Goo Goo Dolls flex a fresh, modern approach on new album

InterviewJuly 21, 2016St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Eleven albums into its career, veteran pop-rock act Goo Goo Dolls is keeping things as fresh and modern as possible.

Bassist Robby Takac says the band took that approach with “Boxes,” its album that came out in May, and with “Magnetic” (2013).

“Other bands who came up with us haven’t be able to embrace this,” says Takac, who says making records now is different from the days of “A Boy Named Goo” (1995) and “Dizzy Up the Girl” (1998).

“The options of what you can do have grown so unbelievably,” he says. “For us, working with those things and making those new advances is a part of what we do.”

And this is essential because Takac says the record industry Goo Goo Dolls started in doesn’t exist anymore.

“We had to relearn how this thing works,” he says. “Luckily, we can still go out and play songs for the people. They are so unbelievably great to us. It’s different now, but we keep trying to grow with it and hope the label keeps up.”

“Boxes,” featuring the first single “So Alive,” was recorded in multiple cities, including New York, Los Angeles and Buffalo, with various producers.

“There was a vibe on this record that was set up by the last record; all of our records are that way,” Takac says. “We have a grasp on how to do it now — how to make it work for us — and we ended up with a great, positive-sounding record.”

He says the last record “sounded like it was all over the place. The ideas came from all over the place. There were more producers on the last one.”

Goo Goo Dolls prefer working with different producers rather than waiting for one producer to contribute to 20 half-finished songs.

“I think for us it became this huge pile of unfinished business we needed to sort through,” he says. “We thought we were losing the plot a little bit sometimes. John (Rzeznik, singer and guitarist) decided before ‘Magnetic’ he wanted to look at one or two songs at a time, get to a point where we felt good about the song, where we felt it was done and correct, and move on.”

He and Rzeznik approached many songs as just a spark; after a creative discussion, those sparks exploded.

In seeking producers, they wanted folks they could enjoy making music with first and foremost, making the process fun for the band.

“We wanted guys who get what we’re doing and have their fingers on the pulse of what’s going on so they can drive us that way,” Takac says.

They also wanted producers who weren’t too timid to experiment. “When you get in the room with somebody for the first time, they can be conscious of ego — or just the opposite,” he says. “The two main guys we worked with, Greg (Wattenberg) and Drew (Pearson), we really enjoyed working with them.”

Goo Goo Dolls is headlining a summer tour coming Sunday to Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre that also features Collective Soul.

“It’s a task every year figuring out what’s gonna go and what’s gonna stay (in the set list),” Takac says. “We have a pretty good sense of what people want to hear, a good sense of exciting and pivotal moments we think people will enjoy from the new stuff and gems from the past.

“And there’s a lot of flashing lights.”

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