Boys Like Girls didn't have to look far for inspiration when it came time to record Love Drunk, the long-awaited follow-up to their self-titled Columbia Records debut. After spending three years on the road in support of Boys Like Girls – which has sold more than 700,000 copies to date, is certified gold by the RIAA, and spawned the top ten Top 40 radio hit "The Great Escape" – the four friends from Boston knew how much they'd progressed as a band, and they credit a lot of that growth to their fans.

"Being able to play your songs almost every night for three years straight, you notice that they're morphing into different interpretations, and bits and pieces are changing as you progress as a band," says front-man Martin Johnson of his band's evolution since the release of their debut in August 2006. "When we came into the studio and started banging this new record out, it was like second nature to us. We didn't want to write an album that was the same as our first record, but we still wanted to do something that would be fun and different and cool, and stay totally locked in with our fans because they've been here for us since the beginning and allowed us to evolve with them. They are the most important thing to us."

So Boys Like Girls did what they do best, embracing the same dynamic in the studio that has become a trademark of their live shows. It started with the songs but ended with the performances. In a day-and-age where technology rules and albums can be recorded with the press of a button and the loop of a sample, Johnson, guitarist Paul DiGiovanni, bassist Brian Donahue and drummer John Keefe wanted to capture their essence as a band, making spontaneity more important than pristine over-processing.