DaGz

The group was initially formed as Lancaster in the final months of 2005, when Martin Johnson formerly of the Boston act Fake ID/The Drive wrote a handful of songs he wanted to record. He recruited bassist Bryan Donahue and drummer John Keefe. Keefe brought along lead guitarist Paul DiGiovanni, whom he had recorded a brief demo with, to complete the line-up. Some months later the two later learned that they were distant cousins. The group later changed their name to Boys Like Girls.

The quartet soon opened a Pure Volume account to showcase their music, and uploaded a rough demo of "The Great Escape" and an acoustic rendition of "Thunder". By the end of the year, the group had landed the #1 spot on the website's Top Unsigned Artists chart and within a few months had completed nationwide tours with Cute Is What We Aim For, Hit the Lights and Butch Walker.

Lead singer Martin Johnson

During their time in the studio Squire introduced the band to another of his alumni, Cute Is What We Aim For, who offered Boys Like Girls an opening slot on their upcoming headlining tour. Once the album was recorded, Boys Like Girls played back-to-back tours, including the Cute Is What We Aim For tour in June, as well as a two week stint with Butch Walker in late July. In between tours the band filmed their first music video for their album's lead single, "Hero/Heroine", directed by Mark Serao and Chris Vaglio of Grey Sky Films.
The first ever Boys Like Girls show was in Club Deniro in Taunton, Massachusetts, and there were only about 25 people that came to their show.

On August 22 2006, the eponymous Boys Like Girls hit record store shelves. As of August 2008, the album has sold over 580,000 copies within the United States. While, as the title might suggest, songs about boys liking girls clearly prevail on the album, Johnson threw in the occasional escape from the pre-, mid-, or post-relationship formula, and touched upon themes such as his mother's battle with cancer, leaving home and promiscuous adolescents. Concerning the latter, he discussed the motivation behind the song "Dance Hall Drug":

“So many kids are growing up too fast. 13 year olds are giving each other hand jobs in the back of the bus, 14 year olds are already drinking and partying, and kids spend more time worried about growing up and being cool than they do actually growing up and being a kid.”

In the light of the album's release, Boys Like Girls completed their first headlining tour, supported by Permanent Me and Scenes from a Movie in August and September, before heading out on an East coast tour, opening for Lostprophets and Eighteen Visions throughout October 2006. The remainder of the year was spent playing first on a five-band bill with Spitalfield, Punchline, Over It, and Valencia, as well as on the Tournado Tour, where they shared the stage with The All-American Rejects, Motion City Soundtrack, and The Format.
The year 2007 began with a short headlining run with Self Against City, after which the group joined Cobra Starship supporting a two-month Cartel tour in February. In between releasing their album's second single, "The Great Escape" (reaching #9 on the Pop 100), performing on Jimmy Kimmel Live on February 22, 2007, and eventually charting the Billboard 200 for the first time in April 2007, Boys Like Girls played their first international concerts during the Canadian leg of a North American tour with Hellogoodbye and the UK festival Give It A Name 2007.
In mid-2007, the group performed on the annual Vans Warped Tour for the first time and on July 31, 2007 the band reached the #1 spot on the MTV show Total Request Live. The following month, on August 20, 2007, Boys Like Girls members Johnson and DiGiovanni played a private show at 105.1 The Buzz radio station. They announced that they would be performing five shows in Japan for the month of September and that the group would then do a U.S. headlining tour with All Time Low, The Audition, We the Kings, and Valencia.
In September 2007, Boys Like Girls released a three song acoustic set for AOL's Sessions Under Cover as an EP in the iTunes Store, containing "The Great Escape", "Thunder" and a cover of Frou Frou's "Let Go". On December 4, 2007, the band performed a concert with Good Charlotte, with opening act NLT, for New Orleans radio station B97's "The Night B97 Stole Christmas" at the New Orleans House of Blues, located in the French Quarter.
Boys Like Girls played at the Slam Dunk Festival on the Glamour Kills stage, in Leeds, on Sunday, May 25, 2008. The group shared the stage with bands such as, Cute Is What We Aim For, Kids In Glass Houses, Valencia, We The Kings, You Me At Six and The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus. The band was also the opening act for Avril Lavigne's 2008 Best Damn Tour throughout the majority of North America.
Boys Like Girls did not perform on the Van's Warped Tour for 2008, but instead, toured the summer, with Good Charlotte, The Maine, and Metro Station, for the Soundtrack of Your Summer Tour which was kicked off in Southaven, Mississippi with a performance named Red White and Boom hosted by Q107.5 on June 3, 2008. On July 4, 2008 they played in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee at the 2008 Starjam concert, along with Metro Station, Good Charlotte, Ace Young, and Menudo. Two months later, Boys Like Girls and Metro Station performed together at Six Flags St. Louis in Missouri on August 5, 2008. A storm flew in while the concert was in session and the show was delayed for about 30 minutes. Six Flags then chose not to endanger the band or their fans, and decided to cancel the concert altogether. In between tour dates, they worked alongside Nickelodeon pop singer Miranda Cosgrove on her upcoming debut album, due for release in 2009.
Boys Like Girls supported Fall Out Boy on their UK tour in October, along with Surrey's Pop band You Me At Six. A month later the bands debut DVD Read Between The Lines, was released on November 4, 2008.
In January 2009, Boys like Girls toured the UK with Metro Station and Every Avenue supporting.