{"id":8622,"date":"2014-02-19T08:50:04","date_gmt":"2014-02-19T16:50:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/?p=8622"},"modified":"2014-02-17T12:59:54","modified_gmt":"2014-02-17T20:59:54","slug":"goo-goo-dolls-the-nexus-interview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2014\/02\/19\/goo-goo-dolls-the-nexus-interview\/","title":{"rendered":"Goo Goo Dolls: the Nexus<\/em> interview"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s hard not to think of Buffalo alt-rock-lite band Goo Goo Dolls without immediately skipping to the choruses of their biggest songs, \u201cName\u201d and \u201cIris.\u201d But under the trappings of acoustic power ballad hits is a band that\u2019s coming up on 30 years of distinguished rock and roll, not just the strummed acoustic numbers that made them huge back in the \u201990s. Their latest and tenth album, Magnetic,<\/i> was released last June and marks a new chapter in the band\u2019s respectable career.<\/p>\n

In advance of their upcoming appearance in Victoria, Goo Goo Dolls bassist\/vocalist Robby Takac spoke to Nexus<\/i> about trying out new things, chatting with Mick Jagger, and escaping the shadows of the \u201990s.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Robby Takac (left) and Goo Goo Dolls are still rockin\u2019 after all these years (photo by Chapman Baehler).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

How are you doing, Robby?<\/i><\/p>\n

Good, good. I\u2019m in sunny Los Angeles and my wife is sitting in Buffalo under a huge pile of snow.<\/p>\n

Cool. How are you feeling about <\/i>Magnetic now that it\u2019s been out for a while?<\/i><\/p>\n

Good, man. Everything seems to be going really well. We\u2019ve got a lot of touring coming up, right until November, so it\u2019s been a really good album for us so far.<\/p>\n

You guys have pretty much made a career out of playing power ballads. Do you ever wonder what would have happened if you\u2019d followed more the path of your earlier punk\/hard rock stuff?<\/i><\/p>\n

Well, I don\u2019t think we ever considered ourselves a punk band. We always thought our songs were a lot more melodic than they were, you know? We were always fans of pop songs and I think we were just lucky enough to see what happens with your band if you stay together for 30 years, which we\u2019re coming up on. You grow up as people, and what you want to see out of your music changes.<\/p>\n

Do you feel like you\u2019ve been able to control that and follow your own path?<\/i><\/p>\n

Well, ultimately, it\u2019s us who records the music and approves the mixes, so I guess I would have to say yes.<\/p>\n

Do you listen to new and up-and-coming bands?<\/i><\/p>\n

A little bit. I actually have a record label that I run with my wife, and I deal mainly with Japanese rock bands, so I listen to a lot of Japanese music right now. My wife is from Tokyo so I got exposed to a lot of it early on. We represent [Japanese pop-punk legends] Shonen Knife in the States and we release their records. And since then we\u2019ve started representing other Japanese bands. So we run this little indie label out of our back bedroom.<\/p>\n

Where do the Goo Goo Dolls get your inspiration for writing new music?<\/i><\/p>\n

For years it was always about sitting there in the studio and knocking it out. We had a bunch of songs in varying stages of being done and we\u2019d go into the studio and start recording. It would always end up that we felt we were sitting under this huge pile of unfinished stuff, and it starts to wear on you a bit and makes it difficult to finish a record. So, with this new record we did it in a different way. [Guitarist\/vocalist] Johnny [Rzeznik] would go in and start a demo, then he\u2019d call us up at a certain stage and we\u2019d go in a knock it out, finish that song, and move onto the next song. And we also brought in a few different producers for this one. It really gave this record a chance to feed off of a lot more sources of vision and creativity than the old process did. So this record is a lot different than the previous records because of that.<\/p>\n

A lot of bands from the \u201990s got swallowed up by the shadow of that decade, and some are almost forgotten at this point. You guys have been able to avoid that, but do you ever feel the shadow of the \u201990s weighing down on you?<\/i><\/p>\n

Well, that\u2019s when we were the biggest, so I guess that\u2019s going to have some affect on the way people see things. We just try to keep our heads down and move on to the next thing. We\u2019re lucky enough to be able to play shows and have people recognize the songs and let go of their hard-earned money, because it\u2019s tough these days, man. It\u2019s amazing to me that we still have this opportunity and I hope it goes on for a long time.<\/p>\n

It must also be nice to have Taylor Swift playing one of your songs? [Swift has been known to bust out \u201cIris\u201d in her live sets.]<\/i><\/p>\n

Yeah, there you go! That\u2019s the cherry on the sundae, isn\u2019t it? It\u2019s funny, we toured with the Rolling Stones years back and I remember sitting down with Mick Jagger for one of the few conversations I had with him on that tour and he said, \u201cYeah, it\u2019s strange. On these tours it\u2019s mothers with their daughters, and their daughters,\u201d in this really creepy voice. And, to a much lesser degree than the Stones, it\u2019s pretty amazing after 30 years how many people have just discovered our band through their parents, or just having our music laying around. It\u2019s really interesting to talk to fans and see where they all came from.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s the secret to sticking around this long?<\/i><\/p>\n

I guess just be willing to do what it takes to make it happen. And wish for a lot of luck [laughs]. There are a lot of great bands out there that just couldn\u2019t make it happen.<\/p>\n

Goo Goo Dolls
\n7:30 pm Wednesday, March 5
\n$50.25 and up, Royal Theatre
\nrmts.bc.ca<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s hard not to think of Buffalo alt-rock-lite band Goo Goo Dolls without immediately skipping to the choruses of their biggest songs, \u201cName\u201d and \u201cIris.\u201d But under the trappings of acoustic power ballad hits is a band that\u2019s coming up on 30 years of distinguished rock and roll, not just the strummed acoustic numbers that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8623,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,122],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8622","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts","category-february-19-2014"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8622","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8622"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8622\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8624,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8622\/revisions\/8624"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8623"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8622"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8622"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8622"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}