The members of Boys Like Girls live at home in the suburbs with their parents and write vague, emotionally charged songs sugarcoated with precision pop hooks. Add Martin Johnson's wavering, pained voice, a requisite ambiguous name and producer Matt Squire (Panic! At the Disco), and the band fits emo to, well, an E. These attributes speak volumes to thousands of disenfranchised kids whose best friends circulate on MySpace instead of at the local mall; fittingly, it was on that site and PureVolume.com that two of the act's songs generated enough downloads to attract record-label interest. Even if their actual record sales are paltry compared to the free downloads, Johnson sounded strangely happy as he spoke with us between Texas tour stops.
Shane McCauley
Boys Like Girls looking cry-o-genic.
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With All-American Rejects, Motion City Soundtrack and the Format, 6:30 p.m. Sunday, December 10, Fillmore Auditorium, 1510 Clarkson Street, $25, 303-830-8497.
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Westword: So, are you boys wholike girls, or boys whoare like girls -- you know, emoand empathetic?
Martin Johnson: It's boys that like girls -- just like girls like boys, or some boys like boys, or some girls like girls. It's just a fun statement. It's like what makes the world go round and the never-ending chase of guys against girls. Go to any bar and you see guys stalking their prey. It's kind of a play on that.
Most of your songs seem to have this high-school-romance quality, yet you also tackle issues like leaving home and growing up too fast.
A lot of the record is about my youth at the end of high school and then moving on and growing up. A lot of people have come up to me and said, "Oh, I relate to this so much." If anyone can relate to this stuff, that's really awesome, because that's what I live for in music: stuff that I can relate to, to help me get through my life.
Your big break came with a couple of songs placed on PureVolume.com and your MySpace page. A buzz spread, and eventually you got signed. There was so much hype. Were you disappointed when your album sold less than 1,500 copies the first week?
Not at all. I was really happy with that number. I know a lot of kids are downloading; you're going to get that, and that's fine. But I felt like this was a big stepping stone for us.... The biggest and best sign for us as a young band is that people are telling their friends, and [sales] didn't drop off after the first week.
Where do you think you would be without Internet exposure?
I have no idea. I can't even think of a world like that. The Internet was such a crucial part of how we developed a fan base and how we interact with our fans.... Word of mouth travels so much faster over the Internet. We used it to our advantage. I have no idea where we'd be at this point. Who knows if we'd even have a record out?
