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Shannon
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Goo Goo Dolls still dancing / article
« on: Nov 6th, 2006, 9:50am » |
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Goo Goo Dolls still dancing
No turning back from Goo Goo name after two decades of making music and building a fan base
By JENNY FENIAK -- Edmonton Sun
Goo Goo Dolls may not be an ideal name. But two decades later, Johnny Rzeznik and Rob Takac are still dancing.
"It's fun to be able to look back and go 'Wow, this is actually that band that I was in out of high school.' It's pretty interesting," says Takac, home in Los Angeles for a couple days.
The band's been, "travelling like mad," promoting their newest album Let Love In and the tour is bringing the Goo Goo Dolls to the Shaw Conference Centre tomorrow night.
Rzeznik approached Takac with the idea of a name change after releasing their self-titled debut in 1987. Having sold 8,000 copies, Takac was afraid of losing their fan base, so the name stayed.
And like he says, those 8,000 fans may be what grew into an international following on a major scale. Although it was the one point Takac didn't want to discuss, Goo Goo Dolls wasn't their first name.
For two days, the band played as the Sex Maggots, but had to change it at the last minute because a venue wouldn't promote the name.
"Those apparently were the two most harrowing days of my life. But apparently, yeah ... yeah. Those were two bad days," says Takac, explaining they didn't have a clue about what they were doing.
"We had no idea. We didn't even have song titles. We used to just drink an awful lot and play punk rock."
Drummer George Tutuska played with the Goo Goo Dolls for the first decade before a personal fallout with Rzeznik hit at a critical point. A Boy Named Goo was the last album Tutuska contributed to and was replaced for that tour by current drummer Mike Malinin.
Although it earned the band's first commercial success with the single Name, criticism pointed to a too-polished sound for success's sake.
"Of course we're looking for commercial success because that's what allows us to do this," says Takac.
"You don't get to be a 42-year-old dude who plays in a rock band in his bare feet every night. I couldn't do that if we didn't sell records."
But the Goo Goo Dolls are also not a band to look back. They almost called it quits after releasing 2002's Gutterflower, but after a little reflection and personal space, the band carried on and turned over a new leaf with Let Love In.
"There was a wall that we had sort of hit creatively," Takac says of Gutterflower. "For the first time in our career, I think we felt ourselves vaguely repeating ourselves and it kind of freaked us out."
So Takac and Rzeznik packed their bags and moved into a century-old masonic hall in their home-town of Buffalo.
"I went to a rave there years ago actually. I had this crazy girlfriend and she brought me to this weird-ass rave and my first notion was, 'Oh my God. This place is full of 16-year-olds on ecstasy and I'm going to get arrested," Takac says. "My second thought was, 'Wow, this would make a great drum room.' "
Although they went back to Los Angeles to work with Barry Allen, their first new producer in a decade, Takac says what made the difference was returning home.
"When you can go to a place where you've had 40 years of experience to draw from, 40 years of activity, of heartbreak and joy, you can take all those moments and sort of feed off them a little bit more," he says.
http://jam.canoe.ca/Music/Artists/G/Goo_Goo_Dolls/2006/11/06/2252796.htm l
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Re: Goo Goo Dolls still dancing / article
« Reply #1 on: Nov 6th, 2006, 11:10am » |
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Thanks for sharing Shannon, really cool to read! 
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