nashville tuning–which is this open tuning–and it kind of gives it that really harpsichord sound, that shimmer over the top of it. And I think that without that, the song really suffers a lot trying to play it live without a lot of ornamentation, so we’ve only played it like once or twice. Probably if we got to the point where we could afford to have a 12-piece band, that would be one of my favorite things to play. But at the moment it doesn’t really have a live life yet.

What is the meaning behind the song: The song probably ended up being one of the most autobiographical things that we ever did, in the sense that it’s almost completely about the way I grew up and the conflicting value systems between myself and my family. My upbringing was one in which you’re taught that you learn values through hard work, and other times it was hard work for very little purpose. Getting up at the crack of dawn and hammering stakes and digging holes, moving rocks around, and my reaction to that was that it was always kind of misdirected energy and kind of a waste of time. So, when you reach the point in the song where the guy has a chip on his shoulder, [that] was sort of about my childhood battles with that value system, which sounds kind of pretentious. But obviously at the end, the idea is that you don’t really live that long, so why are you wasting all your time doing this crap?

The overall message in that song is that tired old trite carpe diem thing. Don’t waste your life digging fence-post holes. I’m OK with that. I’m OK with it being a really simple idea. A lot of times when I’m working on stuff I end up biting off more than I can chew, and it ends up drowning in its own obfuscation.

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/reverb/2011/09/interview_fountains_of_wayne.php#Comments

September 21, 2011

Often, you only need to hear a few lines to know you’re listening to a Fountains of Wayne song. “Richie and Ruben,” from the new album Sky Full of Holes, introduces its title characters as the kind of hapless losers the band loves to write about: “They opened up a bar called Living Hell / Right from the start, it didn’t go too well / They didn’t have the vibe or quite the right clientele.”

Irony and wry humor have helped power Fountains of Wayne for about 15 years now. The band was started by songwriters Adam Schlesinger and Chris Collingwood, who play bass and rhythm guitar, respectively (Collingwood also sings lead vocals). Speaking with All Things Considered host Melissa Block, the two say that, while their lyrics tend to explore modern themes, the music often reaches back to familiar sounds.

“We love all this music from different classic eras of pop songwriting — ’60s, ’70s, ’80s and the ’90s stuff that was going on when we started the band,” Schlesinger says. “So we genre-hop in the sense that we incorporate all these different eras and try to put our own spin on them.”

“Acela,” from Sky Full of Holes, has a bluesy pop sound that can be traced back to The Beatles. Collingwood says that’s less a conscious tribute than the natural result of shared musical knowledge within the group, which also includes drummer Brian Young and guitarist Jody Porter.

“When you bring a song like that in, and you’re trying to describe to the band what you want it to sound like, it’s got all the obvious reference points for things that Brian and Jody are just as familiar with as we are,” Collingwood says. “A lot of it just kind of falls into place, based on what your common experience is of those early songs.”

“There’s times where Chris or I will bring in a song and we’ll pretty much have it mapped out in our mind already,” Schlesinger says. “But there’s other songs where we really just bring in the melody and some chord changes, and it takes on its own life in the studio.”

“Action Hero” is a case in point: a simple song transformed by its full-band treatment on the album. A steady rhythmic beat and the faint beeping of a keyboard illustrate the story of a downtrodden dreamer who spends half the song hooked up to a heart monitor.

“I seem to remember that the heartbeat sound, which is some kind of muffled kick drum, wasn’t there to begin with,” Collingwood says. “And now, when I listen back to that, it strikes me as a really central part of that arrangement.”

http://www.npr.org/2011/09/21/140664307/fountains-of-wayne-transcending-time-and-place

They are the kings of savvy lyrics, the guys who came up with gems like “I saw you talkin’ to Christopher Walken/on my TV screen” (“Hackensack”) or “I wonder if he ever has cried/because his kitten got run over and died” (“Leave the Biker”).

But Fountains of Wayne’s attention to lyrics isn’t rooted in contemporary music, according to singer and guitarist Chris Collingwood.

“I think a lot of pop music can be traced back to folk origins, where the lyrics are more important,” says Collingwood in advance of the band’s appearance Saturday at WYEP’s Rock the Block. “I think that, sometimes, if you separated lyrics from the music it just doesn’t look right on the page. I think a guy like (Harry) Nilsson, he’s one of the few guys who could do that, pull the music out of a song and make the lyrics look right. We spend enough time on it so it’s not just gibberish.”

The new Fountains of Wayne album, “Sky Full of Holes,” again blends keen wordplay with effervescent pop music. It’s the band’s first release since 2007, and Collingwood says the band seems to have fallen into a pattern of four-year cycles: recording albums, touring, taking a couple of years off, then, starting from scratch.

“Adam (Schlesinger, the band’s bassist and songwriter) is busy doing a lot of stuff, has projects he likes to do with TV and movies,” Collingwood says. “I really don’t have the same level of interest in that kind of stuff. For better or worse, that just seems like that’s the schedule we’re on. It just seems like we’re kind of ready after four years.”

So are its fans. While not huge in numbers, Fountains of Wayne does have a rabid constituency of acolytes who know the lyrics of every song. There also are casual followers who, undoubtedly, think the band is a one-hit wonder based on “Stacy’s Mom,” the hit song that had a memorable video featuring model Rachel Hunter. Would the band be willing to trade its generally favorable reviews for another song on the charts?

“It’s an interesting line to walk,” Collingwood says. “I notice the reviews that are negative tend to be misspelled and are full of grammatical errors. It’s interesting who you perceive your audience to be, and whether its worth it to dumb down your approach to get more people interested. The fact that we’re able to do this and have a career, and I don’t have to sit behind a desk every day is enough for me.

“Sky Full of Holes” features songs that have the same power-pop energy that fueled “Stacy’s Mom.” “Someone’s Going to Break Your Heart,” “The Summer Place,” “A Dip in the Ocean” and “Radio Bar” are infectious, radio-friendly tunes. But the album’s gem is the last track, “Cemetery Guns.” With lyrics about a military funeral — the album title “A Sky Full of Holes” refers to a 21-gun salute — it weaves martial drumming with a sweet, Americana-flavored melody.

Collingwood wrote “Cemetery Guns” without attending a military funeral. After finishing that song, an uncle who resided in Canonsburg, Washington County, and was a veteran, passed away.

At the cemetery, as his uncle was being buried, the song took on new meaning.

“That was my first experience with a military funeral,” Collingwood says. “It was pouring rain and just the most surreal experience.”

Read more: Lyrics fuel Fountains of Wayne music – Pittsburgh Tribune-Review http://pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/ae/music/s_756764.html#ixzz1YA8UqLmk

Fountains of Wayne — Chris Collingwood, Brian Young, Adam Schlesinger and Jody Porter — had a rough time recording “Sky Full of Holes.”

Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/11258/1174596-388.stm#ixzz1Y792X145

“Cemetery Guns” (Chris Collingwood/Adam Schlesinger) recorded by Lisa Chensvold and Dan Smith in Raleigh, NC on August 23, 2011.

From the singer: I am a huge Fountains of Wayne fan. I was singing along to this new song and wishing (yet again) that I could sing like a female version of Chris – sadly, not even close. So I started re-imagining the song as something that might actually suit my classically trained voice. It kind of works. Mostly, it was a heck of a lot of fun! Many thanks to Dan for being game for this musical experiment

‘The Summer Place’

“The Summer Place,” the new video from Fountains of Wayne’s latest album, Sky Full of Holes, is a nostalgic clip that captures the faded, sun-soaked look of old photos taken at a beach in the mid-Seventies. “This song is about a house that belonged to a family for a long time, and has both good and not-so-good childhood memories associated with it for the main character,” songwriter Adam Schlesinger told Rolling Stone.

http://www.magnetmagazine.com/ 

The great Fountains Of Wayne just issued their fifth album in a career that dates back 15 years. Sky Full Of Holes (Yep Roc) was recorded by the band—vocalist/guitarist Chris Collingwood, multi-instrumentalist Adam Schlesinger, guitarist Jody Porter and drummer Brian Young—in New York City at the studio Schlesinger co-owns, and it may be the quartet’s best effort to date. Fountains Of Wayne is currently on tour, but Collingwood and Schlesinger will also be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week. Read our brand new Q&A with the dynamic duo.

  The Washington County Fair

Collingwood: My grandparents had a farm outside of Pittsburgh, and every summer of my childhood we spent a week at the County Fair inWashington,Pa. There were carnies, sideshow attractions, 4-H milkshakes, craft shows, tractor pulls, demolition derbies and an endless line of livestock barns with cattle, sheep, rabbits, goats and chickens. My brother and I would bring sleeping bags and crash out on a bed of hay in an empty stall in the angus barn. Our uncle Kirk took us on a shitty ride called the Music Express, which just flung you really fast in a circle while they blasted Southern rock. One night, Kirk and his friend stole a golf cart from the security office and strapped my brother and me in the back where the golf bags go, then did donuts all up and down the path from the arena to the cattle barns. I was too young to figure out the details, but it was pretty obvious they got in serious trouble. These days, they’d probably go to prison for shit like that.

 George Carlin’s “People Are Fucking Boring” Routine

Collingwood: A masterstroke with the longest, most detailed and irrelevant setup about spelunking, dinosaur turds and Y2K—and a payoff so visceral and immediate that knowing it’s coming doesn’t make it any less perfect. He concludes by saying he wishes he were in a coma so he wouldn’t have to listen to people’s stupid shit. I saw George Carlin shortly before he died, at theCalvinTheater inNorthampton,Mass. His timing was off, and he spent quite a while talking about old age, but it’s a tribute to the guy that he was just as pissed off at the end of his life as he was in the ’70s.

 The Lonesome Brothers

Collingwood: The Lonesome Brothers are an institution inNorthampton,Mass. The pairing of local legends Ray Mason and Jim Armenti is a roots-rock/rockabilly/country outfit with the energy and purpose of a young punk band. I saw them a couple weeks ago in a shack in the middle of a cornfield inWorthington,Mass., and in about 10 minutes, they turned a roomful of sleepy locals into a whirling, frenetic dance party. When the band took a set break, the entire bar emptied out onto the lawn in the back, where the owner set off fireworks. Then we all filed back inside, and it was as if they had never stopped. If I ever throw a giant drunken hootenanny, these guys will be headlining.

   Christopher Hitchens

Collingwood: If you have some time to kill and you want to realize how little you know about stuff, go to YouTube and type in “Hitchens debate.” There are hours and hours of footage of the guy beating up on hapless opponents, sometimes politely, more often not, but always with a mot juste and a baffling mastery of the subject at hand. He strikes me as one of the last public intellectuals, an anachronism in the era of evolution denial and three-hour CGI shitfests. Sadly, Hitchens became seriously ill around the time of the publication of his memoir, Hitch-22. You can still read him in Vanity Fair and on Slate.com.

  Sam Lipsyte

Collingwood: I learned about Sam Lipsyte at an installment of John Wesley Harding‘s Cabinet Of Wonders show, at a little cabaret on Bleecker Street called Le Poisson Rouge. It’s a variety show, and this one included Josh Ritter, Eugene Mirman and Graham Parker, plus my friend Dennis Diken of the Smithereens on drums. A great show throughout, but Sam made the biggest impression with a dark, ugly piece about betrayal that seemed to hush the audience like a toxic gas. I’m a sucker for a certain type of intense lyrical writing, and right away I went out and bought his books. The heroes of Lipsyte’s novels are pathetic in the truest sense, bilious and petty and self-destructive. Yet you root for them, as life hilariously beats them down, and in the end their comeuppance feels not like just desserts but cruel fate. He’s got threenovels, and the most recent, The Ask, is my favorite.

   “The Lair Of The White Worm”

Collingwood: The Lair Of The White Worm is a vampire movie I first saw when I was in college, and why it never became a massive cult hit is beyond me. Part horror story, part comedy, part love story and part slapstick, it’s so over the top in every imaginable way that it’s hard to describe. Based on the last book by Bram Stoker, who apparently was suffering from dementia as he tried to finish it, the movie features Amanda Donohoe as the earthly servant of a snake god who lives in the caverns of D’Ampton; a then-unknown Hugh Grant plays the local noble who does battle with the beast. A topless saber-toothed seductress, a giant white serpent in a flaming pit, damsels in distress and too many plot twists to count—I know the movie word for word, and it’s aged incredibly well.

   “Three Word Phrase”

Collingwood: Three Word Phrase is a web comic by a guy called Ryan Pequin, who near as I can tell is a graduate art student fromCanada. I’m not normally a comics person, but Pequin’s strips aren’t comics in the traditional sense. They’re little, self-contained absurdities, full of overpondered inanities and nervous anti-heroes, and even the disgusting ones are kind of charming. It’s impossible to read one without going through the entire collection. My favorite: Murderhole.

if clip will not run, it’s worth a copy and paste of the below link

http://www.dailymotion.com/LittleRedLight#videoId=xkr381

http://herenb.canadaeast.com/music/article/1436288

On their first record in four years, Fountains of Wayne make a brilliant return to the pop glory that seemed to be so sorely lacking on 2007′s Traffic and Weather. While that record still contained a fair share of the group’s witty lyrical play, Fountains Of Wayne has seemingly got their groove back with Sky Full of Holes. Few other bands can make singing about the mundane sound so terribly sweet.

- Ken Kelley