Photo by Ed Gregory
After 33 years and 12 studio albums, the Goo Goo Dolls are still alt-rocking. Founding members lead singer John Rzeznik and bassist Robby Takac and the band completed a 20th-anniversary tour for their 1998 album “Dizzy up the Girl” last November, and now they’re on the road again a year later.
Takac concedes that they aren't the group they used to be, and he's OK with that. “I don’t think you can really discern or recognize this band from our release in ’86 to the current state of the band,” he says, “but I think that’s due to the fact that we’ve gotten to see what it sounds like when a band grows up with the guys in it.” Reached via phone from Austin, the first stop on the “Miracle Pill” tour, Takac talks about keeping the band together and changes in the music industry.
Richmond magazine: How did you come up with the name “Miracle Pill” for the new album?
Robby Takac: [Miracle Pill] is a song that John [Rzeznik] and Sam Hollander wrote together, and we thought it’d be a cool title for the record. A lot of this record kind of touches on being able to make connections between people, and how it seems to be getting tougher and tougher with technology and the current sociopolitical state of the world and our country.
RM: What’s your secret for the band’s long-lasting success?
Takac: If it’s worth doing, then you work hard at making it work. We’ve put that work in, and we’ve had varying degrees of success, but it all seems to come together in the end, and we’ve got an amazing group of fans that hold us up, and people who love to come sing songs with us at our shows.
RM: How has the way that you reach your fans changed over the years?
Takac: You can dramatically see a change in the crowd reaction to a new song since streaming services have come around. When I grew up, you would hang out in the record store and talk to people, and it would be a cool experience, you’d learn about the music. And then the record stores went away, and that conversation went away. I think it’s amazing having that vast collection of music at your disposal, but on the other hand, it did upend the music business for a while.
RM: How has the music of the Goo Goo Dolls evolved over the years?
Takac: Well, we started as a punk-rock band. If you listen from one record to the next, it makes sense, but if you skip a few records in the middle somewhere, it doesn’t even sound like we’re the same band sometimes. I think that’s one of the reasons why we’re still able to do what we do, because we’re still trying to do new things, and we’re not trying to go out there and act like those guys who put out records in 1993, because we’re not those guys anymore. You’ve got to grow up with what you do.
The Goo Goo Dolls perform with opening act Beach Slang at the Carpenter Theatre on Nov. 19. $38 to $73. dominionenergycenter.com