How Adam Schlesinger Briefly Appeared On The Real World's First Episode

Adam Schlesinger's music belonged on television. One of the Fountains of Wayne songwriter's most visible composition was 2003's "Stacy's Mom," thanks to its Rachel Hunter-in-a-bikini-led video that dominated MTV. The clip preceded a slew of other Schlesinger-penned pop-rock hits anchored by glossy visual treatments; think The Click Five's "Just the Girl," Bowling for Soup's "High School Never Ends," and more. Schlesinger, who died on April 1, also spent the latter 2010s working on more than 150 hilarious, often poignant tunes for The CW musical series Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, writing that won him a Emmy in 2019.


However before all that, both Schlesinger himself and his music appeared on MTV's The Real World. He wasn't a cast member, however at the time of the show's inaugural season in 1992, he played in a New York City duo called Les Enfant Terribles with Rebecca "Becky" Blasband, one of the show's original seven stars. "The thing about Adam is that he was very driven," she told MTV News over the phone this week. "Even though he was group kind of a very relaxed and humorous and perfect songwriter, he was very pragmatic. He knew exactly where he was going and what he was gonna do."


The pair are seen rehearsing a song with each other in the show's very first episode, around 16 minutes in. It was "Half a Woman," a country-tinged tune that would later appear on a Fountains of Wayne compilation album in 2005. At the time, though Schlesinger had been writing with fellow member Chris Collingwood, that musical group didn't officially exist although. However Les Enfant Terribles was going strong.


"We would play a lot of songs and drink red wine and record into his answering machine, like sketches I had," she mentioned. Soon after being introduced by a mutual friend, the pair began haunting the city's music-club scene, though the storied CBGB refused them because of their cheekily pretentious moniker. They'd stay up all night chain-smoking and making music at Schlesinger's legendary West Village loft, a "ramshackle fifth-floor walk up," the New York Times once called it. "In my songs, he'd mention, 'Well, what about this bridge?' However he would never interfere. He knew I had something to mention, nevertheless he was such an excellent collaborator, which was one of the reasons he became so successful. He was serious about other people's ideas and opinions."


That teamwork was documented on The Real World as a way to introduce Blasband and her own musical ambitions. In Episode 1, she sits with Schlesinger as they both strum acoustic guitars and speedily attempt to lock in the chords for "Half a Woman." She has a solo showcase later that night at the "super cheesy nouveau riche" club where she worked as a waitress, and she needs to nail her moment onstage. Her songs were also "introspective" for the moment, Blasband thought, so she picked one of Schlesinger's. As soon as he played it for me, it was so charming," she said."





because the episode shows, her moment comes, and Blasband doesn't waste it. Clad in all black, she delivers the twangy song with a smile, going throaty for its menacing lyrics: "Well he'd tie her up, set her on fire / Douse her with oil, the crowd would go wild." Not bad considering trim only learned to play it several hours earlier in a sole rehearsal. "I could've used several more, 'cause I was actually terrified any time Whenever I got up there and sang. I had been playing and singing only for like each year as well as one half she said.


In that time, Blasband and Schlesinger had received close. They dated, and she mentioned their wonderful friendship had an almost sibling-like excellent class of mutual understanding. Their Gen X bohemian social circle consisted of fellow songwriters and creatives, all supporting each other as they navigated their early twenties in the city. They'd go watch and perform live music, and Blasband said being at the same hotspots as Jeff Buckley. Occasionally, the crew would take a four-day weekend and reside at Schlesinger's parents' house in nearby Montclair, New Jersey, where the pool was gleaming and the refrigerator was routinely full. "All of us starving waifs would basically eat everything," she said.


Blasband's music career continued on, even as she and Schlesinger went in opposite directions. She pursued a more folk-influenced sound and moved to Los Angeles. She released her debut album, Rapt, in 1997 and opened up for acts like Matchbox Twenty and Jon Bon Jovi. Schlesinger, meanwhile, remained on the East Coast; his big break came right after he wrote the title song to Tom Hanks's 1996 movie That Thing You Do! and saw his career as an in-demand songwriter and producer take off. They'd occasionally catch up in both New York and L.A., Driving around and joking about launching a dance musical group they'd call Fromage.


"Every time I'd visualize him again, he was just my Adam," she mentioned, "and that's the person I'm going to miss terribly."


Like a lot of his admirers and past collaborators, she couldn't answer right away once asked for a preference of his compositions. Alternatively, she emailed back 11 minutes later with a number of options, including the dreamy Ivy tune "Edge of the Ocean," which she mentioned recalled some of what they'd worked on with each other in the Les Enfant Terribles days. Another pick, one that's emerged as maybe the defining tune in a deeply beloved and rightfully adored pop-rock catalog of a lifetime, was "That Thing You Do!" She noted, "It's entirely Adam and really joyful."


For her part, Blasband is still closely holding Schlesinger, and that entire era of their mutual artsy adventures. Lose recently revisited those memories for a memoir she's working on, and trim suggested to show him the chapter throughout a surprise visit to New York sometime this year. As a substitute, she'll keep writing.


once you're young and you also bond and flourish with each other, that's a magnificent sort of bond," she mentioned. "He let me be who I was."