(See article link for some photos)
Get ready South Florida! One of music’s best rock bands, The GOO GOO DOLLS, are coming to the Pompano Beach Amphitheater on August 5th. The Goo Goo Dolls have released their latest album "Something for The Rest Us" and it is available for purchase. It contains all of the magic and great new music you expect from the Doll’s.
Robby Takac, bass player for the Goo Goo Dolls, took time out from his busy schedule to speak with Bill Hernandez prior to their arrival to South Florida. Be sure to Check out the end of the interview for a way to get backstage and meet the band. Here is the interview in it’s entirety.
Q:Good Morning Robby. How are things going?
A: Great! Just great. I woke up in Connecticut this morning.
Q: I see you have a show tonight in Wallingford. Connecticut is a pretty nice place.
A: Yeah, it is. At this point man, it’s like you wake up, open you eyes, you look at the hotel and make sure you know where you are and make the best rock concert you can... wherever that turns out to be.
Q: At least you have the benefit of a hotel room and get a break from the tour bus.
A: We travel at night most of the time, we drive at night and then get into the hotel just in time to get a couple more hours sleep before we start on the road again. How are you doing?
Q: I am doing fine. It is the rainy season here in Florida and we just had a big thunderstorm. The venue you will be playing on August 5th is the Pompano Beach Amphitheater, so there is a chance that the show might get a little wet.
A: I don’t know if you ever saw that Fourth of July video we did, I forget when we did it, 2006 maybe, I don’t know. There was like a torrential downpour that day and we just happened to have the cameras rolling. If you ever get the chance, it’s really pretty fun, man. Mother nature was doing her best, throwing everything she had at us.
Q: To what do you owe the bands success?
A: Well, I think part of it is staying together. A lot of bands seem to have a hard time with that. As bands become less successful, and their careers take those peaks and valleys and money enters the situation, and as notoriety enters the situation, quite often your relationship is strained pretty intensely. Obviously those things still happen but we have been able to ride those things out for a couple of decades now.
Q: Did you ever think that you would still be touring and doing this twenty five years later?
A: No, No, NO! We spent the first ten years, the first ten years we were playing together, we thought the chance of success was nil because bands like us weren’t really breaking to much. Then, you know, in the mid nineties we started to see that there might be a little chance and we were already rolling by that point. So when it was time for us to go out there, we actually knew how to play together, and stuff.
Q: How did the band get it’s name?
A: Well... that was a mistake that we have been dealing with for about twenty five years now.
Q: It has a pretty nice ring to it.
A: Yeah, but I don’t think it really means anything anymore. Like when you hear KISS, you don’t think of people kissing, you think of Gene Simmons. I hope that it has become sort of a moniker, a label for what we do here.
Q: It could have been worse, you could have been Hootie & The Blowfish!
A: (Laughing) Yeah, that one and Toad The Wet Sprocket. They are pretty much the only people that have passed our ridiculousness for a name. But we are still here anyway.
Q: Are you self-taught as a musician?
A: Yeah, pretty much. I had trombone lessons when I was a kid in Elementary School where I got a little bit of the basics. But yeah, I am self-taught.
Q: The band just dropped an album via I TUNES called "LIVE FROM SOHO" Where was that recorded?
A: You know what, we recorded that in the APPLE store, which is probably the hippest place on Earth. If you think about it, it is the hippest place in New York City, so that may be the epicenter of hip.
Q: Tell me about the bands current album "Something For The Rest Of Us". Does this album differ greatly from previous albums?
A: Well, yeah. I mean it is it’s own thing. We like to think each one is a reflection of what’s going on in the world and our world between the last time we tried to make a record. It’s been a pretty hairy ride these last four or five years so I think this record reflects that. We went in with our band, our live band, which is something we never really done before. Generally, when we’ve gone in to make a record, it’s just John, Mike, and myself. This time, we had the guy’s that toured with us in the studio as well. This one translates really, really well.
Q: A few years back, the band went to Alaska to film a special for VH1 titled "Music In High Places". What was that experience like?
A: We got all of the paperwork in order and VH1 was going to fly us over there. At the last minute, there was a breakdown in negotiations that prevented us from going, so we had to stay in the States. We shifted the entire production from Cuba to Alaska. You can’t get much further apart than that. It really did turn out great though. Everybody up there was so nice to us. We showed up in that little town, Kotzabue, and the whole town was out there waving signs and stuff. It was cool. It was so much fun.
Q: You are a god singer in your own right. Any plans to do something solo?
A: I don’t know. Funny Thing is that the one thing that I ended up doing, I didn’t sing on. I was sort off the default singer for our band back in 1986. As we were looking for a singer, we made a record and it’s something I like to do. I feel pretty lucky to able to exercise that part of my brain. It’s just something that I like to do.
Q: What is next for the Goo Goo Dolls?
A: It seems as though we are making some moves here while we are on the road, which is something that we do all that often. We have been recording a few songs, doing some un-released stuff during the shows now, which is a pretty rare thing for us, but we have some new songs now and we have actually gone in with the producers and mixers and we might see a record a lot quicker this time. We are usually about four years between records but thank God that the world doesn’t allow you that luxury so much anymore the way things are operating. I think you really got to be available and productive to keep their interest pointed at you and I guess thats the best band right now.
Oh, I can’t believe I almost forgot to mention that for the past 13-14 years, we have been working with this organization called USA HARVEST. We do canned goods collections at all of our shows. We usually do a few thousand items every show. We ask fans to bring canned goods and non-perishable items with them. Our Street-Team is good enough to stay out front and make the collections for us. Millions and millions of meals have been served because of USA HARVEST, so this is a program that really works and... WHOEVER BRINGS THE MOST ITEMS TO ONE OF OUR SHOWS ENDS UP COMING BACKSTAGE TO MEET THE BAND AND TAKE A PICTURE AND STUFF!!
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