page_title: Fountains of Wayne
section_title: 1995–1999
hierarchical_section_title: Fountains of Wayne / Career / 1995–1999
caption_attribution_description: Live outside
context_page_description: Fountains of Wayne was an American rock band that formed in New York City in 1995. The band consisted of Chris Collingwood, Adam Schlesinger, Jody Porter, and Brian Young. The band is best known for its 2003 Grammy-nominated single "Stacy's Mom".
context_section_description: After Montclair-based Adam Schlesinger and Sellersville-based Chris Collingwood first met as freshmen at Williams College, they played music in various bands and eventually went their separate ways, with Collingwood forming the Mercy Buckets in Boston and Schlesinger forming Ivy in New York City. In the mid-1990s, they came together to form Fountains of Wayne, named after a lawn ornament store in Wayne, New Jersey that closed in 2009. At first Collingwood hated the name but eventually warmed to it. Previous band names included Woolly Mammoth, Are You My Mother? and Three Men Who When Standing Side by Side Have a Wingspan of Over Twelve Feet. The band cut a demo and signed with Atlantic Records, then recruited guitarist Jody Porter and still-active Posies drummer Brian Young after recording their debut album. Young got in touch with a friend who worked at Fountains of Wayne's label to see if there were any job openings, and when he auditioned for the band, they asked him to play the beat of "Swingtown" by Steve Miller Band.
  Though Collingwood and Schlesinger shared cowriter credit for all original Fountains of Wayne material, for most of their career together, they wrote their songs separately. In 2005 Collingwood said, "We decided early on, it’s better to not have arguments that some bands have where someone might say, ‘I wrote 15% of that song,’ and try to figure out those numbers. It just seems ridiculous." Schlesinger added, "We just agreed many years ago that if we were to have a band we’d just split the songwriting to avoid having a conversation every time we tried to finish a song. But we really haven’t collaborated as writers in years. And that’s kind of intentional too because we didn’t want it to turn into a thing where people would say, 'Adam’s songs are like this…' We wanted the band to have an identity more than we wanted each of us to have an identity in the band."
  In 1996, the band released its self-titled debut, which spawned the singles "Radiation Vibe" and "Sink to the Bottom", and the band toured the world extensively behind its debut album, playing alongside bands including The Smashing Pumpkins, Sloan, and The Lemonheads. That same year, Schlesinger wrote the Academy Award-nominated, RIAA gold-certified title song for the film That Thing You Do!.
  In 1999, the band released Utopia Parkway, an album named after a road in Queens, New York. The album was a concept record that dealt with life in modern suburbia. Utopia Parkway was received well by critics, garnering many favorable reviews, and was album of the week in People magazine. The group once again toured extensively behind the album, but frustrations grew between the band and the label. The band was later dropped by Atlantic in late 1999.
caption: Fountains of Wayne performing in April 2007
exif: {"Image Make": "Canon", "Image Model": "Canon PowerShot A610", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "QuickTime 7.1.5", "Image DateTime": "2007:05:02 08:55:19", "Image HostComputer": "Mac OS X 10.4.9", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Centered", "Image ExifOffset": "254", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "2382", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "5603", "Thumbnail YCbCrPositioning": "Centered", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/800", "EXIF FNumber": "41/10", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2007:04:28 13:48:30", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2007:04:28 13:48:30", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "3", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "309/32", "EXIF ApertureValue": "65/16", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "65/16", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, auto mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "146/5", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "2048", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1536", "EXIF FocalPlaneXResolution": "2048000/283", "EXIF FocalPlaneYResolution": "384000/53", "EXIF FocalPlaneResolutionUnit": "2", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard"}