After a pair of platinum albums, a handful of Grammy nominations, and sold-out shows across the land, Robby Takac still can't get his mind around his job description. He's played on memorable pop songs and shared stages wth such top acts as Metallica and Shania Twian, but something doesn't quite make sense. "I just look at all the other players and think they're so much more happening than me," he laughs. "I don't feel like a musician - I feel like a kid with a guitar."
That's a curious notion considering that Robby and his fellow Goo Goo Dolls have been on the scene for 13 years. When guitarist John Rzeznik began taking over more of the singing and songwriting duties, the pieces fell into place. "Until very recently, we've always thought of ourselves as underdogs. That drove us to keep progressing."
Takac's solitary learning style has been the key to his own musical progress. "I'd rather sit for 17 hours trying to figure out how to do something than pay someone to show me in 25 minutes," he states. Still, it's been years since he took a magic marker to his bass to mark G, C, and D on his E string for hours-long jams with his friends back in Buffalo, NY. The polished pop offerings on the Dolls' latest release, Dizzy Up the Girl, offer clear evidence of how his playing has evolved from the band's punk beginnings. "Slide" and "Iris" show his song-first attitude, and he takes the lead with melodic punk-pop energy on "Amigone". "My main purpose is to be able to accompany someone," he explains. "That's just about as important as their ability to lead."
After phases with Electra, Ibanez, and Epiphone basses, Robby currently favors Fender 4-strings. He plays through two new Ampeg SVT 8x10 cabinets powered by rack-mounted SVT Pros, but he prefers older SVT gear in the studio.
Takac is coming to terms with his pop music role. "Most good thing n mylife have come from having that bass in my hands, so I consider myself a bass player - but not a musician. I don't mean that as a stab to bass players; many are musicians. I feel the same way about producing and running a recording console. As long as I stick to what I know and keep learning along the way, then I'm progressing at my own rate. And that's a good place to be."
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