Boys Like Girls Interview: Love Drunk and In High Spirits

Here is a simple truth. Boys Like Girls leads to Boys Get Girls. The attention of many a hot-blooded female fan, that is. In Malaysia for MTV World Stage, the Boston rockers held a bowling session with fans and even stopped to sign autographs outside their hotel lobby on occasion.

It's been a long wait (not to say that we tire of the anthemic "The Great Escape," "Hero/Heroine" and "Thunder" to name a few), but BLG fans can throw their hands up in the air and say "Finally!" when long-awaited sophomore album, Love Drunk drops on September 8.

The guys have come a long way since their self-titled debut record in 2006, and judging by the massively positive reception to single, "Love Drunk," (a monster of a hit which I can only describe as intoxicating) things are only going to get better.

No wonder then that the band was in high spirits when I caught up with them for a chat, all the while trying to avoid the shower of dead skin flakes from Martin's peeling, sunburned back as Paul scratched away helpfully. (Ok, I exaggerated. It wasn't really a shower, and I was seated at a safe distance from any fallout.)

How's the sunburn?

Martin: It's healing. I've got a bunch of tattoos all over the sunburn, and obviously that really hurt. But all my tattoos are healing and they're all itching like crazy.

(seeks the help of Paul to do a mean scratch on his itching back)

"Dude that feels SO good, you have no idea! Go higher!"

Martin, you've got a verse from "Amazing Grace" recently inked across your back. Can you tell us the story behind it?

Martin: The Amazing Grace significance is really deep. It was one of the first songs that I learned to sing and it's always followed me wherever I go.

When I was 12 and went to Ireland, we went to this big theatre performance and they asked if anyone in the crowd wanted to sing. Nobody would do it and I stood up and started singing it at the top of my lungs.

My mum passed away when I was 16, and I sang it at her funeral. My friend Rob passed away when I was 20, and they played the hymn over the speakers in the church - it was his voice singing "Amazing Grace" and it was really touching.

When my aunt recently passed away, as we were walking into the church, there was a harp player and they were playing "Amazing Grace." I was in a short film called Amazing Grace when I was 13. It's always been a song that has touched me and I feel like my grace has been music.

Speaking of BLG's music success, it's been a relatively long 3-year wait for fans since your debut self-titled album in 2006. With new album, Love Drunk, slated for an early September release, is there any pressure to meet expectations?

Martin: I think the pressure was when we were writing the record. We had a really hard time writing and recording the record. I was so scared, although it wasn't necessarily about the reviewers, it was about me finding musically where I wanted to be and what I wanted to share musically with my 3 best friends.

I locked myself in my room and just wouldn't get out of bed. I was scared of myself, I was scared of the music, I was scared of what was gonna be created.

And we went into the studio and I just kinda let it all go for the day and wrote a song called "Heart, Heart, Heartbreak" which is the opening track of Love Drunk and from then on it was like all the anxieties just went away.

It was like "Wow! We can take chances, we found this bigger, crazier sound that was really, truly IS Boys Like Girls." After 3 years of touring, your sound changes a lot. You have to take these little songs that you used to play in tiny clubs and spread them and make them sound huge in an arena. I think that's how our sound morphed into this record. Now that the pressure's all gone, I think its fun.

Paul: Yeah, that was the pressure, and worries, and the hard times. Once it was finished and we actually heard the whole thing and realized that it was done, we were so proud of it. We're just so excited to get it out there and just get back on the road.

Bryan: So now it's just a wide open road and we're gonna drive a million miles an hour down and see what happens.

In the spirit of your new single "Love Drunk," when was the last time a girl has left you guys 'love drunk'?

(band ponders and makes 'thinking' noises)

Martin: One year ago

John: Last night we went out for a little while, and we got love drunk like every 10 minutes. Every girl that walked by was like so gorgeous here.

Martin: There are a lot of beautiful girls here. Girls here hold themselves with such grace. No offence to our hometown but it just seems like girls have a lot more respect for themselves over here, they hold themselves with a tender kind of grace and they don't throw themselves out there. We have a lot of respect for that. I think that's really cool for a girl. It's more natural beauty, it's less fake and I think that's really appealing to all of us.

Paul: So we're all love drunk right now

Martin: I think the last time I was actually love drunk was like a year ago and then I was hungover.

So what would be your prescription or hangover cure for such a situation?

Martin: The prescription for me was music and writing a record about it, at least a couple of songs.

John: So go get love drunk again, about someone else...

Martin: And the girl who inspired the song "Love Drunk," was also the same girl I got love drunk over the last time. It all makes sense right? It's all coming together now, wooo!

Martin, you've actually worked with Taylor Swift on a song for the Hannah Montana soundtrack and then again on a song, "Two is Better Than One," on the Love Drunk record. What was it like working with her?

Martin: She's awesome. She's one of the most talented songwriters to work with, if not, the best. For such a young girl, she's so creative and spot-on. She knows the audience, she truly understands the kind of pop music that is from the heart and done in a tasteful way. She knows ways to make things pop and also make you feel it at the same time. We wrote a bunch of songs together and it was a lot of fun.

John actually got a chance to play on her record Fearless, on the song "You're Not Sorry" and it just seemed totally perfect when it was time to do "Two is Better Than One." The track was missing something - that female voice, that call and respond sort of thing, to really show what the song was about - that two is better than one. And Taylor was obviously the first choice for that natural, beautiful voice and we really wanted her to be on it.

On Twitter, we actually noticed that some Malaysian fans gifted you guys with a toilet seat. What was the wackiest gift you guys have received?

Martin: Haha, the toilet seat! I'm hanging it up in my bathroom! That's actually one of the wackiest! All our fans are amazing, we've gotten some great gifts.

I think one of the really cool ones was back in the States. We haven't been given the gift yet, it's still promised, but these 2 girls have promised to drive a hundred thousand miles in total to see Boys Like Girls shows and document the whole thing in this big scrap book, and they're halfway there. They're like 50 thousand miles in and they've seen like 59, 60 Boys Like Girls show so far.

We love it when fans give us scrapbooks and cute little things, it's great, it brightens our day.

Martin, on your blog, you say that Twitter still sucks but yet you still tweet. What's that all about?

Martin: Twitter sucks. Doesn't mean I can't twitter. I'm a big fat hypocrite, what do you want from me? (jokes) C'mon!

Bryan: I think Twitter and stuff like that, they're great tools but a lot of people kind of just sit on it all day and they don't go out and do anything else exciting.

Martin: I don't want the world and kids to turn into robots, you know? I don't want everybody to hide behind their computers. I remember a day, and I say "I remember a day" like I'm an 80-year old man but it's like crazy how fast the world changes.

I'm 23, and I'm saying "I remember a day" when I had to call a friend on the house phone and get his mum and ask for the friend and then you're like, you know, "let's go hang out." It's a time when you didn't have to sit on your AIM, MSN messenger, Twitter, and your Facebook and become your computer. I just want to see people be real and have real interactions, and not be scared in public because they're so used to hiding behind their computers.

That's why I say Twitter sucks but you know, for me it's fun. I love taking pictures and showing them to our fans and showing them a part of my life. I think it's cool. And that was sort of the point behind it but really also kind of a joke.

Some bands want to change the world with their music, some do it for the fame, and others just want to have fun. What kind of category does Boys Like Girls fall into?

Martin: We want to stand alone, be our own entity. We are four best friends that have struggled through some rough times together and really roughed it out. I think we all just want to continue making great music and progressing as a band. We want to keep going and do this forever.

We don't see the end of the tunnel, it's not even a tunnel. It's just a path and I don't see the end right now. I see a wide open road and I think we're gonna take it.


http://www.mtvasia.com/Funstuff/Contests/SWAG_GibsonBoysLikeGirls/index.html

Enter the contest and you might win the guitar autographed by BLG !!!



Haha , Martin 's signature ( i think ) is so big and messy !

XOXO

Labels: interviews