Making a big splash -- again

When Fountains of Wayne bassist Adam Schlesinger isn’t home, the outgoing message on his voicemail is a marching band version of the group’s hit, “Stacy’s Mom.”

It isn’t a gag. Nor is it an ironic take on the band’s recent turn in the spotlight as a result of the supremely catchy, role-reversed, May-December infatuation song. It’s a tribute someone sent him in the mail “along with ring tones and karaoke,” Schlesinger said. “At least with that one song I suppose it means we’ve infiltrated the popular culture for five minutes.”

The intersection of adolescent lust, power pop and Rachel Hunter’s body was, apparently, a powerful one. Not only did the single propel the group to Top 40 radio when it was released last June, the video, starring a scantily clad Hunter as the come-hither divorcee, became an instant classic. Even if the song hadn’t served as last summer’s soundtrack, its jangly hooks and clever lyrics would have set up shop in listeners’ heads, endlessly rattling around long after the record stopped spinning.

But Schlesinger, 36, knows enough about the music business not to hang his hat on a hit single.

“If we were 21 years old, we might be completely deluded into thinking it would always be like this,” he said, “but we’ve been through so much already that I think we see it all for what it is.”

Eight years ago, the New Jersey four-piece made a big splash with their self-titled debut -- 35 minutes of pop perfection that yielded the radio hit “Radiation Vibe” and a yearlong arena tour as openers for the Smashing Pumpkins.

Such a promising start led to high hopes with “Utopia Parkway,” the group’s follow-up album three years later. But even though the record was chock-full of hooky gems, it failed to take off in a radio landscape dominated by hard rock acts such as Korn and Limp Bizkit. At the end of their tour for the album, Atlantic opted to drop their contract, relegating Fountains to also-rans instead of pop stars on a par with fellow adenoidal rockers Weezer.

With “Welcome Interstate Managers,” the 2003 album that spawned “Stacy’s Mom,” the band is where they should have been years ago -- at the top of the pop heap. Making the kind of top-down/stereo-up music perfect for the open road, they are equally compelling on sarcastic quirk and jangle tracks like “Mexican Wine” as they are when they slow things down to pine and whine in contemplative tunes such as “Hackensack.”

The group has specialized in chronicling underdog longing and working-stiff loserdom. In “Bright Future in Sales,” it’s a 9-to-5 schmo with an affection for the bottle. In “Halley’s Waitress,” it’s a regular joe who can’t get a refill on his coffee. Pathetic as they are, these everyday sad sacks have helped build Fountains’ appeal.

“They never stopped being great. I would argue that they’ve only gotten better,” said Steve Yegelwel, the A&R; rep who had the unusual fortune of signing the band twice -- first to Atlantic, then, six years later, to S-Curve, the label that released their most recent album.

“My frustration in the past was that when you’re on a very large record label, not every act is going to get a push at Top 40 or even a legitimate shot at Top 40 radio,” he said. “I always thought that they deserved it.”

Radio play and record sales for their latest record are proving Yegelwel was right. One year out, “Welcome Interstate Managers” still has legs. The album is now closing in on a half million in sales -- three times as many as the group’s debut. In a few weeks, S-Curve plans to release a third single from the record -- “Hey, Julie,” a Simon & Garfunkel-style ditty about a guy whose girlfriend is the only saving grace from his boss, “a mean little man with a clip-on tie and a rub-on tan.”

These days, Schlesinger has little in common with their songs’ protagonists. In addition to playing with Fountains, he runs the Stratosphere Sound recording studio with former Smashing Pumpkins guitarist James Iha.

Schlesinger, who earned an Oscar nomination in 1997 for writing the title song for the movie “That Thing You Do!,” is also currently writing the music for “Cry Baby,” the second Broadway musical to be based on a John Waters film classic. That’s on top of the band’s summer touring schedule, their third in support of the record. The group will perform at the Wiltern this weekend.

According to Schlesinger, “We really didn’t know if anyone would even notice that we were putting out a record when we put this one out. It’s been an incredible year. A complete surprise in every way.”

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Fountains of Wayne

Where: The Wiltern LG, 3790 Wilshire Blvd., L.A.

When: Saturday, 8 p.m.

Price: $23

Info: (213) 388-1400 or www.thewiltern.com