Interview: Plain White T's - Page 3

Describe the experience of working and collaborating with a producer.

Tom - I think it is nice to have an outside perspective on a song. 

Tim - Especially working with someone who knows the tricks of the trade to make songs sound better.  We still have a lot to learn in terms of the recording aspect. 

Is it hard to hear someone else’s opinion, especially work that is near and dear to your heart? 

Tom - We’ve gotten lucky.  The people that we’ve worked with have been open-minded about our opinions and their own opinions.  Johnny K, the guy who recorded our last record, All That We Needed, did not have trouble backing down and accepting our opinions.  And the same was true if he had an opinion that made sense, we would go with that.  

Tom, I read when you and co-founder Dave Tirio first started playing together that you played a lot of covers.  Was there a particular band or artist that you covered more than others? 

Tom - Weezer and Green Day were probably the two biggest. 

Heartbreak is an overlapping theme in a lot of PWT’s songs?  Tom, do you think that finding love and eventually getting married could potentially cause a problem lyrically? 

Tom - I hope not (laughs).  Hopefully one day I’ll be able to settle down and be happy.  (pauses) But, there’s always stuff to write about. 

Tim - I’ll plant little seeds of doubt in Tom’s mind.  I’ll get everything all stirred up (everyone laughs).

When writing songs, Tom, do you typically come to the band with the lyrics completed? 

Tom - I usually have a very solid structure for the song with the beat, melody, chords, and lyrics.  As far as the individual parts, that’s where everybody comes in. 

Has there ever been a song that you didn’t think would reach the finish line?  

Tom - There is one song called “Someday,” that was one of my favorite demos from our last record All That We Needed.  The song never reached completion for that record.  For this record, we all thought that we should try to do something with that song, but it became too late in the recording process to really give the song the time it needed.  The song is still there, and hopefully it will show its face. 

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