Boys Like Girls

Did You Know?

• The band originally performed under the name Lancaster before renaming to Boys Like Girls.
• The band's debut album sold less than 1,500 copies in its first week but went on to sell over 700,000 copies in the US.
• The band has been styling their name in all caps since 2023.

History

Boys Like Girls came together in Andover, Massachusetts, right at the tail end of 2005. Martin Johnson, who had previously sung for the Boston-area band Fake ID/The Drive, had a batch of songs he wanted to cut, so he brought in bassist Bryan Donahue and drummer John Keefe. Keefe and Johnson had played together in a high school band called Strutter. Lead guitarist Paul DiGiovanni filled out the lineup last, and a few months later, he and Keefe found out they were distant cousins.

They started out calling themselves Lancaster, but soon switched to Boys Like Girls. The four-piece put demo recordings up on PureVolume and Myspace, and by the end of the year they had hit number one on the site's Top Unsigned Artists chart. Within a few months, they had already toured the country with acts like Cute Is What We Aim For, Hit the Lights, All Time Low, and Butch Walker. In 2006, talent agent Matt Galle and producer Matt Squire caught wind of the band's growing buzz and reached out.

With their backing, Boys Like Girls hit the road in late February for their first nationwide tour, sharing bills with A Thorn for Every Heart, Hit the Lights, and Keating. Right after that month-long run, they went straight into the studio with Squire to lay down their debut album for Columbia Records and Red Ink. While they were recording, Squire connected them with Cute Is What We Aim For, who offered them an opening slot on their upcoming headlining tour.

Once the album was finished, the band played two tours: one with Cute Is What We Aim For in June, and a two-week stretch with Butch Walker in late July. In between those dates, they shot their first music video, for the lead single "Hero/Heroine," with directors Mark Serao and Chris Vaglio of Grey Sky Films.

Musical style and influences

Boys Like Girls draws from punk, emo pop, and alternative rock, citing bands like Jimmy Eat World, Blink-182, Secondhand Serenade, Relient K, The Academy Is..., and Dashboard Confessional as influences. The punk rock edge comes through in their guitar and drum work, while Martin Johnson's tenor vocals give the overall sound a 1990s alternative radio rock feel, similar to Vertical Horizon, Goo Goo Dolls, and Eve 6.