Introducing: Tinted Windows

By Paul Myers

(NOTE: I originally wrote this piece in April 2009 for Crawdaddy online, where my editor at the time was Jocelyn Hoppa – thanks again, Jocelyn. After the tragic death of Adam Schlesinger this week, I was hoping to find this article to repost, but of course the Crawdaddy archives were wiped as soon as it was sold to Paste, who apparently didn’t see the value of keeping the Crawdaddy archives for posterity, and I feared that it was lost forever. But luckily my original word document was still saved in my outgoing email box (11 years later!) so I retrieved it. I did a little copyediting but it’s mostly the way it ran back in 2009. So now I’m posting it on Medium as a kind of tribute to Adam.)

Introducing Tinted Windows

When Tinted Windows, the new Power Pop Supergroup comprised of Adam Schlesinger, James Iha, Bun E. Carlos and Taylor Hanson, officially leaked “Kind Of A Girl” online last month, the response was polarizing. Naturally, power pop aficionados (such as myself) got it right away. After all, what’s not to love? Schlesinger hails from Ivy and the Fountains of Wayne, Iha wailed in Smashing Pumpkins, and Carlos has provided the thunderous Midwestern backbeat for Cheap Trick’s entire career. On the other hand it appeared that, among the rock snob hipster crowd, the main sticking point was frontman Taylor Hanson, whom many only remembered as the longhaired pretty boy singing lead on “MMMbop” on MTV over twelve years ago. Judging by some of the snarky comments posted on the Rolling Stone website, there were plenty of haters out there. (I always liked it.)

Speaking over the phone shortly after the band’s live debut at Austin’s SXSW, however, Schlesinger is frankly baffled by the thought of any enmity toward the talented Mr. Hanson.

“I guess people that haven’t heard him for a long time are gonna be surprised,” says Schlesinger, “but most people I talk to automatically assume he’s awesome. I don’t think anybody ever really questioned that he was talented. Even when he was younger it was kind of obvious to everyone that he was an incredibly gifted singer and a great musician. Conceptually, maybe for some people, it may seem strange to have somebody from the Pumpkins and somebody from Hanson playing together because in the mid-90’s that just seemed like two different universes. In reality, it’s not. Now, it’s just a bunch of guys that have some overlapping tastes in music that wanted to do something together.”

Tinted Windows are proud progenitors of perfect power pop, with no apologies.

“We wanted this to be a really blaring power pop record,” declares Schlesinger, “but the ‘power’ part of it is really important for us, you know? There’s actually a lot of stuff on the radio now – All American Rejects or even Fall Out Boy – that, by some definition, you could call power pop. Green Day even have kind of a power pop attitude, dressed up more punk rock, and whoever writes Kelly Clarkson’s hits obviously listened to a lot of power pop. So in a weird way, power pop is kind of having a moment.”

Schlesinger remembers the moment he met Hanson in 1996 via Steve Greenberg, Hanson’s then A&R man at Mercury Records who now heads Tinted Windows’ label, S-Curve. The two kicked around some unfinished musical ideas, made friends and split, vowing to keep in touch. Talk of Tinted Windows didn’t really get going in earnest until Schlesinger accepted an invitation to participate in Hanson’s annual songwriter’s retreat, Fool’s Banquet, in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

“A bunch of different writers come and hang out for a week and work with each other,” says Schlesinger. “I thought that would be a good time for Taylor and I to maybe try and come up with a song. So we wrote one of these songs, ‘Take Me Back,’ and started talking about doing this project then dispersed and wrote the rest later.”

Back in New York, Schlesinger enlisted guitarist Iha, his friend and frequent collaborator.

“James is a little bit like me in that he likes a lot of different kinds of music, not just power pop,” says Schlesinger. “He’s a guitar player, so obviously he likes guitar records, but his record collection is really diverse as well. But he’s also done electronic remixes for bands and I’ve heard him work on really quiet, folkie stuff, so I think in this context, he just really liked the idea of Tinted Windows; it just seemed like an idea that was really gonna work as soon as we talked about it.”

While the genius move of adding Bun E. Carlos to the rhythm section may have seemed obvious in hindsight, but Schlesinger says that tapping into the Budokan backbeat only came after a period of trial and error, including some “embryonic sketching” with Phantom Planet’s drummer, actor Jason Schwartzman.

“Early on, Jason put down some drum tracks,” says Schlesinger, “the he went back to his life as a movie star which I kind of understand! (laughs). After wracking our brains to think of another drummer who could cop a Bun E. Carlos style, we figured we should actually see if Bun E. was into it himself.”

Carlos, as it turned out, was ready, willing and entirely able to answer the call.

“They write great songs,” Carlos enthuses over the phone from somewhere in Illinois, “so when I got the call I just said ‘Send me the tunes!’ Then, when I got them it was like ‘Yeah, I’m in. No problem!”

Last June, late in recording process, Carlos overdubbed all of his thirteen drum parts onto existing bed tracks.

“It was kind of like a Benjamin Button thing,” says Carlos, “like a band in reverse. We made the record then we got the record deal and booked a few dates, including the SXSW thing. The songs are all real good pop rock songs, so it’s a gas to finally get together and play them as a band.”

“The truth of it is,” declares Schlesinger, “when you think of power pop drumming, Bun E. Carlos is the first guy that comes to mind. It’s been just amazing playing these live shows with him because he just hits so incredibly hard and just gives the band this automatic energy. And speaking as a bass player, it’s just so much fun to play with him because its just so driving from beginning to end.”

According to Schlesinger, all the songs on Tinted Windows adhere to the KISS rule: Keep It Simple Stupid.

“We talked about that a lot,” says Schlesinger. “Just two guitars, bass and drums, and no keyboards at all. That last part was kind of a big decision, because Taylor and I are both keyboard players so our instinct is to take out a keyboard and start adding stuff, or to have one piano song or whatever. But we just decided that we really wanted it to be a guitar record with kind of strict boundaries. We wanted it to sound exciting, loud and upbeat, like a rock band should!”