The Monkees, Ivy and More Pay Tribute to Adam Schlesinger

Adam Schlesinger
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Jay West/WireImage

In the latest episode of the Rhino Podcast, friends and close collaborators of Adam Schlesinger continue to honor Adam Schlesinger in Part II of the Schlesinger tribute. The Monkees' Micky Dolenz, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend's Rachel Bloom, Ivy's Dominique Durand and Andy Chase, songwriter Sam Hollander and Fever High's Anna Nordeen and Reni Lane pay their respects to the powerhouse songwriter and producer - tune in below.

ON DOLENZ' FIRST IMPRESSION OF SCHLESINGER:

DOLENZ: "Well, I, I immediately liked him, but that was because I knew who he was. And I was a big fan of That Thing You Do! and I knew about him. I knew about, the group I knew, because I hate to drop names, but I bumped into Tom Hanks and Rita [Wilson]."

"I'd known Rita and Tom for a while, but I bumped into them at a party. And when I was introduced to Tom by Rita, he said, 'I made a movie about you.' And I said, 'Yeah, I know' And I remember when the movie came out, people would come up to me before I'd even seen it, and I don't listen to the radio that much. And they said. Have you heard that song from That Thing You Do! I said, 'No.' And they said, 'Listen to it.'"

"So it found it somewhere because they said, 'Is that you singing? Is that you guys?' And I said, 'No, no, no, but it's a great song,' which it was, of course. So I knew of Adam. So when I met him, I probably, the first thing I said was, 'God, I love that song you did for the movie.' I just immediately bought into him and his sensibilities being absolutely spot on for this project. When I met Adam, first of all, I liked him. He had a great sense of humor, very, very similar to my own. So we got along great on that level. I already knew that he was a great writer, producer, that went without saying, and that's about it, you know?"

ON THE BEGINNINGS OF IVY:

CHASE: "I had a recording studio before, The Stratosphere Sound. Stratosphere Sound was the studio that I owned with Adam and James Iha from The [Smashing] Pumpkins before. Before Stratosphere Sound, I owned a recording studio called The Place. That's where Adam did a lot of his early work, but we were friends even before that."

"I met him not that long after I met Dominique. I met Dominique in 1990 and I think around 1992 maybe, I put an ad in The Village Voice, looking to start a band. I had just learned how to play guitar. I put some pretty obscure references, Prefab Sprout, The Go-Betweens. A lot of people called and they were like, 'Yeah, I play all styles.' They didn't know that music. And he was one of the few people that, you know who's asking me my favorite song by The Go-Betweens. And so when he came over, I think he came with Chris, right?"

DURAND: "No, he came. He came by himself."

CHASE: "So Adam came in. Of course, this was my big business meeting. You know, we were in our early twenties so Dominique and I, we weren't married yet, but we were living together."

"It was a one bedroom apartment. So my office meeting was took place in the living room...Adam introduced himself and ironically, he, the reason that he and I ended up starting a band with me from that ad was because he said he was kind of there under the false pretenses. He was looking to find a guitar player for his band with a the guy named Chris from college. They were called Pinwheel, Chris and Adam, and they ultimately changed the name to Fountains of Wayne, but that was there. They had just started Pinwheel and so that's how I met him."

"We parted ways realizing that I wasn't going to be their guitar player and he already had a lead singer, Chris Collingwood. So when he left, [my girlfriend] came out of the bedroom and she was like, 'That guy's really cool. You know, you should try to keep in touch with them.' So, so I did, and I used the pretext of my recording studio called the place to call them up and hang out. I had done some demos with them and Dominique just for fun too, for her to sing on because she had never sung. And I called him up and said I need a bass player. You know, I played the drums and the guitar, but I didn''t play bass. So he came to my studio. That was the first time he came and he's like, 'Wow, I should work here sometimes cause I'm getting more and more jobs.' He put bass down in these songs and that's how it started."

DURAND: "I just listened to the conversation and I thought, 'Well, he's very smart. He's very articulate. He's very worldly. He has a great knowledge of music. And he's smart. I mean, there's so many musicians that are talented, but they not that smart. So it was refreshing to see someone like him who not only sounded like an amazing musician, but also a great guy, funny and really, and very cultured. And so I was very impressed. So that's why I told Andy, 'Look, even if the music doesn't work out between the two of you, you should be friends with that guy because it's really interesting.'"

Listen to the rest of the podcast here

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