Adam Schlesinger’s Ivy Bandmates Unearth Home Movies for Short Film Tribute
Adam Schlesinger’s bandmates in the indie-pop outfit Ivy have released a new short film honoring the singer-songwriter, who died from complications related to Covid-19 last year.
While Schlesinger was best known for his work with Fountains of Wayne and as a composer for film, TV, and theater, Ivy was a constant throughout his career. “Ivy always flew under the radar to the world, which was fine,” says Schlesinger’s bandmate, Andy Chase, in the new video. “But in the context of Adam Schlesinger, and even myself and Dominique [Durand], Ivy was the rabbit’s foot — the magical union between the three of us that really launched our careers.”
Schlesinger met his future Ivy bandmates in the Nineties when Chase and Durand placed an ad in The Village Voice looking for musical collaborators. The band officially formed a few years later, after a tumultuous period during which Durand — who’d moved to New York from Paris — was sent back to France, and Chase followed; the two ultimately married and returned to the States where they began working on the first Ivy demos, enlisting Schlesinger to play bass.
Durand and Chase’s new tribute to Schlesinger offers an intimate, behind-the-scenes look at the band. It’s filled with an array of old archival photos and videos of studio sessions and shows, as well as home movies and clips from life on the road. Chase and Durand also reminisce about their work with Schlesinger, his love of music, endless ambition, sense of humor, occasional stubbornness, and desire to remain fiercely independent.
“Adam always did what he wanted to do,” Durand says. “There was no compromise whatsoever. That was his M.O. in life — no compromise. No compromise in terms of artistic freedom, business freedom. That was a very, very important point of Adam’s existence.”
