In House With Boys Like Girls: Taking a Hiatus, Letting Punk Go and Living in Their 'Crazy World'
"It was a tough time to be in a band in late 2010. Our last single that we had released to radio, radio stations were saying, 'We love the song, we love the hook, can we have a mix without guitars?' It was like, 'Are guitars extinct?'"
It's a little shocking to hear Boys Like Girls frontman Martin Johnson reflect on the musical climate of 2010 in such blunt terms when the band stops by AOL Music's New York office for an interview. But, thinking back on what was getting played on the radio then, it's easy to remember why the shift from the punk-pop of the early 2000s into a much more dubstep-and-DJ-based scene would have such a serious effect on the kind of record the band could make.
"We started as a band in 2004, 2005, and it was like a wall of guitars was the dealio. Big vocal center with a big hook, a lead guitar that came in on the chorus, fast drums and you're rocking. That's the deal. That's the song. It's just not the case anymore," Johnson says. "If we came out with that album now, it would sound dated. It would sound dated to my ears. I love listening to those records, but they don't feel relevant to me anymore."
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In House With Boys Like Girls
To figure out where to go next with their sound, Boys Like Girls scrapped the album they had prepared for release and went on hiatus, but Johnson barely even took any time off from music during the band's break. Instead, he kept making music in a variety of ways, from starting a side project called Empire Kids with Boys Like Girls' new bass player
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