Goo Goo Dolls bassist Robby Takac says he imagines the group's new fans are in for a bit of a shock when they dig out the first Goo Goo Dolls album, recorded more than 10 years ago. "I'm trying to picture some little girl whose favorite bands are like Goo Goo Dolls and Savage Garden or 'N Sync going 'Aw, that Johnny is so cute! I'm going to buy all his early records,' and putting it on and then screaming and running to her parents."
While you couldn't tell it from 1998's sensitive ballad "Iris," the Goo Goo Dolls began their careers cranking out garage band thrash in such local (Albany) dens of iniquity as 288 Lark and QE2, both now defunct.
Takac says he's happy the Dolls began with rougher sounds. "If our first records were to have sounded like this, I think we'd be a cheesy, schlocky mess now," says Takac from his Atlanta hotel room. "I think the fact that we grew out of this real garage-y, we're still learning how to play our guitars bear with us, sort of thing makes what we do now a little bit more real." Formed in 1986 in Buffalo, the group (Takac, vocalist/guitarist John Rzeznik and drummer George Tutuska) signed with Metal Blade Records the following year. Metal Blade was known for thrash and death metal, and Takac admits the band was an awkward fit on the roster.
"Nobody really knew where to put us then," says Takac. "We had long hair and played really loud fast music, but- I don't mean this in a homosexual way, but it was a little gay for a lot of people. Just happy and vaguely optimistic or deceivingly optimistic."
As the group's sound mellowed, the Goo Goo Dolls seemed even more out of place on the label. In 1990, Metal Blade became a subsidiary of Warner Brothers, which helped expand the audience for the quickly maturing and changing Dolls.
"Superstar Carwash," released in 1993, earned the group critical kudos, but it was 1995's "A Boy Named Goo" that put the group in the public eye with the hit single "Name."
Ironically, though, while the album was going platinum, the group was going broke and nearly split up. "We sold an awful lot of records on 'A Boy Named Goo' and left with nothing," says Takac.
The band went through an acrimonious parting with Metal Blade, moving to Warner Bros. proper. At nearly the same time, Takac and Rzeznik had an acrimonious parting with drummer Tutuska, who was replaced with Mike Malinin.
The movie "City of Angels" turned out to be the group's salvation. Warners tapped the band to add a song to the movie's soundtrack. The quickly written "Iris," with its aching chorus of "I just want you to know who I am," was the result.
"It was weird," says Takac. "We saw the roster for the record- it was like Peter Gabriel and U2 and Alanis Morissette, Paula Cole.....We thought, yeah, it'll be nice to have a song on a record with a lot of big singles on it."
It was "Iris," though, that became the breakout, climbing to the top of the Billboard Top 40, Modern Rock, Adult Contemporary and Album Rock charts. It was nominated for three Grammys, and, according to Airplay Monitor, "Iris" was the most played song of 1998.
Takac says the group was recording its album, "Dizzy Up the Girl" when they realized the musical monster they had created. The group has since had a No.1 with the song "Slide," and the group's latest single, "Black Balloon," is currently in the Top 20 and still climbing the charts.
Takac says at the moment the band has to deal with waiting for their singles to drop off the charts in order to release new ones. "But there's worse things that can happen in your life than to have too many good songs."-
