Boys Like Girls secured 'escape’

• By JOHN WIRT
• Music critic
• Published: Jul 25, 2008 - UPDATED: 12:05 a.m.

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The debut CD from Boys Like Girls opens with the pop-rock band’s earnest, uplifting hit, “The Great Escape.” The lyrics are about that eternal, universal yearning to make the most out of life.

Another Boys Like Girls hit, “Hero/Heroine,” works on a more personal level, but the song is just as grand in emotional sweep as “The Great Escape.”

Before the band’s national tours, explosive Internet popularity and a major-label deal with Columbia Records, the Massachusetts foursome paid dues.

Boys Like Girls was formed by four guys from small towns near Boston. As members of a series of high school bands, lead singer Martin Johnson, guitarist-vocalist Paul DiGiovanni, bassist-vocalist Bryan Donahue and drummer John Keefe played the local VFW-church hall circuit.

“Four or five bands,” DiGiovanni said, “every weekend one of them would arrange the show, promote it, rent the church or VFW hall, sell tickets. That was the scene we all grew up in.”

Fast forward to 2008, Boys Like Girls is headlining The Soundtrack of Your Summer Tour, which reaches Baton Rouge Saturday.

Last week, the tour took Boys Like Girls, Good Charlotte, Metro Station and The Maine to The Rave/Eagles Club, a multi-venue entertainment complex in Milwaukee, Wis. His band’s past performances there, DiGiovanni said, show how far Boys Like Girls has come in just a few years.

Boys Like Girls’ first show at The Rave/Eagles Club took place in the complex’s 100-capacity venue, as an opening act. Each subsequent appearance was a step up the ladder, moving from opening act to headliner, from the smallest performance space to the largest.

“So it’s really cool to be at the same venue and remember all the times we’ve had here and how much we’ve grown,” DiGiovanni said.

DiGiovanni was 17 when the slightly older guys in Boys Like Girls asked him to join their band.

“We played together a little bit and everything clicked really fast,” he recalled.

At last, DiGiovanni thought at the time, he’d found some guys who were serious about music.

“One of the tough things about being in a band, especially when you’re young, is finding people who are as devoted as you,” he said. “A lot of kids will have a girlfriend and not really care about the band, or they’ll care more about school or their job, or whatever, and not be very dedicated.