Howie Day, headliner. That has a nice ring to it, as does Howie Day, major-label artist.

But the Brewer native hasn’t had much time to savor his new status. He’s too busy with his first national tour as a headliner, supporting his first original major-label album, “Stop All The World Now.”

“It sinks in mostly at the beginning of tours and at breaks [in the tour],” Day said from a tour stop in Denver. “When you’re doing it, it’s so fast-paced, so crazy you don’t notice it. I’m so concentrated on doing my thing that it doesn’t have a chance to go to my head.”

Day has spent the last two years almost in training for this day, opening for such artists as Tori Amos, John Mayer, Sheryl Crow and Sting. He has learned quite a bit along the way.

“I like to observe anyone bigger than me,” the 22-year-old said. “It’s cool to watch a tour of that size, how it goes down every night. I try to take a little bit from everyone along the way.”

Still, the Epic recording artist has settled into his new role as a headliner at arenas around the country, with the bulk of his shows selling out.

“I enjoy it,” he said. “Coming off a year when I was a professional opening act, it’s nice to be playing in front of my fans, rather then trying to win over new ones.”

The biggest change for Day, a longtime solo musician, is that he’s touring with a band.

“I still haven’t gotten used to it totally,” he said. “It’s a really new thing for me. I’ve been solo since I was 16, but I’m growing into it pretty good. It’s been an easier transition than I thought it would be. It’s added a great dynamic to the show. It’s a natural next step for me, so it was good timing, I suppose.”

His 11-song album debuted at No. 46 and still rests on the Billboard Top 200 album chart, and his first single, “Perfect Time of Day,” is being played on Adult Top 40 and Adult Alternative Album radio stations. The video for the song is being show on MTV’s “Buzzworthy” and VH-1’s “Inside Track” programs.

Day doesn’t keep very close tabs on the business end of his music.

“Album sales seem disconnected with what I do every day,” he said. “I’m more interested in how many CDs I sold that night [at the concert], if I won the audience over and they bought something at the end. But I realize that I’m out here to promote a record, so I’m always curious.”

The biggest difference for Day came when he recorded his new album over three months at Olympic Studios in London. (It’s his third release, following the self-produced “Australia,” which was re-released by Epic, and the “Madrigals EP,” made up of live tracks and demos and also released by Epic.)

“Stop All The World Now” was produced by Youth (The Verve, Crowded House) and mixed by Michael Brauer, Chris Lord-Alge and Clive Goddard. In the studio with him were guitarist Jay Clifford from Jump Little Children, ex-Verve bassist Simon Jones, Los Angeles keyboard player Les Hall and London drummer Laurie Jenkins. (Hall and Jenkins are touring with Day, along with Boston-based bassist Jeremy Curtis.)

The biggest differences between “Australia” and the new album? In short, time and money.

“On the first one, I was 18,” Day recalled. “I was financing it myself and did it in little bursts, two or three songs at a time, and it took a year to piece it together. When it’s on your own dime, you watch the clocks when you record. If there’s too many takes, you start to stress out.

“The time constraint wasn’t really there this time,” he added. “There was more time to experiment, to search for something magical on every track.”

Although he is a relative novice at this level, Day didn’t feel manipulated by the veterans with whom he was working.

“It wasn’t much different,” he said. “I had 20 songs that I’d written, and we recorded 16 of them, all mutually agreed on. It gives me more people to bounce ideas off of. It’s been a steroid shot to my career, in a way.”

Day, who first made a name for himself in Maine, then in Boston, has found out that his music has spread internationally. He recalls stepping off a plane in an Eastern European country.

“A man came up to me and said, ‘Welcome to Poland, Howie Day,'” he said. “With the Internet, and the global force it has, anyone can click and hear some music. To be so far away from home, and to have people like the music, it’s a cool feeling.”

Day has a huge following of fans who tape his shows. There’s even the Howie Day Trading Board (www.thehdtb.com), a Web site that allows fans to trade concert tapes online. On the site, fans can browse and download different shows. They can also contact a taper directly via the trading board to get a show by sending the taper blank CD-ROMs and a self-addressed, stamped envelope.

“It’s such a huge compliment to think that people like what I’m doing enough to record it and pass it along to their friends,” Day has said. “It keeps me on my toes too, because I can’t go out and play the same show night after night.”

Day is content with the growth of his career.

“It feels like a really comfortable pace,” he said. “As an artist, you like to keep up with the demand. Three years ago, I was playing coffeehouses, but I couldn’t have handled an arena. Now I can; I’ve grown into my career. It’s been a nice, slow build, turning fans on one at a time.”

Dale McGarrigle is the Assistant Style Editor and veteran pop music critic at the Bangor Daily News.