Credit: Liam Duncan

There are some people who hate a band when they become popular. Then there are those long-term fans of a band that resent ‘new’ fans, who’ve only get into a band after the Big Radio Hit. Plain White T’s will have their fair share of those from now on. After their set at the Carling Weekend: Leeds, we caught up with Tom Higgenson, frontman of the band, to educate him in the ways of Girls Aloud, to discuss how a band deals with having a uncontrollable monster of a hit, and what dark crevices of his mind we can crack open with the WigDogs…

“We’ve only been over to the UK one time before, so to come over here and play to ten thousand people, or however many there are on that stage, is amazing. I know [‘Hey There Delilah’] was doing really well over here, and that’s kind of even more amazing. It’s weird for us.”

“We had to tour the United States for five years before anyone gave a shit about us, or knew who we were, so to come over here and to have as many fans as we do is really exciting to us. It makes us want to come back already – we’re coming over again in January.”

Of course, the reason for the band’s sudden rise to prominence is their huge single, ‘Hey There Delilah’. Already a Billboard #1 in the USA, it’s currently riding high in the UK chart. With such quickfire success on the back of a single song though, there’s ever the risk the band will sink back down to obscurity as quickly as they have rocketed out of it.

“If it happens, then there’s nothing I can do about it. All we can do is write songs that we love and believe in, and that’s going to translate. The thing that made ‘Delilah’ was the honesty, the simplicity, and I definitely think all of our songs have those elements. The next batch of songs that we write and record will still have those elements. There’ll be good songs out there for people who want to hear them.”