Tinted Windows assembled musicians spanning multiple eras of songcraft, forging a supergroup’s cachet with a taste for bright, straightforward power pop. Vocalist Taylor Hanson and bassist Adam Schlesinger first met during the mid-’90s, when Hanson was enjoying peak fame as a teenage idol and Schlesinger was laying the groundwork for Fountains of Wayne. Despite mutual interest in a shared venture, each remained occupied with existing obligations, notably Schlesinger’s co-management of Scratchie Records alongside longtime associate James Iha. Iha eventually exited Smashing Pumpkins yet sustained his working relationship with Schlesinger, even supplying guitar to Fountains of Wayne’s 2003 release Welcome Interstate Managers. Years afterward, Schlesinger and Hanson finally activated the project they had long envisioned, and Iha readily signed on as guitarist. Seeking a drummer whose approach recalled Bun E. Carlos of Cheap Trick, the trio invited Carlos himself; impressed by the demo recordings, he relocated to New York to join the sessions. The band then signed with S-Curve Records, the former label of Fountains of Wayne, and issued its debut album in spring 2009. Adam Schlesinger died on April 1, 2020, from complications related to the COVID-19 virus.
