A Conversation with Tom Higgenson from Plain White T’s – HuffPost 12.9.10
Mike Ragogna: Everybody knows Plain White T’s from “Hey There Delilah.” When you had that hit were you surprised at how big it was?
Tom Higgenson: Of course, we’ve been a band for ten years before that song really blew up, so that was huge for us. I mean, even as big as that song became, I still don’t really comprehend that. It was #1 in ten countries around the world, I can’t even wrap my brain around that. It’s pretty crazy. We’re all pretty happy about that one.
MR: Weren’t you guys also on Greek?
TH: Yeah, we did a bunch of episodes on Greek. We would have a couple lines and then play a song or two.
MR: Now, the new album is called Wonders Of The Younger. What’s behind the title?
TH: I don’t know, I’ve just been feeling very nostalgic lately. A lot of where my head is always at is in the past, I live in memories a lot, reminiscing about the good times and that kind of thing. I’m a nostalgic guy. I kind of wrote a whole album about that, memories of being younger. The idea is when you’re young, the world is so exciting; you don’t know anything, you haven’t gone through life, you don’t have those responsibilities weighing you down, you haven’t learned all there is to know. Obviously, we still haven’t, we’re still learning. Just being naive, innocent, and young, you look at the world differently. The album is kind of a throwback to when times were like that, when you lived more in your imagination, you could imagine the way the world was–you didn’t have to actually live them, see them, and find them out for yourself. It’s a very creative, imaginative album.
MR: I love how it starts off with “Irrational Anthem,” where I imagine everybody knows what they’re getting into by the song’s end.
TH: It’s kind of a take on the national anthem, obviously, but it’s for all those people that don’t want to follow the rules. They don’t want to go along with the crowd. It’s our anthem together, we can be whoever we want to still. It’s never too late.
MR: This album strays a little bit from your other albums in that it seems more conceptual.
TH: Yeah, I think it has a lot more weight than any other album we’ve made.
MR: I love that you slipped “Welcome To Mystery” from Alice In Wonderland on there.
TH: Actually, I wrote that song for the album, and it went along perfectly with what I wanted the album to say. And it just so happened that a few days after I wrote it, we got a call from the label, and they were putting together the Alice In Wonderland soundtrack. They asked if we had anything and it seemed like the perfect fit for the movie, but also the perfect fit for our album. In a way, I kind of wanted the album to feel like a Tim Burton movie–it kind of has elements throughout of that creepy Danny Elfman vibe. I think that’s a big part of being a kid too. I remember being in third grade and sneaking into my friend’s house to watch Nightmare On Elm Street or something. When you’re a kid, you want to be creeped-out. You want to be scared, it’s a fun feeling. So, we tried to get that feeling on the album as well.
MR: There seem to be a lot of Beatles nods as well.
TH: Sure, it’s a very eclectic album. We wanted it to be all over the place, we wanted it to be a roller coaster, not knowing where the next turn was going to take you. We’ve always had that kind of oldies influence to our music, whether it’s The Beatles or The Beach Boys, all kinds of stuff from the ’50s and ’60s–we love that stuff. We wanted to take that and give it more of a direction and give more of a modern sound to that.
MR: You’re coming off of the album’s first single, “Rhythm Of Love” and headed into your next, “Boomerang.” Can you give us a little history about that track?
TH: That was actually one of the first songs written for the entire album. It’s funny, the song “Welcome To Mystery” is very thematic and is very wonderful, it’s full of that imagination. But I knew I wasn’t going to make a whole album full of songs that were so out there; people expect the love songs, they expect that Plain White T’s sound that they know. We didn’t want to throw them a complete curve ball, even in songs that I wrote like “Boomerang.” It’s more of a boy/girl relationship song, but I thought in the back of my head I still have to tie it in to Wonders Of The Younger. So, I made the arrangement different, like after the first chorus, there’s this great little piano hook that happens and at the end of the song. They’re quite whimsical and you don’t expect to hear it in a straight-up pop song. So, arrangement-wise, we tried to change it up a little bit, even with the lyrics, like the line, “Your treating me like I’m your little toy,” lines that are a little more useful and childish. With the wordplay in the songs, I tried to tie-in the theme. In relationships, sometimes you know the girl or the guy isn’t right for you, but there are just some people that you keep coming back to. They just have that control over you and you’re just helpless to that. I know that happens to me in life and relationships, so that’s what “Boomerang” is really about.
MR: Let’s run through the albums you have put out. There are Come On Over, Stop, All That We Needed, Every Second Counts, Big Bad World…
TH: That’s where the gray area is, Come On Over. That was never released. We made that record ourselves and we released it around Chicago. With the Internet, it kind of got out there as one of our releases. I mean, we made it as an album, as a band, so I guess that counts right?
MR: Sounds right to me. So Tom, where do you go from here, what are the plans?
TH: We’re really excited to tour this album. It’s such a visual album, there is so much to draw from the themes and lyrics of the songs. If we can incorporate some of that into the actual show, the possibilities are endless. So, we are already talking about planning out the show, trying to make it more of a show rather then just going up there and playing a bunch of songs–actually thinking about it visually, actually tying-in a set to the theme of the album. We are really excited to get on the road, we’re planning a tour right now that’s going to start at the end of January, and we’re going to try and hit everywhere we can in America.
MR: Do you still play “Hey There Delilah” and “1,2,3,4” out on the road?
TH: Of course, you’ve got to play the songs that people love. They’re still fun to play because people still want to hear them. You play “…Delilah” and people sing along to every word. You can’t really beat that feeling as a musician to play that song and have the whole audience sing it back to you.
MR: Any advice for new artists?
TH: We got advice once from the first manager we ever had. That was stay together, that’s the most important thing to do. It might take three albums to make it or to get somewhere, but if you’re doing something you believe in, just do it. We obviously took that advice to heart and here we are.
Tracks:
1. Irrational Anthem
2. Boomerang
3. Welcome To Mystery
4. Rhythm Of Love
5. Map Of The World
6. Killer
7. Last Breath
8. Broken Record
9. Our Song
10. Airplane
11. Cirque Dans La Rue
12. Body Parts
13. Make It Up As You Go
14. Wonders Of The Younger
Transcribed by Theo Shier