Alternative Visoin managed to wangle an interview with the lovely Tom Higgenson, Tim Lopez and Dave Tirio of ‘The Plain White T’s’. This is what they had t say about their long overdue return to the UK, the approaching release of their sixth album ‘Wonders Of The Young’ and their upcoming London show.

The Plain White T’s have been together for a number of years now, how did you come together as a band and come up with the band name The Plain White T’s?
Tom -We’ve been together about thirteen years. Dave and I went to high school together and we started a band. We used to play together in high school and we used to cover Weezer songs, Green Day songs in my basement and I originally started writing my own songs so we started playing those songs and just kind of became the ‘Plain White T’s’. We needed a name for the band so we made a list on a piece of paper full of crappy band names and ‘Plain White T’s’ was the least crappy on the page. I remember looking through a bunch of photos of our favourite bands and things like that at the time and there seemed to be a photo in every booklet of someone wearing plain white t-shirt so it just seemed to make sense. Our music was always inspired by 50s and 60s music and you think back to then and to the Fonz and that classic 50s image, Marlon Brando , James Dean and it just seemed to be the coolest thing.

You are releasing your brand new single ‘Rhythm Of Love’ on the 3rd October, what made you decided to release this over the rest of the song’s featured on your forthcoming album?
Basically it was the label, they just loved the song, we of course loved it but we love all the songs on the album. It was mostly the label coming to us saying we think this song would do the best and we loved it so we thought “go for it” you know and that was about it

The video for ‘Rhythm Of Love’ has been online for a week now, what was it like to create the video and who’s idea was the whole happy beach party feel?
It was a lot of fun. We pretty much just spent the day on the beach in Malibu California with gorgeous women and a lot of friends. But it was kind of our idea. The director of the video is a good friend of ours and he did our last video as well so we just had a bunch of phone conversations with him and passed ideas back and forth until we came up with this concept and we did it and it ended up turning out eve better than we thought it would be. It was great.

I understand that you were set to release a 5track EP back in the middle of 2010 but in the end this never happened and you went on to finish a new album instead, are you pleased with your reshuffle of plans?
Yeah, I mean we had so many songs we just wanted to make a full album. And we had a vision for this album it kind of turned into a concept album so we just kept going and kept writing a ton and it ended up being what it is. We had a goal, a vision for it and it definitely met that vision. For the first time we kind of….we thought big and we got big you know? The scope of the album is very grand, very rich production it’s a longer album than we’ve ever done before. Yeah its gunna be a good one, we’re excited.

As you said you’re new album, ‘Wonders Of The Young’ set to be released on the 18th October, is a concept album. What themes and stories are covered on the album and how does it compare to your previous album?
Well it’s called ‘Wonders Of The Young’ and the album is all about growing up and everybody with responsibilities and the older you get the more responsibilities you have and I think the more you loose track of that innocence and that sense of adventure and wonder that you have when you’re a kid. I think every once in a while it’s good to look back and try to recapture a little bit of that, you know? You can’t loose that altogether. That’s kind of what the album is about. There’s a lot of themes of just you know things that happen to you when you’re young, whether it’s a first love or whether its wanting to run away and join the circus or just wanting hang out with your friends all day it’s like all those kind of themes keep popping up throughout the album but in a personal, relatable kind of way. It’s kind of like us where we are looking back and being nostalgic.

You have announced a one off UK date on the 21st September at London Islington Academy, are you looking forward to heading back to the UK and what can the fans expect from the show?
We can’t wait, we haven’t played here in three years so we’re really excited and this is the first show that we’re playing all year. We’ve just been working on the record writing and recording it this entire year so far. So this is pretty much our first show we’re gunna play all year so we’re super excited just to play a show but the fact that it’s gunna be in London for all the fans that we have here makes it even better. This is one of my favourite places to play so I think the excitement on our end is gunna be huge and we’re gunna put a lot into this one.

Once ‘Wonders Of The Younger’ has been released will you be embarking on a full length world wide tour?
Planning out the touring schedule is next on the agenda for us so I think we’re gunna hopefully be travelling the entire globe. I think we’re gunna be coming back and hopefully doing a full UK tour at least of all the big cities in November hopefully right after the album comes out in October. Then we’re gunna do the US in December and in 2011 we’ll just be going all around everywhere we can go

MySpace seems to be a big tool in the music industry these days with artists communicating with their fans over it and some even ditching their own website and having just a MySpace site, what are your opinions on MySpace as a tool in the music industry?
Myspace was a big part of our success, we were one of the first bands Tom ever put on the front page when he still owned and ran the whole thing and ‘Hey There Delilah’ was a big hit on Myspace and it got that song known and got it out there.

Where would you like to see yourself this time next year?
This time next year I hope we’ll be on the third single from the album and still touring. Maybe back here, that’d be cool.

One last random question that we ask every band, if you could be an animal out of a Zebra and a Giraffe which one would you be and why?
Tom - I would probably go with zebra because they’re cooler
Tim - A giraffe you could peer into third story windows
Tom- That’s true, Dave and tim giraffe and I would go zebra

Thanks for your time, do you have an message for your fans reading this?
We love you guys, we miss you and we’re glad we’re finally getting back over here; we’ll see you on the 21st

Interview By Nicci Peet