M&SR: You’ve written songs for your own bands, as well as TV shows and movies. Is the process different when trying to convey someone else’s ideas in songs than when you’re coming up with something for yourself?
Schlesinger: It can be different, you know? For me, it’s having a clear sense of what you’re writing for before you start. So in a way I treat it like a bit of an assignment, even if it’s writing for one of my own bands. I kind of have to think of it in terms of, alright, what kind of song am I trying to write? Who’s going to sing it? What’s it for? I don’t really write in a vacuum and then figure out what I can do with the song I just wrote. Whenever I write anything, it’s usually because I know specifically what I’m writing for.

M&SR: Where do you like to shop for gear?
Schlesinger: I’m not really a big gear head, so a lot of times I’ll just use whatever is lying around. If I do, I’ll occasionally end up on 48th street [in New York City]; I’ll just go into Manny’s or Sam Ash or whatever’s around there and maybe check out some new toys. I’m lucky because I co-own a recording studio with two guys. Between the three of us we just have tons of gear. So I don’t buy a lot of new gear these days. I just went up and bought a couple of new little keyboard things at Sam Ash, just to have some new sounds. [I picked up] an Alesis Micron, which is sort of a cool little synth.
I used to go to a music store called Long & McQuade when I was growing up in Parsippany, New Jersey, and that was where I bought a lot of stuff. They were really cool too. They were always very helpful.

M&SR: What sorts of things did you like to buy when you were younger?
Schlesinger: I got a Fender Rhodes piano as a birthday present when I was maybe 14 or 15. That was huge. That allowed me to go play music with other people. And then I was pretty much into synthesizers, but I really didn’t buy a ton of them. I think I ended up borrowing a lot. I think basically I’m just a gear freeloader (laughs). No, I mean I bought stuff as I went along, kind of as needed. I bought a cheap bass when I first started playing bass. When I got a little better I got a slightly better bass. Now I own three or four basses, but I still don’t have a big collection of basses, even though I’m a touring bass player at this point.

M&SR: As a touring bass player, were there any exciting shops you got to see while traveling the world?
Schlesinger: One of the great things about touring is you do get to go to lots of cool music stores all over the place. You find interesting things. I’ve definitely bought quirky amps or found interesting guitars in offbeat places along the way. I mean, I think in the era of eBay and stuff, people are more savvy about what they have and what it’s worth. Ten years ago, it used to be that you could find stuff dirt cheap because people didn’t know what it was. But now it’s very easy for people to figure out the exact price something should be. I remember finding a weird old Gretsch guitar in a bookstore in Oregon somewhere. They didn’t sell instruments even, but they just happened to have one guitar and it was a cool, strange, brown Gretsch I had never seen before. I think it was a Japanese one. I bought that. And I remember finding a solid state Vox amp in a little used music store somewhere. I bought a Gibson Thunderbird bass in Nashville. So sometimes I’ll pick stuff up on the road if I see something interesting.

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