Plain White T's moving on with indie album, local show

As the lead singer of the Plain White T's, Tom Higgenson has played shows in pretty much every major city across the country the past 15-plus years. Yet, as he embarks on the group's latest tour to promote "American Nights," which brings the band to The Tree of Joliet Wednesday, Nov. 11, Higgenson finds himself a bit lost.

"It's supposed to be on this street, but I feel like I've been walking pretty far," he says over the phone, pausing to take a breath as he dashes on a mad quest to find a Starbucks in downtown Atlanta. "Shouldn't I have passed like three by now?"

Now that the "Hey There Delilah" hitmakers from DuPage County have gone indie, they have to get used to certain things again - like figuring out contracts and schedules and getting their own coffee.

"The freedom is nice, but it comes with a lot of responsibility," Higgenson jokes, fully cognizant that the Plain White T's are in fact on the right path, free from the confines of working with a record label. Higgenson and bandmates Dave Tirio, Tim Lopez, Mike Retondo and De'Mar Hamilton split ties with Hollywood Records in 2014, terminating an eight-year relationship over creative differences that led to an extended delay in the making of "American Nights," released in March.

"It felt like we could do whatever we wanted, and we haven't had that feeling in a long time," Higgenson says. That includes trashing half the album upon getting the masters back and adding six new songs, "some of my favorites actually," says Higgenson of pop rock hook and sinker "Stay," the anthemic first single "Pause" and the breezy beach ballad "Love Again."

The unrestrictive process of crafting the album "felt like we were going back in time a little bit," he admits, happily recalling forming the T's in Lombard with high school friend Tirio in 1997 and playing their first gig at a Halloween party on the campus of DePaul University that same year (a gig they acquired from a manager at the Oak Brook movie theater where the two worked in the summers). It was right before the suburban faction of pop-punk bands such as the T's, Fall Out Boy and Lucky Boys Confusion started to swell, gaining national attention and soon enough getting nominated for Grammys and selling out amphitheaters.

Though the Plain White T's have come a long way since, releasing seven total albums, becoming an MTV favorite and appearing on TV shows such as ABC Family's "Greek," Higgenson was again recently reminded of those early days when he received an unexpected text message from an old flame (and not Delilah, though the two still keep in touch, especially "any time we're an answer on 'Jeopardy!'" he jokes).

Rather it was the post high school girlfriend that inspired the 2002 album "Stop." The band recently started playing the archival song "A Lonely September" on this tour, "and I woke up to this text message of her sending me an old version of the song from like 10 years ago," he says. "It was so bizarre and coincidental. I haven't talked to her in years. But I guess when you put things out there that stuff happens."

The band members are all still "hopeless romantics," admits Higgenson, and, as with all their previous efforts, they wear their hearts on their sleeves on "American Nights," particularly with soft spots "Love Again" and "Here Comes That Sunrise." Both were written by guitarist Lopez who recently married Jenna Reeves, the woman he met while appearing on NBC's short-lived reality dating show, "Ready for Love."

While Lopez and his bride recently settled down in Austin, Texas, the two remaining original members of the T's still call the suburbs home. "Dave and I both live in Elmhurst, so the band is still very much based here," says Higgenson, also noting the two recently formed a side project to get back to their punk-rock roots.

"I'm 'Captain Optimism,' so I never second-guess stuff or think back and wonder if things would have been different 'if,'" says Higgenson, talking about all the decisions - internal and external - over the years that shaped the band, including putting out "Delilah" as a single that eventually morphed their sound. "I like to live more in the moment and worry about what's going to happen next."

And for now that means getting a cup of coffee and staying awake for it all.