What gives bands longevity? Is it the success or failure of a second album or the connection they build with their fans? Was it a lack of social media and heir of mystery? I don’t think there will ever be a clear answer – especially as the industry continues to change – but what is clear is that some bands just have that ‘it’ factor that leads to a long career filled with highs, lows, and everything in between. The Goo Goo Dolls, in my eyes, have had one of those careers so far. With a plethora of hit songs that many can recognize just by the opening notes and a number of performances everywhere from both Olympic games to small clubs in a town you have probably never heard of, their career is one that many would want to have and will continue to take shape with the release of every new album and the start of every new tour. We caught up with founding member Robby Takac to see what comes next.

Broken Records: The music industry has changed just a little bit since the band first began. What do you think are the best and worst things that have happened to the industry?
Robby Takac: I think the best thing is obviously the ease of access to everything. You can record a record easily now – you won’t necessarily sound good [laughs] – you can distribute a record, you can promote that record, you can do videos, you can set tours up. You can do that all very easily on your own these days and so I think that the ease of access is pretty amazing, but I think at the same time the ease of access has also destroyed things. It has gotten very noisy out there, there’s a lot of people doing a lot of stuff and it seems to be a little tough to separate the weak from the tough, if you will, these days. It’s become very tough to run a business in the music industry these days compared to what it was like when we started thirty years ago. You really have to be creative about it and I think that’s made it tough. You don’t make records from record sales like you used to. It’s more about being out there, it’s more about taking every opportunity you possibly can to get out there in front of people and make them more and more aware of what you do.

When we started, our first record came out in the 80s and we were just indie kids and we looked at a record industry as our heroes. [We] were selling 15 thousand, 20 thousand records, maybe 100,000 records if they were huge. The record industry we saw when we were kids had people routinely selling 30, 40 million records so people didn’t have to tour. They didn’t have to put their songs in commercials, they didn’t have to give their music away to movies, they didn’t have to go and do free shows for radio stations, [or] any of this stuff because they were making so much money selling records that they didn’t have to worry about selling records [laughs]. So when that shifted… and people blame it on Napster and file sharing and all that stuff, [but] I think it was more the mentality that you can stream stuff online or you can just buy a single song, and not worry about it and not have to have a full record. I think it was just a shift in the way people bought. People make music because that’s what they do, they don’t make music to get rich – at least most people don’t – so that’s not going to stop, it’s just going to be a matter of how people consume that and how the artists live within the available options they are given. It’s not going to stop, but I think it’s more about just enjoying music and enjoying what that is and forgetting about the business and how that works.

"People make music because that’s what they do, they don’t make music to get rich - at least most people don’t"

BRM: After having played so many shows and some songs thousands of times by now, how does it all stay interesting? Obviously each crowd is different, but how does a tour stay interesting after all this time?
RT: I think you’ve just gotta get into the heads of the fans. Like you said, every crowd is different. I think you have to understand that those people are there just once – maybe twice, maybe three times, after this many years maybe more than that – but they’re there and it’s a new experience for every person and I think you need to be able to live vicariously through their experience and see it through their eyes and feed off of some of that excitement that’s in the room because if you lose the ability to do that, it can become an incredibly tedious job for sure.

BRM: We have all heard the stories about bands with weird items on their rider sometimes just to see how detail oriented a promoter is, and although people joke, sometimes there are just random things that occasionally are necessary while on the road. What is the most random thing you have asked for or received on a rider?
RT: We ask for… when people read our rider they tend to laugh because we ask for 12 pairs of socks every day and everybody kind of laughs, like why would you need 12 pairs of socks, but when you are in close quarters with a bunch of dudes you can never, ever, ever have enough socks on hand [laughs]. Other than that, we’re pretty low key.

BRM: Everyone has a list, written down or not, of things that they wish to accomplish at some point in their career from people to work with to venues to play. Though I’m sure many of the boxes have been checked at this point, what is left?
RT: We’ve done so many unbelievably crazy things up to this point, I mean things that I never thought I’d do in my life. There are things in my personal life that I’d like to achieve that I haven’t, but with the band I’ve never really thought that way. When we started, it was all about getting into playing and we did that in 1988; and so ever since then, it’s just been fielding what comes along and some amazing things have. We’re pretty lucky; I mean I played where I saw KISS play when I was a little kid in Buffalo. I got to play when the new arena opened in Buffalo. We played the Olympics – Winter and Summer – we played football games, I could go on and on. We played the Kids Choice Awards, the Adult Video Awards [laughs], and everything in between. It’s just crazy. I guess we’ve never won a Grammy, but I really don’t care quite honestly if we win one because if we did all this great stuff without winning one then who needs a Grammy right? [laughs]

BRM: What does music mean to you?
RT: For me personally music in itself… I could speak in a very broad term and say it’s that thing that will jostle you. You hear something and it will remind you of what was going on at that moment. It just does, you can’t stop it and I think that’s a pretty amazing thing. Personally, it’s pretty much allowed me to do everything I do in my life. I wake up in the morning and I look at my phone and that phone exists because, for the past 30 years, I’ve been making music with John. I met my wife halfway across the world when I was touring with my band, probably never would have met otherwise. I’ve seen so many places and I’ve done so many things. The things I do for fun are related to music. The things I do to exist have to do music. It’s a pretty big part of my life and I guess that’s all I can say.