For 10 albums and 30 years, the Goo Goo Dolls have made themselves a staple in alternative pop-rock thanks to their emotion-driven anthems like “Iris” and “Slide,” but for their 11th album Boxes, out Friday, the group wanted to change things up.

“I don’t wanna live within the walls that I built, so we just broke them down,” lead singer John Rzeznik told EW at Live Nation’s National Concert Day. “Everyone changes; you have to change. I didn’t want to make the same record again.”

So how are the Goo Goo Dolls making a completely fresh new album? According to Rzeznik, it came from working with new producers and writers from genres a little more removed from his own — including some EDM!

“I worked with a few people who I really enjoyed working with, and I just opened my head to a lot of different influences,” Rzeznik said. “I did a song with these young guys Cash Cash, EDM guys, and I was just so fascinated by what they did. And then I worked with a guy named Drew Pearson on some writing, and he’s just… he’s crazy. He’ll do anything. And it was just about taking all the restrictions off of everything.”

That genre experimentation is evident in the layered, anthemic song “The Pin,” which the band released a couple of weeks ago to promote Boxes. It’s also one of Rzeznik’s favorite tracks from the new collection.

“There’s just a really good feel to it because there’s so many different influences just smashed together in that one song,” Rzeznik said. “It was fun to do… It’s the one I had the most fun writing and producing.”

And while the process of switching up their sound for this new album took some work, there was no doubt they’d still be making music. Rzeznik admitted he can’t even imagine life outside of being in the Goo Goo Dolls at this point.

“We’ve been doing this our whole adult lives. We’ve been doing this longer than we haven’t been doing this, which is really kind of a scary thought. Like, I don’t know what it’s like to not be in this band.”