Honesty.
That's something you'll find at the core of everything
The Goo Goo Dolls have ever done–in
thrash-and-burn live shows and lushly-orchestrated
ballads, in buoyantly playful power-pop and
introspective ruminations. Through it all–and through
more than ten years in the trenches of low-budget
touring–the Goos stuck to their guns, winning an avid
cult-following that gradually blossomed into full-blown
stardom.
"The thing is, we've never changed our idea about
what it is we do," says John Rzeznik, the band's
guitarist and primary singer. "It's very dangerous to
put your opinion of yourself into the hands of
someone else, and we've never done that, whether
times were good or bad."
Times have been very good for The Goo Goo Dolls
lately. "Iris," which they contributed to the soundtrack
for the film City of Angels, quickly became a fixture in
the public consciousness, breaking scads of radio
play records and setting the stage for the band's
long-awaited sixth album, Dizzy Up The Girl.
"Making this record was a serious growing process
for us," says Rzeznik. "What I really wanted to do was
be led by the music, rather than leading it.
Sometimes, it felt like that was never going to
happen, but once it did, the feeling was incredible.
This album has an ease of sound that I don't think
we've ever captured before." That freedom is plain
throughout the Rob Cavallo-produced disc, which
resonates with a graceful power that adds new
dimension to the working-class angst still evident in
tunes like the evocative "Broadway" and the aching
"Slide," which yearns for the restoration of a
relationship gone awry. It's a long way from the beery
early days, but that's hardly a bad thing.
"We've all grown as people over the years, and the
music reflects where we are," says Rzeznik. "If it
didn't, it would be bogus. I'm not 18 years old
anymore, and to write songs that look at life from the
perspective of an 18-year-old would be
ridiculous–although that hasn't stopped a lot of
people from trying to do that in the past."
More than on their previous sets, Dizzy Up The Girl
sees the Goos integrating the multiple personalities
into a cohesive whole, mixing aggression with
finesse, toughness with tenderness–the result being
a remarkably seamless whole; strings (artfully
arranged by David Campbell) co-exist with
power-chords, neither overwhelming the other, on
memorable songs like the wry "Black Balloon" and the
somber "Dizzy."
"I think the record breathes a lot, that it draws people
into the spaces rather than just pounding them with a
sound," says bassist/vocalist Robby Takac. "We've
done things that were really in-your-face, and we
wanted to do something different this time." Rzeznik
and Takac were barely out of their teens when they
put together The Goo Goo Dolls in Buffalo,
immediately establishing a two-pronged reputation for
drunken reverie and penetrating songcraft. Those
elements didn't take long to surface on record, either,
charting a collision course on early discs like their
self-titled 1987 debut and 1989's Jed, both of which
burst at the seams with urgent originals like "I'm
Addicted" and knowingly goofy covers culled from
sources as varied as Blue Oyster Cult and
Creedence Clearwater Revival.
The Goo Goo Dolls honed that approach on their
next brace of releases: Hold Me Up established
Rzeznik and Takac as highly individual voices–in
both senses of the word– alternating between
optimism and cynicism, but always willing to stop on a
dime to turn in a cover of Prince or the Plimsouls. The
1993 release Superstar Car Wash (with a demi- hit in
the form of "We Are the Normal," which Rzeznik
co-wrote with Paul Westerberg) brought more critical
raves, and a bit more mainstream recognition as well.
Finally, in 1996, the Goo’s fifth album, A Boy Named
Goo, provided them with their long-overdue
mainstream breakthrough, thanks in part to the
massive success of the heartstring-tugging "Name."
Abetted by new drummer Mike Malinin–who makes
his first appearance on a Goo Goo Dolls long-player
on Dizzy Up The Girl–they spent nearly two years on
the road, playing to progressively larger audiences
and deftly sidestepping the pitfalls of "overnight
success" as only ten-year veterans could.
"For the longest time, the band was almost like a folly
for us," says bassist/vocalist Robby Takac. "Not that
we weren't serious about it, but just that we had no
thoughts of it really going anywhere. Then
somewhere along the line, our hobby became our
job–and that's the point where we had to take stock."
In order to do just that, the trio decided–on the heels
of two solid years of touring– to take some
well-earned time off before reconvening to record
what would become Dizzy Up The Girl. That proved
to be a wise choice, since the band has never
sounded fresher than in the grooves of the disc's
thirteen songs.
"We needed to retreat from everything for a while and
get ourselves centered again," says Rzeznik. "Once
we did that, I felt good about going into this album.
Sure, I still pinch myself once in a while when I think
about what's happened with us. But mostly, I don't
think about it at all–I just want to get to the next
song."
