BAND: Plain White Ts
INTERVIEWER: Kelly Engle (kelly@bandvibe.com)
INTERVIEWEE: Tom Higgenson and Dave Tirio of Plain White Ts
DATE OF INTERVIEW: 03.24.07

BAND MEMBERS:
Tom Higgenson - Lead Vocals
Dave Tirio - Guitar
Mike Retondo - Bass/Vocals
De’ Mar Hamilton - Drums
Tim Lopez - Guitar/Vocals

BV: From starting in a basement in Illinois to presently headlining a tour, what do you think got your band here?
PWTS: Myspace. It’s a big part. I dunno a lot of bands come and go. Somehow we just stuck it out. We fought through a lot of band line up changes, labels wanting to sign us then nothing every happening, setbacks, crashing vans, getting robbed. It’s basically not quitting after all that garbage. Always seeing the light at the end of the tunnel and seeing the big picture. Having faith in ourselves and writing good songs. Mostly it’s just not giving up. We’ve had so many bands quit, that we’ve known, over the years. It’s always kind of depressing, because it makes you feel old number one, and it bums you out that so many people do give up, for stupid reasons. We’ve always stayed ourselves.

BV: What’s kept you so successful and positive over the years?
PWTS: Good family and friends. Good people to talk to, I guess. We all like each other. We’re all pretty nice well-behaved people. We don’t get on each other’s nerves too much. We used to be really bad sometimes. But, that’s just because you live in a van together for five years. And I think anyone would go kind of nuts. We’ve all got really cool parents and stuff, and girlfriends who stay positive. The successes that come along, every step of the way motivates you. Then you keep going and the next cool thing happens.

BV: How did your band get started?
PWTS: We just started playing music like any other bands. Writing songs and we got our first show and said, “Oh cool! Lets do it!” When we met in high school it seemed that all the friends we gravitated towards were into the same music as us or played instruments. We were the band people I guess., playing in the basement and going to see local punk shows. It was inevitable at one point that we were going to start a band.

BV: In your opinion what’s the best part about making music?
PWTS: Playing it live is pretty awesome. Writing’s cool because anything that’s going on in my life, anything I’m pissed at, or excited about, or whatever can kind of trigger something.

BV: What’s been your favorite tour?
PWTS: Panic At The Disco. That’s one of them for sure. That’s probably the best road tour we’ve been on. The nicest people were working on it. They were by far the biggest shows we’ve ever done. Tom loves Panic At The Disco. Jimmy Eat World was also one of our favorite tours. That was one of our first tours. And the Simple Plan tour, the Simple Plan tour was great. That helped the band immensely. Those guys are the coolest guys we’ve ever toured with.

BV: What is your recently released CD “Every Second Counts” about?
PWTS: It’s about life, love, and the pursuit of happiness. All the new songs on the new record are all in some way about girls, but in a way it’s kind of like the widest spectrum.

BV: How does the writing process go?
PWTS: It’s different for every song. I (Tom) write most of the stuff. Sometimes it will start with a line, like an idea in my head, without a melody or anything. That’ll be enough to write a song, kind of. “Hate” was kind of a melody and a line. “Radios In Heaven” was just the idea of that line, that one theme. The song was easy to write once that was there. “So Damn Clever” was the same way. I was actually flipping through a book. I was looking for some kind of cool sounding slogan that you’ve never really heard before. “So Damn Clever” isn’t really a slogan but no other songs have really been called that. It almost sounds British to me (Dave). Calling people clever isn’t something that we do a lot. Something was unique about it. I took that single phrase and it was enough to inspire the rest of the song. But sometimes it is music first. Sometimes I’ll have a guitar part with a melody like “Do da do do” and later on through time put lyrics into there. It’s always different.

BV: What is your most popular song “Hey There Delilah” based on?
PWTS: It’s based on this guy I used to know, his name was Donny. We grew up with him. No, haha it’s about a girl named Delilah. She was a girl that I didn’t date, but I wanted to. I never did. But, that has nothing to do with the song. The song is just a love song to her, as if we were dating. The first couple lines are true. Like the New York City thing, she went to school there. The rest of the song is kind of like me imagining that if we were together what else would I want to say to her. She likes the song. She’s had a boyfriend pretty much since I met her so nothing ever happened. I don’t even know her well enough to know anymore though. I never really talked to her. I probably talked to her like twelve times in my whole life. As his friend (Dave) sometimes we see a girl who he’s so obsessed with and she’s like, “Hey ya, I’m gonna go over here now”. It’s kind of this idea like stop jerking my friend around. But now I (Tom) get all the chicks. I’m being serious.

BV: What about the song “Hate, I Really Don’t Like you”?
PWTS: That song was about Delilah. No haha. Do you realize if that song really was about Delilah how many people that would piss off? Because I’m sure people idealize the idea of that song. No, “Hate” is not about Delilah. That is about Molly from Florida. It’s weird even when a girl is shitty to me I’m not going to hate her. So that’s my way of being tongue and cheek about it. I’m so mad at you that I want to say I hate you, but I can’t. Like the usual kind of a love gone wrong, unrequited I guess you could say.

BV: Are all your songs based on life experiences?
PWTS: For the most part they are. I mean sometimes I’ll be, like “Delilah” for example is based on life experience but kind of just made up. The actual scenarios can be kind of made up. Like “Friends Don’t Let Friends Dial Drunk” is based on. That was one where I had music and I was kind of filling in the lyrics. I was like oh ok, that’s where I want to go with this. Then I stepped in and used kind of thoughts of when that stuff really happened to me. The drunk dial kind of came into picture and the song took a direction I guess.

BV: What do you like best about touring?
PWTS: Traveling and seeing places. The shows are all cool but we just got to go oversees for the first time. So that kind of stuff I (Dave) got really excited about. I get all nerdy and touristy and stuff. I (Tom) think for me it really is the shows. The playing is what makes it cool and obviously that’s why we’re here. Tom isn’t as much into exploring a new town unless it has an American Apparel nearby or like Urban Outfitters or Jamba Juice.

BV: What do you do when you’re not touring?
PWTS: Shopping, going to see movies, that’s all I (Tom) do basically. I (Dave) take as much time for my family and friends. I’ll try to have dinner with my parents every night. Then I go out with my friends. You only have a week or less when you go home so every moment you’re with them is super valuable. I (Tom) actually like to travel when I’m off because we don’t really get to see that much. We were just in LA and I love LA. There was so much I wanted to do and you can’t. So sometimes when I get home I’ll go to LA and actually enjoy being in those places that we can’t really enjoy fully on tour. And we’re in relationships and stuff so I (Dave) will fly out to see my girl. Everyone will do that. Just go home and do what’s important.

BV: What bands got you interested in making music?
PWTS: Pearl Jam was probably the first band. But I also really got into The Monkeys, when I was eight-years-old or something. They had the TV show and I bought all the tapes. And from that I kind of got into 50’s music. That kind of led into like singing, harmonizing groups. Then when we got into high school the whole Grunge thing happened. That’s when we really started buying records. That first Pearl Jam record was like I listen to it now and I’m like shoot me just because you hear it so much. When that record came out I (Tom) was obsessed with it. There was that weird connection like I have to buy every b-side import this band puts out, I’ve gotta go see them, I’ve gotta buy the shirts. We’d buy the bootlegs of their live shows. It was an obsession. All the bands in the alternative era we got obsessed with. Smashing Pumpkins, Weezer, all those bands were great for us.

BV: Is it ever difficult to open up your life to everyone with your songs?
PWTS: No, it’s kind of easier. Like I said, it’s kind of a way to get stuff off my chest. Sometimes the more personal I am the more that people relate to it.

BV: Where do you see your band in the future?
PWTS: Hopefully doing what Jimmy Eat World is doing. There was that arena that we just passed where the Chargers play, Qualcomm, we want to play there. And guess what, we can do it!

BV: How did you come up with your band name?
PWTS: We thought it was cool. And everything else was so unbelievably not cool. We had a bunch or really bad names. This one was the least bad.

BV: Where’s your favorite place to do a show?
PWTS: San Francisco is always fun. Salt Lake City is excellent. Orange County has always been a ridiculous place for us. Tomorrow’s probably going to be the biggest show we’ve ever done, just because it’s out of Chicago. In Chicago it’s fairly expected of us, after all these years, to sell out a show with a thousand kids. But to do that in Orange County, that’s insane to me. New York is great to us too, that too a long time for us to build.

BV: What do you think of your fans?
PWTS: They’re awesome! There are already 3 people sitting outside waiting for our show. Our fans are really cool because we talk to them at the merch table and we personally shot the shit with a lot of them for a while. When we got all our equipment stolen we posted something up online. We got thousands of dollars and hundreds of cards and pictures. We were sitting around at Christmas time, when our stuff got stolen, and we were reading the cards and thinking this is fucking insane. We’ve got a couple hundred cards here. Some of them were hilarious and we sat around and wrote thank you notes to everyone. After that happened you’d see people at the shows and they would be like, “Oh I sent you something” and you’d remember addressing their envelope.

BV: What advice would you give to bands just starting out?
PWTS: Kick ASS! Good luck. Don’t give up. Take some time to be with yourselves and write. Figure out exactly what you want to do and reach for that. Put your best foot forward, because it’s more competitive now than it ever has been. Work your hardest at your craft. Write really good songs that will be as good in 10 years as they are today. Don’t think about what kind of haircut you have to have or how tight your pants have to be. If you stick to who you are you’ll be so many light-years ahead of all the other bands that are going to get lost in the fray.

BV: What makes your band unique?
PWTS: Our tight pants. Haha no I think because when we started it really was a pop-rock kind of oldies vibe, mixed with bands like Smoking Popes. We never really changed from that. Just doing something like melodic rock like that we’ve been sticking out like a sore thumb for the last 8 years now. The fact that you stick out is probably going to help you out in the end.

BV: What would you like to say to your fans at Bandvibe?
PWTS: You guys are awesome. We love you and thanks for the memories. We’ll be on tour so come see us. Things are getting more exciting for us these days and we hope it gets more exciting for you too because you’ve been with us for so long. It’s all because of you that this stuff is happening.

For more official information on Plain White Ts, please log onto:
www.plainwhitets.com
http://www.myspace.com/plainwhitets

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