After a few years in record label limbo, Fiction Plane is savouring success with their May 2007 release, "Left Side of the Brain." The grunge-inspired UK band has risen up the charts with the track "Two Sisters." They've impressed industry insiders touring on their own and with The Police Reunion Tour. Yet it took a Vancouver performance to give singer/songwriter Joe Sumner his most memorable career moment.

"We did our first club show on this new tour in a place called The Plaza," says the band's 31-year-old frontman. "It was absolutely packed two days after the album came out. People knew all the words. In the middle of it we totally improvised. We played as long as the audience would tolerate it and that went on for 40 minutes."

Vancouver's performance was also special because Sumner's family was in the audience and saw the band click. "My brothers, sisters and parents have come out to see us play a lot," says the son of actress Frances Tomelty and singer/activist Sting. "But this night was different. It was like the beginning of something. Like when you have a new baby. It was very special."

Producing "Left Side of the Brain" also marked a turning point in his confidence.

"Keeping your artistic integrity and being commercially successful today is awkward," says Sumner. "If you sell your soul out and do something that compromises you and fails you're really going to be pissed. So you might as well do something you believe in."

When Fiction Plane scored their first major label release, "Everything Will Never Be OK" (MCA Records, 2003), a big-name producer took control of the project. "We kind of deferred to him on a lot of decisions because we were like, you know, he knows better how to make it bigger and more of a commercial success. It was the wrong decision. We should have really just held on to everything and been control freaks about the integrity of it."

A week after that album's release, the band that launched in 1999 as Santa's Boyfriend found itself in label limbo. "Everyone that ruined it got fired. A lot of new people came in. They shut down selling the record. It seemed to them that we had nothing," says Sumner.

The band moved between major US record labels trying to produce its second full-length album. Three years and 120 songs later, Fiction Plane signed on with the American independent label Bieler Bros. Records. The band also downsized, moving from a quartet in early 2007 (when founding member Dan Brown left to raise a family) to a trio.

"It was very freeing," says Sumner. "It actually made the band sound bigger in some weird way."

Sumner, along with UK guitarist Seton Daunt and Indiana-born drummer Pete Wilhoit, deliver a strong lyrical message in "Left Side of the Brain." Topics such as alienation (in the song "Anyone"); nepotism ("Running the Country"); and the slow death of a loved one ("Left Side of the Brain") are all in the mix.

Sumner's voice rings with a hint his father's bell clear quality, particularly on the big notes. Yet it's the band's voice, not his famous father, he hopes fans will remember.

"It's taken us a while to develop our sound, At the start we definitely tried to be Nirvana. I wanted to be Kurt Cobain-apart from the dying. It just didn't work," says the 1999 environmental science graduate from London, England's Richmond University.

"I hope people will see that we are making music for the sake of music. I also hope that people will feel that it's talking to them in a way and challenging them. That's the main thing. We're just trying to say hello-let's talk about something interesting."

Sumner won't reveal the surprises Fiction Plane has planned when they perform at Toronto's Air Canada Centre on July 22 and 23. "There will be a few," he hints. One thing he will disclose is how he'll unwind, if he has time, by moving boxes or stuffing envelopes.

"I don't' do it so much on tour, but I like taking silly office jobs. You spend a year doing something and you don't know the results. They're intangible. But if you spend one day lifting boxes from one room to another by the end of the day it feels great. There are no questions about it. That's absolutely brilliant."