Boys Like Girls have had a crazy year, but they're taking a quick break for a much needed re-group before they hit the road again. J-14 caught up with lead guitarist Paul DiGiovanni while he was relaxing back home in Massachusetts, where he told us all about working with Taylor Swift and BLG's exciting plans for the future!
J-14: What's coming up next for you guys?
Paul DiGiovanni: We have about three weeks off where we're just going
to be doing little things here and there. At the end of next month, we have a Canadian tour with Hedley for a couple weeks, and then we're heading over to Germany to tour there for about two and a half weeks. In the spring we have another big U.S. tour coming up -- just touring for a while! I think within the year we'll start talking about recording for the next record.
J-14: Your fans are able to come on stage with you at the end of the show -- what made you decide to do that?
Paul: I don't know if people have ever really done that. Everyone's really conservative -- they see the show, just get off, and leave. We have a really long, cool set, and everything we do is for the fans. So at the end of the show during "The Great Escape," it's a big farewell climatic thing, and we just call all the kids up. It makes their night fun, it's really memorable for everyone, and it's really fun for us, so we just thought it'd be a really good idea.
J-14: What was it like working with Taylor Swift on "Two Is Better Than One?"
Paul: Awesome. We couldn't have had a better person to have on the track. Actually, we had that song finished and just thought there needed to be another aspect in it. She's the nicest person ever, and we just asked her to help us out with some stuff. She totally did and was cool about it, and she did a great job. She's just really, really nice. It was great.
J-14: What's your favorite song to perform live?
Paul: On the last tours that we've been doing, I would say "Love Drunk," because it's the first [song we play]. Usually when a band comes out, they don't play one of their big singles to open the show -- they usually open it and get off to a steady start and then blast singles near the end, but we just come out right in your face with "Love Drunk" right off the bat. Everyone goes insane like it's the last song of the night, so that's a really cool way to come out and kind of surprise the kids, and it just got the momentum going for the whole show.
J-14: Why is it important to you guys to raise awareness and not shy away from tough issues in your songs?
Paul: [Singer] Martin [Johnson] always says he writes songs like an ongoing journal of his life, and he goes through normal stuff so it's easy for people to relate to. We've been affected by bad things like friends' suicides, and Martin and I have that common thing where our mothers both passed away from cancer, so we have these certain things that are really important to us. Now we have an outlet, and we want to try and put something positive out there and get kids to be involved. At this point in our lives, everyone can hear our voices, and we have something to say, so it's good to put a positive message across and hopefully make other kids feel better if they share common things like that with us.
Courtesy of Kaori Suzuki/Sony
