Something for the Rest of Us: Something for the Goo Goo Dolls' Fans

Formed during an era of early boy band culture, rap and hip hop, this band had a lot to prove. However, Robby Takac, bassist, and John Rzeznik, lead singer and guitarist, proved that there was more to the 1980s than break-dancing and leg warmers. The Goo Goo Dolls’ alternative rock music made its breakthrough in 1995 after its first hit “Name” came out, and its album, “A Boy Named Goo”, sold over two million copies. And they were off.

2010 marks Takac and Rzeznik’s 24th year playing together. Takac emphasizes, however, that it hasn’t been easy staying together for so long.

“We know everything about each other.” He says, “Some days are good, some days you just want to blow your head off. Like any other relationship. Most days I need to ask myself, ‘is this something I can handle?’ and generally the answer’s yes, so we move forward.”

The Goo Goo Dolls began touring in early October to promote its latest album, “Something for the Rest of Us”, just a few months after completing a tour in April.

Takac says that when they’re on the road, they mostly just try to rest. Travelling to different cities and having sound checks, meet-and-greets and interviews everyday doesn’t leave a lot of time for anything else. Especially since they do all their social networking themselves, apart from dates and prices.

It’s not easy to make touring something you want to do every day, especially when you’ve been doing it for 24 years. But even though touring is hectic, Takac admits that it would be more draining not to do it, and he wouldn’t know what to do if he stopped.

His greatest challenge is keeping it interesting, because they’ve been on the road together so many times. Takac explains that he really needs to focus on what he came to do in order to get through it. “The challenge is how do we still make this something we want to do every day. That’s one of the hardest things, I think. You really have to put your brain in a place for touring, which is much different than everything else you do, because this is all repetition.”

And when they’re not touring, life is just as busy, if not busier.

Running a record label and a music-not-for-profit organization based in Buffalo, Takac and his wife, Miyoko Takac, have a lot on their plate. “I’ve managed to put myself in a position where I have way too much to do all the time.” Takac says.

Despite life outside the band, the Goo Goo Dolls still managed to pump out “Something for the Rest of Us”, an album echoing current economic and political conditions in the world. Takac says the songs in this album take into account everything that’s been going on in the world, and emphasize how it has been affecting people.

“We’re living in an economy that’s putting a lot of strain on people,” says Takac, “you have to write about things that are going on around you. And in the last few years we’ve had a couple of wars and some pretty serious international corporation questions.”

Takac is looking forward to playing at the Allegany Casino on October 30. He says that the Goo Goo Dolls plan on playing six songs from “Something for the Rest of US”, and then some of their greatest hits everyone loves.

“We try to not shy away from the songs people expect to hear. A lot of bands have this attitude (that) they played the songs so many times they don’t want to play them anymore. I think that’s pretty rude to the people who paid $30 to see you play, to skip their favorite songs because you don’t feel like playing them. I think that you need to re-examine your occupation if that’s the attitude you have.”

The Goo Goo Dolls have certainly come a long way since they started. Takac says when they started they barely knew how to play, and they tried to be all the bands they loved when they were kids.

And now? Well, now they’ve come far enough along that they’re going to stick to what they know best and be themselves. Takac says that the Goo Goo Dolls will stay in what they understand and grow within that. They’re not going to come out with a techno record next because they turn on the radio and realize that music’s big right now.

Takac says, “Maybe that’s one of the reasons we’ve been able to hang out for a while, because we stuck to our guns a little bit and (have) never really gone into territories we didn’t belong or didn’t understand. We just do what works.”

The show starts at 7 pm, Oct. 30. Tickets are on sale at TicketMaster for $65.