We interrupt a basketball match between the Celtics and the Lakers to have a chat to bassist Bryan Donahue.
Hey Bryan, so you’re a bit of a sports fan. Are you watching the World Cup? You know I think I have to because it’s such a big event. The first game against England was a pretty big hurdle to get over.
So you’re coming to Oz next month. Have you been here before? Yeah we were there back in February of 2008. I got to spend my 23rd birthday in Australia. Didn’t really do much during the day, just kind of walked around. I forget what city we were in, but just saw the sites and then at night went to a few bars that the local kids recommended.
You guys have been around for a few years now, what’s been the highlight of your career? Every day is pretty much a highlight. It’s kind of hard to narrow it down to just one thing. Everything means something to us in one way or another. The four of us have been in a band together for a while so just the feat of getting into a studio and making a record and having it be released where kids can go out to the store and see it on the shelf, that’s really cool.
Do you think it was easier making the second album? The second one seemed a little bit more difficult. There’s a saying, “you have your entire life to write your first record and then only a couple of months or maybe a year to write your second one”. So the second one’s always difficult because people ask you if you’re scared of the ‘Sophomore Slump’ and at first we really weren’t and it kind of sucked because everyone kept asking us and it kind of just started to get to us. We thought, “what about if we do screw this up?” You just start to ask yourself those questions and you start to psyche yourself out but you just gotta keep a positive mindset, especially when you’re in the studio.
You’ve toured with some pretty cool bands of late, who was the best? Our buddies from Good Charlotte two summers ago here in the States, they have kind of turned into our big brothers almost. They’re just one of those bands that we grew up listening to and watching them on TV in their music videos and stuff so when we got to tour with them for the first time they showed us the right way to do things and the wrong way, We get to tour with them again this summer.
How did you learn your craft? My dad is actually a bass player and I started on all of his gear. My first bass was his first bass. My first amp was his first amp, that kind of thing.
Parents can have a pretty big influence on your music can’t they? Yeah! When I first started in the band they were like, “Oh no, our kid is going to be a starving artist and he’s never going to get proper education and he’s not going to be able to make a living for himself”. Then they could just see how passionate I was about it and they came to shows and you know, they’re parents, they become proud, they get used to it after a while.
Boys Like Girls play Brisbane (9 & 10 July; www.thehifi.com.au),Sydney (11 July;www.ticketek.com.au), Melbourne (14 & 15 July; www.thehifi.com.au) and Adelaide (16 July; www.moshtix.com.au)
