Plain White T’s aim for follow-up success to ‘Delilah’

By John Benson

With their new album, they’re playing up their strengths, singer Tom Higgenson says.

A fear of breaking his neck kept Plain White T’s singer Tom Higgenson from skateboarding or BMX riding as a kid, but you better believe he’s ready for his band’s upcoming AST Dew Tour show Friday at North Coast Harbor.

“I don’t do any of that stuff, I’m kind of scared of falling,” Higgenson said with a laugh, calling from a tour stop in Ottawa, Canada. “But I do watch all of the time on television, and the Warped Tour has bikes and skate ramps. So we’ve been a part of that culture for a while.”

Though Plain White T’s emerged on the new-music scene a few years ago as yet another pop- fueled, punk-inspired rock band, the Chicago-based outfit experienced unlikely success with its 2005 sophomore indie disc “All That We Needed,” which included acoustic hit “Hey There Delilah.” In 2007 the song was re-released, eventually landing atop the Billboard pop charts, as well as finding an audience with soccer moms and Disney Channel-age viewers.

Now comes the hard part for the Windy City quintet, which not only has to prove its Vans Warped credibility with its loyal fan base but also must attempt to reconnect with the mainstream. The time of reckoning is near with Plain White T’s new studio album, “Big Bad World,” due out Sept. 23. So how did the group approach the new disc?

“We tried to write every song just like ‘Hey There Delilah,’” said the wisecracking Higgenson. “We have lots of girls’ names on the album. No, actually with the success of ‘Hey There Delilah’ we kind of realized, ‘OK, we don’t have to be worried so much about fitting in right now.’

“In the past we’d be very conscious of modern rock radio or trying to stay current. And with ‘Hey There Delilah,’ it’s just an acoustic song that sounded more like it could have been from the ’60s. So we said, ‘Let’s just do our thing and kind of play up the Plain White T’s strengths, which are the songwriting, the harmonies and the classic elements.’”

Among the new “Big Bad World” tracks Higgenson said the band is excited about are the rocking “Natural Disaster” (probably the lead single), the acoustic and tentatively titled “1, 2, 3, 4” and the heavily orchestrated “Serious Mistake.”

What remains to be seen is whether the Plain White T’s can successfully overcome one-hit-wonder status. While Higgenson understands the pressures, he remains optimistic.

“I don’t have a fear, I’m just excited about the album,” Higgenson said. “As a band, everybody is more excited about this record and hopefully the success we had with ‘Hey There Delilah’ is just going to keep going. So I don’t have any fears. I know we did our best, and I know it’s going to be great.”