Revered by critics and fans as one of the best power-pop bands currently working, Fountains of Wayne has built a reputation for producing a wealth of clever, catchy tunes over more than a decade. KTVU.com recently spoke with band founder and principle songwriter Adam Schlesinger about the group's creative process and it's latest acclaimed effort 'Traffic and Weather.'

KTVU.com: One of the first things we'd like to know is what inspired you to write a song about TV news anchors in love, call it "Traffic and Weather" and use real news anchors as the main characters?

Adam Schlesinger: Well, they weren't really supposed to be the characters of the whole song. I just threw them in there in the third verse just for fun. I always had kind of a crush on Sue Simmons … I don't really know why! I met her a couple of times when we played at Conan O'Brien because their studio is right next to Conan's studio. I really don't know why we threw it in there; just thought it was funny really!

KTVU.com: You and the band's other principle songwriter Chris Collingwood share credit for writing songs the same way Lennon and McCartney did. What are some songs Fountains of Wayne fans might be surprised that you are more responsible for than Chris?

Adam Schlesinger: I think some people maybe assume that Chris writes more of the ballads and I write more of the upbeat songs or something, or sometimes people think that I write more of the story songs and he writes more of the straight, autobiographical kind of songs but that's not always the case. I mean, we kind of imitate each other sometimes, so, you know, there's a lot of ballads that are mine that people maybe assume is Chris' because they are "ballad-y".

I mean, he's written some amazing ballads for this band like "Valley Winter Song." But on this new record, I wrote the song "I-95" and maybe some people would assume that would be a Chris song because it's kind of "ballad-y."

KTVU.com: Who is responsible for what this interviewer considers the greatest line in a song ever, "Lead us not into Penn Station"?

Adam Schlesinger: (Chuckling) I wrote that line, but actually, that was kind of just an old joke that I stole it from. I think my father used to say that (laughs). It's kind of a dumb joke, but I just threw it in there!

KTVU.com: That's awesome. What a great line!

Adam Schlesinger: Thank you, I really can't take much credit for it though...

KTVU.com: Can you tell me about your initial reaction to the parody of the band that country singer Robbie Fulks wrote and recorded called "Fountains of Wayne Hotline"?

Adam Schlesinger: We were cracking up, I mean we were very flattered by it, it was hilarious. You know, we still kicked his a-- (laughs), but we were flattered!

KTVU.com: Could you tell us a little about your songwriting process? I know a lot of artists view it as a sort of spiritual thing - "the song just falls into their lap" or they are really just the conduit for it. You, on the other hand, write for other outlets than your band [Adam wrote "That Thing You Do for the Tom Hanks film of the same name and has written recently for the film "Music and Lyrics"]. I would imagine you have some tight deadlines and are forced to sit down and write, whether you are in the mood or not. Can you talk about that process a little?

Adam Schlesinger: I try not to think of it as this mystical process where you're just waiting for something to occur to you. I try to force myself to treat it like a job that has to get done and it doesn't always work. But to demystify it a little bit, I try to put it together with a self-imposed deadline or something. I mean it could be that I have some idea for a lyric or some idea for a melody and I just try to force myself to put some hours in and make something out of it. Sometimes it doesn't go anywhere and sometimes it does.

KTVU.com: One specific song I wanted to ask about was "All Kinds of Time" from Welcome Interstate Managers, which is a song about what happens in the course of one play a football game. Not too many people can find the inspiration for a song in a quarterback taking the snap. The song is beautiful, poetic and elegant - but not too many people would write a song around that situation. Can you tell us a little about where that type of inspiration comes from?

Adam Schlesinger: Sometimes I'll just have a phrase like that (I did write this song, by the way) and think that there is something interesting or strange about the phrase and just see what it inspires. That's just a sportscaster cliche that I started thinking about. What if you literally took that little moment in the game and tried to stretch it out and slow it down and see if you could make it last for the length of a whole song? That was really the idea behind that song.

You know, a lot of times when you are writing you don't really have an idea in mind about what the songs going to be about -- you're kind of just putting lines together and following it as you put it together. But I was kinda thinking about those NFL Films and all that kind of slow motion drama of those films and that was where the idea for that song came from.

KTVU.com: You wrote the song "That Thing You Do" for the Tom Hank's film of the same name. Did that song have anything to do with Fountains of Wayne's success or did it in fact hinder the band? I've read reports that it helped the band get its first record deal...

Adam Schlesinger: No, it was weird because the two things happened simultaneously and actually the movie was released roughly at the same time as our first album so I was kind of doing publicity for both things at once. You know, I think it helped us in the sense that we were an unknown band and it gave people something else to write about when they were writing about us, but it also created some confusion at the beginning because people were like, "Wait, is the band in the movie, is the movie about the band?" The two things had nothing to do with each other.

That was just a song that I happened to write outside of the band and … you know I think it kind of bummed Chris out, especially at the beginning just because every interview in the first few months of our album was headlined "That Thing They Do" or something like that! (Laughs). So he was a little bit annoyed by it all, but I think now with all this time gone by, people see it in context for what it was.

KTVU.com: I've read in several articles that Chris is very anti-drug, yet there are a lot of alcohol or drug references in more than a few Fountains of Wayne songs. Clearly, they aren't glorifying drug use, but direct drug references in songs like "Bright Future in Sales" or "Go Hippie" and now "Planet of Weed" on Traffic and Weather seem to pop up with relative frequency. Can you speak to why that happens when one of the main songwriters is anti-drug?

Adam Schlesinger: Well I don't know why you would read those songs as pro-drug in any way. I mean, all the characters in those songs are basically having problems because of the alcohol or drugs. They are basically just little stories, you know, and obviously some of them are meant to be sillier than others.

"Planet of Weed" is obviously just kind of a silly song and we sort of thought of it as kind of an alternate version of "Margaritaville" or something. I mean, it's certainly not heavy social commentary in any way. But it's basically just about sitting around doing nothing because you're high, which I wouldn't say is a ringing endorsement for being a pothead.

KTVU.com: Right.

Adam Schlesinger: And most of the characters in our songs that are drinking a lot. Their lives are generally kind of messed up by it, so I wouldn't say that we are writing these songs to make a judgement about it one way or the other. But I also wouldn't say they would be easily interpreted as being "pro-inebriation" or whatever.

KTVU.com: And I want to be clear that I don't interpret those songs as being "pro-drug" in any way. I just wondered by it came up as often as it does in a band where one of the two main sonwriters is anti-drug.

Adam Schlesinger: Well, you know, I think it's a case by case thing but I think in certain songs its because its part of reality and you are telling little stories. "Bright Future in Sales" is a story about a guy whose a drunk and he's trying to get his life together.

KTVU.com: Another song I wanted to ask you about from Utopia Parkway is "Troubled Times." The song had all the ingredients of a massive hit. So why do you think it didn't make it into the charts?

Adam Schlesinger: They never even really tried with that song. That's a song that Chris wrote, and they [the record label] didn't want to put it out as the first single off of that record because I guess they didn't want to start with a ballad or something, you know there's always some story, so they tried with a couple of other songs and by the time it was even discussed whether they were going to go to radio stations with that song the record was kind of over, and they didn't want to spend anymore money.

And really, there's no way for me to predict whether that song would have been a hit or not but, you know, if the record company's not willing to give it a try and put some time and effort and money behind it then it's not gonna happen by magic. I mean, somebody has to really go for it somewhere for it to even have a chance.

KTVU.com: Would you say the difference between that song and something like "Stacy's Mom" that did take off would have been a lot more record label support?

Adam Schlesinger: Well, it's a very different kind of song, obviously, but yeah, of course. I mean we were on a different label at that point and we had a team of people that believed in it and really went to bat for it and tried to make it happen. Nobody can have a hit record without that.

KTVU.com: How influenced do you think you are by some bands that would now be considered classic rock, such as the Beach Boys, the Cars and Cheap Trick, that show up a little bit in your songs?

Adam Schlesinger: We love music from a lot of different eras, we love a lot of 60's and 70's music as well as stuff from the '80s and the '90s. Between the four of us we just know too much music. We like playing around with all these genres and styles and its part of the fun of being in this band so, yeah, we love all the stuff you mentioned.

KTVU.com: I thought "Hung Up on You" from Welcome Interstate Managers was a slight departure for you guys in that it's a real country song. Where did that inspiration come from?

Adam Schlesinger: Well, Chris is the more "country" guy of the two of us, and I've written an occasional country-ish song myself but he's really got an affinity for that stuff. He wrote that song and there's a song on the new record called "Fire In The Canyon" which is another country tune that he wrote. It's not totally straight country; it's a little bit like Gram Parsons country-rock. But yeah, he's a sucker for that stuff, you know? He actually used to play in a part time country band while we were doing [the first record] Fountains of Wayne, so he definitely likes it.

KTVU.com: Fountains of Wayne recently did an in-store performance at the Apple Store Soho - is that a hint that some of you are Mac users?

Adam Schlesinger: I think we all are, more or less. No, actually, that's not true, I don't think Chris has a Mac, but everybody else does.

KTVU.com: Right after 9/11, Fountains of Wayne appeared on 'Late Night with Conan O'Brien' and did a killer version of The Kinks' "Better Things." From my estimation, as a viewer, it felt like there was a shift away from the stiffness that 9/11 brought to shows like Conan and the Tonight Show. Do you feel just a little responsible for helping get things back to normal or at least like you had a hand in making those shows "breathe" again?

Adam Schlesinger: I can't say that we can take too much credit for the change in the overall mood, but I do think that was the intention of the bookers on that show was to have something on that was entertaining and wasn't totally dour and depressing and sort of uplifting, sort of help them get back on track. And I think it was a good call on their part it was a great song, and we were honored to be asked to do it.

KTVU.com: Any possibility fans might see a live concert on CD or DVD or a compilation of videos released anytime soon?

Adam Schlesinger: You know, I would love to do something like that but a lot of it just comes down to if there is enough demand for it in the marketplace. We did this PBS Soundstage thing which came out really good. I don't know if we have the rights to that or not, but I mean, I would love to be able to do something like that at some point.