Rolling Stone April 1, 1993 by Chris Mundy
VOLLEY OF THE DOLLS
The Goo Goo Dolls turn it up and kick out the jams, Replacements style
IF BON JOVI MATTERED - OR AT LEAST aced a couple members, cranked out urgent, bracing melodies and could captivate a sold-out, sweat-soaked club - it might look a lot like this.
It's a Friday night in Hoboken, New Jersey, and the Goo Goo Dolls have arrived. Guitarist-singer Johnny Rzeznik has just bodysurfed his way back onto the stage unscathed, his nouveau Jovi haircut covering his face and only helping to accentuate the Richie Sambora-like coif of bassist-singer Robby Takac, who is stomping around the tiny stage like a hyperactive child.
It's a typical Goo Goo Dolls show, precariously balancing juvenile energy with grown-up insights, pristine pop with garage-rock abandon. The mesmerized horde ranges from teenagers in flannel to the late-twentysomething peers of the band . . . in flannel. Johnny and Robby bound across the stage barefoot while drummer George Tutuska methodically beats the point into the crowd's skull with the workmanlike consistency of a construction boss. As the song crashes to a close, the guitarist eyes the crowd. ``Last time we played here, we had to leave the stage because of a gas leak,'' says Johnny (because the Goos' last names are less pronounceable than those of most New York cabbies, the band sticks to first names). ``Some guy yells out, `Westerberg wouldn't have quit playing.' Yeah, right. I just told him, `Westerberg wouldn't play here.' ''
Yes, life for the Goo Goo Dolls is grand. Their fourth album, Superstar Car Wash, has focused the group's range and rage even more than Hold Me Up, the Goos' last outing and major-label debut. And after seven years of starving for rent money, three record labels, thousands of tour miles and a fair share of near fistfights, their indie credibility is actually being questioned. For three guys from Buffalo, New York, who still rehearse every afternoon at one and who all own their own bowling balls, stardom must be eerily close at hand.
``I think if we'd gotten a break when Hold Me Up came out, we wouldn't have been ready for it,'' says Robby, discussing the band's current media blitz while sipping a lousy cup of coffee in a Manhattan restaurant the day after the Hoboken show. ``To be honest, I think we would have walked away from a lot of it.''
Now, if Paul Westerberg's validation is what the Goo Goo Dolls were lacking to get them ready and finally put them over the top, they've fairly well pole-vaulted into a new sphere. After the Replacements' boss took the Goos on the road with him and his ex-band, Westerberg even penned lyrics to ``We Are the Normal,'' Superstar Car Wash's first single.
``That wasn't even the song that we asked him to write words for,'' says Johnny. ``It was on the tape that I sent him, and he said, `Well, I put words to a couple other, too.' I was like `Uhhh, okay.' What do you say to him? I'm kind of intimidated by him. He's a legend.''
Ironically, the acoustic-tinged ``Normal'' is the one song on the album that doesn't resonate with the same slovenly majesty and boozy charm that the Goos share with the Mats. Like the albums before it, Superstar Car Wash is the sound of three Goos kicking and screaming for attention. Take a listen and you find out that they had something to say all along.
``The general theme behind this band for a long time has been a sympathetic point of view to most people our ages,'' says Johnny. ``Things are fucked up, but let's make the best of it.''
Making the best of a fucked-up situation has been the Goos' modus operandi from Day One. Left out in the cold in the Buffalo music circuit, the group made its own scene, renting halls to get gigs. Once a break came, the band found itself signed to the record deal from hell.
``I'll give the guy at Celluloid Records one thing - he put out our record,'' says Robby. ``I don't think I would have. But we'd say, `We need twenty dollars for gas,' and he'd say, `What the fuck are you calling me for?' They were making ninety percent of the profit, we paid all the bills, and they're telling us to screw off.''
Subsisting on peanut-butter sandwiches, the band made it to California intact (Johnny survived a night when, sleeping on a stranger's couch, he was awakened by the sound of his host trying to rape his own sister) and eventually signed to Metal Blade Records. And while Jed, the resulting record, lashes out at the outside world, the follow-up, Hold Me Up, began the group's effort to put forth a hopeful, if still somewhat desperate, message. The title is a nod to the faith of the Catholic-raised band members.
``I dig God,'' says Johnny. ``But that's a real personal thing. I would never tell anyone what they should believe. For me, if there's a guy on the street that needs a buck and you've got one, you should give it to him. Whether he wants it for crack or a cup of coffee. It's an act of faith. And that will come back to you.''
It might finally be coming back to the Goos. ``One thing this band gave me is confidence in myself as a person,'' says Johnny. ``I couldn't even talk to people without putting my hand over my mouth, but Robby made me sing.'' (``There were some rough spots,'' Robby interjects.) ``It's come down when I'm standing there thinking, `He's going to sock me in the fucking head.' But it all works out, and then we go bowling.''
And when the Goo Goo Dolls bowl, they bowl in Buffalo. ``I'm going to live where my family is until I die,'' says George. ``If I won the lottery, I'd travel the world, but I'd always go home to where my family is.''
For underdogs making good (``We used to be house dogs,'' says George. ``Now we're show dogs''), it's nice to be where the locals know you're not just another designer-grunge thrash in the pan.
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