In this day and age, there seem to be two main types of bands played on the radio: the ones that have been around since our parents were in high school, and the ones that won't last more than a few years (or a few minutes, depending on the strength of their MTV staying power.) But every so often, a band comes along that is the happy medium between those two points. Even if they have not been mainstream the entire time they've been around, the Goo Goo Dolls are one of the few bands that Generation X grew up with.

"Little Pieces of the Nothing That Fall"
Eleven years have gone by since the Goo's released their self-titled debut. Their sixth album, Dizzy Up the Girl, is quite an accomplishment for John Rzeznik, Robby Takac, and new drummer Mike Malinin. Their former drummer, George Tutuska, left shortly after recording their last album, A Boy Named Goo, causing some stirring within the band. Takac, bassist and vocalist of the band, was more than willing to discuss what had happened when asked about the difficulty surrounding the pseudo-breakup of the band. "It was just a hard record to make. We had been through a lot of changes at that point, and we ended up switching drummers. But, we had been together for so long before that happened, we weren't sure if we wanted to stay around as the Goo Goo Dolls with the changing of a member. But the more we thought it was a good idea for all we had worked for at that point, and so we worked things out amicably."

Even though there were no hard feelings after Tutuska left, the Dolls still needed to find a drummer for the tour to promote the album. Their manager had been currently working with Malinin's band at the time, Careless, which also featured a former member of Minor Threat. "When it came time for us to find a new drummer, he suggested his name. He's the first guy we played with already, or at least the majority of them - like 60 percent of them. We played about 20 songs, went out into the hallway and said, 'Should we keep him?, We were, like, 'I don't see why not,' So, on we went with our new drummer. He's turned out to be such an unbelievable addition to the group. It was good for him, it was good for us, it was good for everybody," explained Takac.

"Comin' Down the World Turned Over"
After almost two years of touring to promote A Boy Named Goo, the Dolls took some time off before starting any other projects. Takac put it simply, saying, "I couldn't wait to get off the road at that point. We had been out for a really long time. I was happy to sit around and do nothing for a year, which is exactly what I did." The acoustic single off that album, "Name," provided the band with their long-overdue mainstream breakthrough in 1995.

The next acoustic single the Dolls released was the now well-known song, "Iris," which was expressly written for the City of Angels soundtrack. Although this was not the first movie soundtrack they had contributed to, this song increased, both, the popularity and awareness of the band. "Sometimes (movie soundtracks) are good," said Takac, "if the movie's good and the soundtrack does a lot of public exposure with something like that if it does well. It's really based on the power of your soundtrack. I mean, we were absolutely surprised by the success of 'Iris'. That was a major group of artists on that soundtrack, so to be recognized on it was amazing. For John to have written a song that was in competition with that caliber of people is a pretty high statement."

"Iris," along with their new single, "Slide," are two of the tracks on Dizzy Up the Girl. A slightly controversial album title, the name does not mean what recent local radio has made it out to mean. Good naturedly, Takac made sure to set the record straight. "It doesn't have anything to do with taking advantage of someone, unless you're a mean, horrible, angry person. Johnny had a friend that was working 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and not enjoying her life very much, and John said at one point that he thought it would be a good idea to take her out and 'dizzy her up.' On the cover of the CD she looks like she's having fun, doesn't she? There's nobody violating her, she just had a good time and now it's time for bed!"

"Never Live for Someone Else"
Long time fans of the Dolls might notice the way the band has changed and mellowed over the years. "It's just what happens between the age of 21 and 34. We found power in different things now. Before, there was power in the ability of playing so fast and the ability of making so much noise with just three guys. You know, all the cheap ways of driving power - playing loud, hard and fast. I think, along the way, we've discovered that there are other ways to drive power, like through certain chord structures, through different instrumentation, of through not playing as loud and then playing loud. Things just sort of grow into what they do. If you let them go into the direction that they seem to be going, you can end up with some interesting stuff. I think that's sort of just how this whole thing has progressed," said Takac. With the change of sound and the sucess of the City of Angels soundtrack, the band has now become a staple in the CD players of the "yuppie" crowd. Laughing, Takac described how he sees the situation of this new found listening audience: "We just play rock music. If people want to come and they can dig it, cool. The fact that a lot of yuppies bought the City of Angels soundtrack, God bless them. If they want to buy our records, that's totally cool. I don't care who wants to buy them; it doesn't matter to me. All I know is that we just keep making them. You should just do what you do, and whoever likes what you do, well, that's up to them."

"I Know They Been Missing Round Here"
Admittedly, the Dolls are excited about completing this album and going out on tour again. "I'm looking forward to getting out and playing right now," Takac said. "We've got a lot of new songs and I'm really excited about the show this year. Having been out as a trio for as long as we were, it's pretty cool to have some other people out playing with us now. There are so many avenues we haven’t been down before." With the excitement rising in his voice, Takac continued, "When you see this new show, you'll just freak out. It's so cool. We hired a great bunch of people. We got this cool light designer who does this simple stuff, so it's not like it's a fucking Metallica show or anything. We've got a guy playing strings, a petri organ, and it's just nice. It's all going together really well."

When can fans of the Goo Goo Dolls expect to see them in town? Not for a while it seems, considering they don't yet have a confirmed date to play here. But Takac is sure they will be in town again, although it might now be in the very near future. "We're probably going to hit Pittsburgh on the second round. We're doing eight weeks in the States, and then we're doing six weeks in Japan, Australia, and parts of Europe, and then we're coming back home again to do eight more weeks. We'll probably get it in that next round. We always play Pittsburgh. We used to play at the Electric Banana! We played there, like, three times. We've played the Metropol a couple times and we've played Graffiti, too, I think. We used to do a lot of shows in Pittsburgh."

In the meantime, catch them in December on VH-1's Hard Rock Live! playing songs from both Dizzy Up the Girl and A Boy Named Goo.