M&SR: And that’s the album that yielded your biggest hit (“Stacy’s Mom”). Is it a shock, after putting stuff out for so long under the radar, to suddenly reach that level of success?
Schlesinger: It was fun. And I think part of the reason it was fun was because we knew that it was very temporary, so we could enjoy it. It was kind of a fluke thing. Luckily, we had been around for long enough that…at least some people knew who we were outside of that song. So we weren’t totally pinned as the band with that one song.

M&SR: There’s been a lot of talk about the state of the music industry, especially with Tower Records and CBGBs closing last year. What are your feelings about where the industry needs to go next?
Schlesinger: I really don’t know. It does seem like the digital thing is inevitable and as people get used to it, it’s going to become more and more prevalent. There’s no lack of interest in music in general. I think people still love music. As a working musician, I’ve always found the best thing to do is be involved in a lot of stuff and just sort of keep a lot of options open. Hopefully you can piece together a living like that. It’s not always going to be as easy for people to just make money by selling a truckload of records anymore, but hopefully you can build something up where if that’s not where you’re making money then you can make money playing or you can make money because someone’s using one of your songs in a movie or whatever it might be.

M&SR: Is the closing of Tower a symbol of people moving away from catalog and established artists? Some instrument retailers worry that the focus on flash-in-the-pan artists creates a lack of “guitar gods” and such and less people will play without idols to emulate. Do you agree with that?
Schlesinger: No, I don’t think that’s really true. There are always going to be people wanting to play instruments. I think the people even who play drum machines and synthesizers are playing instruments, as well. I mean, the technology may change and people might be more interested in making beats than in learning to be a drummer, but I don’t think people are going to stop wanting to learn how to play things.
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