Boys Like Girls

Boys Like Girls
Boys Like Girls performing in Kansas City
Background information
Origin	Boston, Massachusetts, United States
Genres	Pop rock, pop punk, alternative rock[1], emo pop
Years active	2005–present
Labels	Sony Music/Columbia, Red Ink
Associated acts	All Time Low, Cobra Starship, Hey Monday, Stuperfly, Stereo Skyline, We The Kings, Taylor Swift, Good Charlotte
Website	www.boyslikegirls.com
Members
Martin Johnson Paul DiGiovanni Bryan Donahue John Keefe

Boys Like Girls is an American four-piece pop rock band from Massachusetts. Formed in 2005, the band gained mainstream recognition when it released its self-titled debut album. It was the co-headliner with Good Charlotte for the Soundtrack of Your Summer Tour 2008 that toured across the United States.^[2] The group's second studio album Love Drunk, was released on September 8, 2009.

History

2005–06: Formation and early years

The group was formed in Andover, MA^[3] in the final months of 2005, when vocalist Martin Johnson, formerly of the Boston act Fake ID/The Drive, wrote a handful of songs he wanted to record. He recruited bassist Bryan Donahue and drummer John Keefe. Keefe brought along lead guitarist Paul DiGiovanni, with whom he had recorded a brief demo, to complete the line-up. Some demo's are of "Free", "If You Could See Me Now", and others. Some months later the two later learned that they were distant cousins.^[4][5] The group later changed their name to Boys Like Girls.

The quartet soon opened a PureVolume account to showcase their music, and uploaded a rough demo of "The Great Escape" and an acoustic rendition of "Thunder". By the end of the year, the group had landed the No. 1 spot on the website's Top Unsigned Artists chart^[6] and within a few months had completed nationwide tours with Cute Is What We Aim For, Hit the Lights, All Time Low and Butch Walker.

Lead singer Martin Johnson

Eventually in 2006 the buzz around the band was overheard by booking agent Matt Galle and record producer Matt Squire, who contacted the band about a future collaboration. With their full support, Boys Like Girls embarked on their first nationwide tour with A Thorn for Every Heart, Hit the Lights and Keating in late February 2006. Following the month-long venture, the group immediately entered the recording studio with Squire to record their debut album for Columbia Records/Red Ink.

During their time in the studio Squire introduced the band to another of his alumni, Cute Is What We Aim For, who offered Boys Like Girls an opening slot on their upcoming headlining tour. Once the album was recorded, Boys Like Girls played back-to-back tours, including the Cute Is What We Aim For tour in June, as well as a two week stint with Butch Walker in late July.^[4] In between tours the band filmed their first music video for their album's lead single, "Hero/Heroine", directed by Mark Serao and Chris Vaglio of Grey Sky Films.^[7]

2006–09: Self-titled album

On August 22, 2006, the eponymous Boys Like Girls hit record store shelves. As of August 2008, the album has sold over 580,000 copies within the United States.^[8] While, as the title might suggest, songs about boys liking girls clearly prevail on the album, Johnson threw in the occasional escape from the pre-, mid-, or post-relationship formula, and touched upon themes such as his mother's battle with cancer, leaving home and promiscuous adolescents. Concerning the latter, he discussed the motivation behind the song "Dance Hall Drug":

The song "On Top of the World" is about Johnson's late mother.

The year 2007 began with a short headlining run with Self Against City, after which the group joined Cobra Starship supporting a two-month Cartel tour in February. In between releasing their album's second single, "The Great Escape" (reaching No. 9 on the Pop 100), performing on Jimmy Kimmel Live on February 22, 2007, and eventually charting the Billboard 200 for the first time in April 2007, Boys Like Girls played their first international concerts during the Canadian leg of a North American tour with Hellogoodbye and the UK festival Give It A Name 2007.

In mid-2007, the group performed on the annual Vans Warped Tour for the first time and on July 31, 2007 the band reached the No. 1 spot on the MTV show Total Request Live. The following month, on August 20, 2007, Boys Like Girls members Johnson and DiGiovanni played a private show at 105.1 The Buzz radio station. They announced that they would be performing five shows in Japan and said how much Good Charlotte helped their career. In September 2007, Boys Like Girls released a three song acoustic set for AOL's Sessions Under Cover as an EP in the iTunes Store, containing "The Great Escape", "Thunder" and a cover of Frou Frou's "Let Go". On December 4, 2007, the band performed a concert with Good Charlotte, with opening act NLT, for New Orleans radio station B97's "The Night B97 Stole Christmas" at the New Orleans House of Blues, located in the French Quarter.

Boys Like Girls played at the Slam Dunk Festival on the Glamour Kills stage, in Leeds, on Sunday, May 25, 2008. The group shared the stage with bands such as, Cute Is What We Aim For, Kids In Glass Houses, Valencia, We The Kings, You Me At Six and The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus. The band was also the opening act for Avril Lavigne's 2008 Best Damn Tour throughout the majority of North America.

Boys Like Girls did not perform on the Van's Warped Tour for 2008, but instead, toured the summer, with Good Charlotte, The Maine, and Metro Station, for the Soundtrack of Your Summer Tour which was kicked off in Southaven, Mississippi with a performance named Red White and Boom hosted by Q107.5 on June 3, 2008. On July 4, 2008 they played in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee at the 2008 Starjam concert, along with Metro Station, Good Charlotte, Ace Young, and Menudo. Two months later, Boys Like Girls and Metro Station performed together at Six Flags St. Louis in Missouri on August 5, 2008. A storm flew in while the concert was in session and the show was delayed for about 30 minutes. Six Flags then chose not to endanger the band or their fans, and decided to cancel the concert altogether. In between tour dates, they worked alongside Nickelodeon pop singer Miranda Cosgrove on her upcoming debut album, due for release in 2009.^[10]

In 2008, five songs that were believed to be on the band's second album leaked onto the internet. The fan based EP, entitled Heavy Heart, consists of five demo songs that were recorded, but did not make it onto the band's first album. None of the songs would appear on their second record.

Boys Like Girls supported Fall Out Boy on their UK tour in October, along with Surrey's Pop band You Me At Six. A month later the band's debut DVD, Read Between the Lines, was released on November 4, 2008.^[11]

In January 2009, Boys like Girls toured the UK with Metro Station and Every Avenue supporting.

Since 2009: Love Drunk

Martin Johnson announced that the band had begun to record their new album on his website on February 10, 2009.^[12] The album was released on September 8, 2009^[13] and was recorded half in Vancouver and half in New York City because there were two different producers/production teams, two different environments, and two different styles of inspiration. In an April 2009 interview with Paste Magazine's Sean Edgar, Johnson explained that many of the songs on Love Drunk were written using templates from computer programs like Cakewalk Sonar and MasterWriter, and were market tested for album inclusion. The band will embark on a 2009 fall tour with Cobra Starship, A Rocket to the Moon, The Maine, and VersaEmerge.^[14] The tour will begin on October 14 with the first show in Buffalo, New York. It is called the Op tour.

Boys Like Girls performing at MTV World Stage Live In Malaysia

On June 18, Boys Like Girls confirmed the title for their second album is Love Drunk^[15] and it was officially released on September 8, 2009.^[15] On June 24, 2009, the band released their first single. It is the title track of the album.^[13] The "Love Drunk" music video features actress and singer Ashley Tisdale. The group released their second single "She's Got a Boyfriend Now" on iTunes in August. The fourth song from Love Drunk is called "Two Is Better Than One," featuring female country singer Taylor Swift. The song is not about Johnson's previous relationship with Taylor Swift, as he confirmed it never happened. Johnson had previously worked with Swift to write the song "You'll Always Find Your Way Back Home".^[16], which is featured in Hannah Montana: The Movie. The new album contains eleven tracks including Heart Heart Heartbreak, Love Drunk, She's Got a Boyfriend Now, Two is Better than One, Contagious, Real Thing, Someone Like You, The Shot Heard 'Round the World, First One, Chemicals Collide and Go.

The band made history on August 15, 2009 when it was featured alongside The All-American Rejects, Hoobastank, Raygun, Kasabian and Pixie Lott as one of the live acts at Asia's very first MTV World Stage Live concert that was held in Malaysia.

The album is available for purchase on iTunes, Amazon, as well as many major retailers around the country. On iTunes, there is a "Deluxe Version" of the album that contains 3 bonus tracks; "Love Drunk(Acoustic)", "Heart Heart Heartbreak(Acoustic)" and a Mark Hoppus remixed version of "Love Drunk".

Boys Like Girls made a video for their most recent single "Heart Heart Heartbreak". Boys Like Girls was on VH1's Top Twenty Countdown on February 13 to talk about their hit single "Two is Better Than One", which landed a number 8 spot on the countdown. The video was on the countdown for 8 consecutive weeks. When asked about if they were filming a 3-D video or not, frontman Martin Johnson said they had already filmed the music video. Boys Like Girls second album, released in September 2009, was Love Drunk. In its first week, it sold more than 44,000 copies, landing it on the No. 8 spot on Billboard 200.

In March 2010 Boys Like Girls supported Hedley along with Stereos and FeFe Dobson on select dates across Canada

Boys Like Girls co-headlined The Bamboozle Roadshow 2010 between May and June 2010.All Time Low, Third Eye Blind, and LMFAO co-headlined with Boys Like Girls. Along with numerous other supporting bands, including 3OH!3, Good Charlotte, Forever The Sickest Kids, Cartel, and Simple Plan.

In 2010, according to Paul DiGiovanni's twitter and the video from the band's official Youtube channel, they are recording their third album which will be released some time in 2011.

Musical style

Stylistically, the band lists its musical influences as a variety of contemporary, pop, punk, and alternative rock bands, such as Jimmy Eat World, Blink-182, Story of the Year, Relient K, The Academy Is..., Kelena, and Dashboard Confessional. While these tendencies are clearly audible in guitarwork and drumming, punk rock influences are far less obvious as far as vocal patterns and lyricism are concerned. Given Johnson's characteristic tenor vocal melodies—which are, due to sporadically placed falsettos, at times reminiscent of Tyson Ritter's (of The All-American Rejects fame)—the band's all-around sound is geared to late '90s alternative radio rock, along the lines of Vertical Horizon, Goo Goo Dolls, and Eve 6.^[17]

Critical reception

While the online community precipitately crowned Boys Like Girls 2006's "Fall Out Boy" (in reference to the pop punk band's commercial success with 2005's From Under the Cork Tree),^[18] album sales were less convincing. Despite promotional front page features (such as Spin's "Artist of the Day" or the highly influential Absolutepunk.net's "Featured Band" and "Absolute Exclusive: Album Leak"), Boys Like Girls scanned a mere 1,472 units within its first week of sales, thus failing to chart the Billboard 200.^[19] However, continuous touring and promoting helped gaining the record a No. 179 entry into the chart in April 2007. It continued to gain popularity as the single, "The Great Escape", climbed the charts and eventually peaked at No. 55 in August 2007. After nearly falling off the Billboard 200, the re-release of the single "Hero/Heroine" jumped the album back up to No. 61 and was certified Gold shortly after.^[20]

Discography

Studio albums

• 2006: Boys Like Girls
• 2009: Love Drunk

Members

• Martin Johnson - lead vocals, rhythm guitar
• Bryan Donahue - bass guitar, backing vocals.
• Paul DiGiovanni - lead guitar, backing vocals.
• John Keefe - drums.

References

External links

• Official website
• Boys Like Girls on Myspace
• Boys Like Girls at PureVolume
• Boys Like Girls on Twitter
• Boys Like Girls on Facebook