By Jae-Ha Kim
Chicago Sun-Times
April 30, 1995
7 p.m. Tuesday;
Metro, 3730 N. Clark
Tickets, $10
(312) 559-1212
Bassist Robbie Takac barely gives Rzeznik enough time to warm up inside Johnny Rockets, where we’re about to start a lunch interview, before he throws an ice cube at his friend. The ice hits Rzeznik’s bare legs and both grin like teenagers.
“We’re overgrown kids,” said Rzeznik, 29. “You can’t take us anywhere.”
Surfing through the menu of burgers, shakes and desserts, Takac asks the waiter about a libation called the Nutty Monkey.
“I think that’s only served during the summertime,” our waiter said.
“Oh, well forget it then,” Takac said. “We’re only here for an hour.”
Munching on their lunch – turkey burger for Rzeznik; chicken sandwich for Takac; fries all around – the Buffalo, N.Y., musicians spoke with Showcase about their hard-rocking pop trio, which will play cuts from its latest CD, “A Boy Named Goo,” at Tuesday’s Metro gig. The show will mark the Chicago debut of drummer Mike Malinin, who joined the Goos a few months ago after George Tutuska quit.
Their single “Only One” is No. 27 and rising on the Billboard album-rock tracks chart, and the accompanying video is being played on MTV’s “Alternative Nation” and “120 Minutes.”
Before the Goo Goo Dolls formed in 1986, Rzeznik worked as an assistant plumber. Oh, and about that band name: They got the idea from a doll ad they found in the back of a detective magazine.
Q. Judging by the success of groups such as Green Day, it seems your band would’ve had better luck debuting in the ’90s than in the ’80s.
Rzeznik: “A friend of mine said, `Who’d have thought that a jerk like you would’ve been ahead of your time?’ And I don’t mean that in the sense that we’re so much smarter than anyone, ’cause we’re certainly not. But the type of music we’ve always played suddenly has some popularity now.”
Takac: “We’ve been running uphill for 10 years, and we’re finally at a point where the steep isn’t so high anymore.”
Q. Who are your heroes?
Rzeznik: “I used to watch Tom Snyder on CNBC all the time. I stayed up all night to watch him. He’s a cult hero. People call up just to say hi to him. He’ll be like, `Hi, thanks for calling. Say hi to Dennis Hopper,’ and the caller will be like, `Hi, Tom.’ ”
Q. OK, come clean. How many scrapbooks do you have with stuff about your band in them?
Rzeznik: “I don’t have any. I don’t even have any of our records. We have five records out, and I don’t have one of them in my house.”
Takac: “I have stuff saved from the ’80s, when we started out, but I don’t have `A Boy Named Goo.’ Our new drummer has it.”
Q. So let’s say you’re driving in a car and a Goo Goo Dolls song comes on the radio. You (a) sing along, (b) turn to the oldies station or (c) turn the radio off.
Rzeznik: “I listen to it once to see how the record sounds on that station and then turn the (radio) off.”
Q. What is your take on alternative radio?
Rzeznik: “I’ll tell you what’s alternative: College radio is the real underground. It’s gotten to the point where they won’t even play some stuff if it’s on a major (label).”
Q. Sometimes. But a lot of college stations are as regimented as the Top 40 stations.
Rzeznik: “That may be, since the whole idea of being in college radio is to learn your craft and then go out into the market and get a job. But college radio has come into its own. I mean, it broke R.E.M.”
Takac: “To a lot of people, we’re a brand-new band. This is our first record as far as they’re concerned, and that’s because radio’s changing so much and we’re finally getting heard. Bands like us can get played on regular stations now instead of having to go meet some kid named Tommy in the basement radio station of some college.”
Rzeznik: “I like Tommy and the basement stations though.”
Takac: “The point is that more people have the ability to hear us than when we came out in 1986.”
Q. One of the reasons was because your band is difficult to define. I mean, there is as much power-pop in your music as there is hard rock.
Rzeznik: (In a faux, put-upon voice) “`They don’t undertand me.’ Oh well. Who cares? You are what you are. Human beings have puny brains, where they have to categorize and file everything away and make lists. People are weirded out by not knowing how to categorize something.”
Takac: “There are so many factions now. The non-racist, vegetarian, skinhead rocker. . . Pop music pretty much covers it.”
Rzeznik: “The Sex Pistols wrote pop songs with dirty words. That’s all that is.”
Q. Who do you think is cool?
Rzeznik: “I love annoying people. I love Jennifer Tilly, Rosie Perez, Roseanne.”
Q. Is your wife loud and cloying, too?
Rzeznik: “No, she is one of the most calm, sedate, rational people I’ve ever met in my whole life.”
Q. How’d you get her?
Rzeznik: “What do you mean, how’d I get her? (He laughs.) I’m not without my own charms, you know. She’s so great. She manages a Disney store. I’ve got more pairs of Mickey Mouse drawers than any guy in the world.”
