Dolls frontman grateful for label help

http://tinyurl.com/3x9e6lc Dolls frontman grateful for label help Steve Penhollow | The Journal Gazette If the Goo Goo Dolls were a new band instead of a proven band, then the Goo Goo Dolls might not be long for this world. So says lead singer and guitarist John Rzeznik. The band, which performs Tuesday at the Embassy Theatre, benefited from a tradition of artist development that no longer exists in the music business. “Everybody’s like, ‘The record companies are all going away. Whatever. Who cares?’ ” Rzeznik says. “ ‘All these rock stars are rich. Let’s just take their music. Whatever. Who cares?’ “But it really hurts the art when all the artists have to be part-timers constantly worrying about having enough hours in the day to make their art and how they’re going to pay their rent,” he says. “Our record company was a patron to us and took care of us so we could be self-sufficient,” Rzeznik says. Rzeznik says his band tours these days with extremely talented and exciting young artists who have a much steeper road to success than he did almost 25 years ago, due in part to the changing attitudes and habits of consumers of music. Rzeznik believes bands today need to appeal directly to people who download music illegally. “(They need to say) ‘If you like these artists, then please support them,’ ” he says. “It takes money to go into a recording studio and make a record. Access to the equipment isn’t available to them if they can’t make any money.” A month after the release of the band’s ninth album, “Something for the Rest of Us,” the Goo Goo Dolls still market their music the same way theydid a quarter-century ago: a grueling schedule of concerts, radio appearances and media interviews. “We still follow the old model,” Rzeznik says. “We still think it’s important to get our songs on the radio. We still do massively long tours because we know we have got to get out and connect with people.” The recording of “Something for the Rest of Us” is a good example of why it’s sometimes helpful to have a big record company behind you, Rzeznik says. The band was nearly finished with one version of the album when some soul-searching potentially placed the project in limbo. “We mixed the album and listened to it, and we sort of collectively said, ‘You know what? We can do something better,’ ” Rzeznik says. “The only way I can describe it is to say I had a feeling in my gut that we could do something better.” Warner Bros. let them start over, he says. “The record company was like, ‘Fine. We don’t care how long it takes for the record to come out. We just want the best record you can make,’ ” Rzeznik says. Rzeznik says one of his goals now is to help young acts in the same way he has been helped. He plans to act as producer on new projects to be created in the studio that he and his band mates built in the band’s hometown of Buffalo, N.Y. But Rzeznik says he is only interested in working with musicians who really care about music. “I have been asked to write for young celebrity types,” he says. “I won’t name any names. They’re the sort who sit on the BlackBerrys or iPhones while you are doing all the work. They look up occasionally and say, ‘Yeah, yeah, that’s great.’ “I won’t work anymore with people who aren’t real artists,” Rzeznik says. Rzeznik says he and his longtime girlfriend are considering settling down and starting a family soon near where she grew up, downstate from Buffalo. “She’s made a lot of big sacrifices for me the past six years,” he says. “It is time for me to return the favor.” Rzeznik says he is little worried that his workaholic tendencies might not jibe with a more bucolic lifestyle. “Whenever I have a couple of weeks off … I go bonkers. I try desperately to find things to do around the house,” he says. “One time I changed all the faceplates on all the outlets,” Rzeznik says. “I think I actually said out loud at one point, ‘I believe the furnace filter needs changing. I will go now to a hardware store and buy a new filter.’ ”