Catch a Goo Goo

Robby Takac, bassist with the Goo Goo Dolls, is in his hometown of Buffalo, New York, laying down tracks for a new record in the same studio where the band recorded their first two albums way back in the late 1980s.

“The difference now is that we own it!” he laughs.
For as long as they’ve been known on this side of the pond – largely thanks to their super-hit ‘Iris’, following its inclusion on the City Of Angels soundtrack in 1998 – the Goo Goo Dolls have been synonymous with that all-American brand of well-produced, major label, radio-friendly AOR, selling copious numbers of albums on both sides of the Atlantic in a career that’s now entering its third decade.
But their current incarnation couldn’t be further from the band’s starting point as a post-punk outfit called the Sex Maggots.
“That name lasted about eight hours, but it’s been following us around for 20-odd years!” Robby laughs. They changed it to the Goo Goo Dolls at the last minute when a promoter refused to advertise them.
“We always say that if we’d had a few more hours we probably could have thought of something better. But every year it gets a little less silly-sounding to me, so that’s good!”
The band’s musical transition took a little longer to come around though.
“When we were younger, it was all about making a scene and causing as much disruption as possible.”
So what changed?
“We learned how to play! And we grew up. If we were going to stay true to what this was in the first place, which was an honest representation of what and who we were at the time, we couldn’t stay a scrappy punk rock band. We came into this thing through a very honest form of music. It was all about being yourself and portraying who you really were and not trying to fool people into thinking you were one thing or another. We’ve carried that with us, and that’s largely due to the fact that we were a post-punk band who wore our hearts on our sleeves.”
So it’s a punk heart that’s given this pop rock band its backbone, and is arguably the element that steered them through the choppy waters of One Hit Wonder territory, and on to sell even more records.
“That song [‘Iris’] was a phenomenon for us,” he muses. “We would’ve been here doing this whether or not that had happened, but since it did, we count it as a blessing, and it feels just as good to perform it today as it did ten years ago.”
While ‘Iris’ is undoubtedly a great pop song, it has inspired a slew of deeply poor covers, including one particularly insipid version by our very own recalcitrant pop cockroach, Ronan Keating.
“I can say with full confidence that I like our version better,” replies Robby, diplomatically. “But it did probably open up an audience that hadn’t heard it, and if that happened, then great. I’m sure John (Rzeznik, who wrote it) would appreciate the publishing money either way!”
Hot Press takes it, then, that the former Boyzoner won’t be invited up when the Goo Goo Dolls visit Dublin this month.
“Erm, nobody’s brought it up… I think we’d have to have an, erm, band meeting first,” he responds, knowlingly.
Before we go though, there is one small, Wikipedia rumour to be cleared up regarding Mr Takac’s bizarre secret hobby.
“Yes,” he confirms, “I have about 3,000 Pez dispensers and I’ve just boxed them up to move them to Buffalo and they’ll take their place in my house with myself and my wife and my two cats and they’ll live happily there with us.”
So keep that in mind, Goo Goo fans: the frilly knickers and red roses can stay at home. It’s packets of Pez sweets that this band want flung up on stage.

The Goo Goo Dolls play the Ambassador, Dublin on July 3 and 4