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"Rediscovering the Goo Goo Dolls"
« on: Jun 19th, 2006, 1:54pm » |
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Rediscovering the goo goo dolls
Monday, June 19, 2006
By ALAN SCULLEY for The Columbian Advertisement
The new Goo Goo Dolls CD, "Let Love In," may prove the adage that you can't go home again, at least to recapture some sort of musical sound that has gone by the wayside.
In making the new CD, the trio of singer Johnny Rzeznik, bassist Robbie Takac and drummer Mike Malinin returned to the group's hometown of Buffalo, N.Y., seeking fresh inspiration for the album.
Some longtime fans probably hoped it would be the perfect setting for the Goo Goo Dolls to rediscover the punkish edge that defined the group's early albums such as "Jed" and "Hold Me Up."
But "Let Love In" doesn't sound like an early Goo Goo Dolls album. Instead, like the more recent records "Gutterflower" and "Dizzy Up The Girl," the new CD emphasizes pop craftsmanship over power. Even rockers like "Stay With You" feature huge chorus melodies more than volume, and overall "Let Love In" favors melodic mid-tempo tracks and ballads like "Here Without You," "Feel The Silence" and the title song.
The group's summer tour with the Counting Crows, which comes to The Amphitheater at Clark County on Wednesday, will feature a set that leans heavily on the new material.
Hooked on a feeling
The return to Buffalo rubbed off in less visible but perhaps more important ways, Takac said.
"I think maybe people thought we were going to make 'Jed' again," Takac said. "It wasn't like that at all. What we were trying to regain again was that feeling of a reason why we're making these records to begin with."
For a time before work began on the new CD, Rzeznik, Takac and Malinin weren't sure if remaining a band was in the cards.
One issue was frustration over the expectations from Warner Bros. Records, the band's record company.
After moving more than 5 million units (and reeling off four hit singles) with 1998's "Dizzy Up The Girl," Warner Bros. was disappointed that "Gutterflower" sold a more modest 800,000 copies.
Internal band issues also had to be addressed.
"Sometimes I don't relate to those guys, and they don't relate to me," Takac said. "You know, we spent so much time on the road, we were a little sick of each other, and we were a little bit disappointed that our last album didn't do as well commercially as the one before."
So as a first step toward a new CD, Rzeznik, Takac and Malinin convened at Rzeznik's Los Angeles studio for what turned out to be much more than a jam-songwriting session.
"We had started trying to write songs and do all of that kind of stuff," Rzeznik said. "But we mostly wound up sitting around and talking and really trying to understand each other again. I had expressed to those guys how I was feeling. I just feel numb."
As the band members spent more time together, it was clear they still wanted to be a band. To further the partnership, the members went to Buffalo to work on the CD. In the process, big changes were made in the product.
After working with producer Rob Cavallo for more than a decade, the band switched to Glen Ballard, whose songwriting and production helped CDs by Alanis Morissette and Dave Matthews.
"I just think we had outgrown our relationship with Rob," Rzeznik said. "It was sort of like I already knew what we were going to do when we got into the studio if we went in with him again. I wanted to do something different. I wanted to experience someone else's process."
Ballard got involved, not just as a producer but as a songwriter on three tunes. It was an unusual move for a band that had always been careful about outside involvement in its records. But Ballard earned the band's trust.
"I think that having the confidence in him as songwriter and him as a record-maker and him as an orchestrator of personalities in the studio, knowing he has been through that process so many times, made it a little bit easier for us to let go of our process and let him into our process a little bit, which he did," Takac said. "He became a full-on part of this thing for six months."
Both Rzeznik and Takac voiced satisfaction with "Let Love In," with Takac calling it the best CD the Goo Goo Dolls had made during a career that began in 1986.
"We went into this record really feeling like we should be able to work it and play the whole thing from start to finish," he said. "In the set itself, what we're doing is pretty much playing the new record plus nearly everything (else) people want to hear."
If you go
Who: Goo Goo Dolls with Counting Crows.
When: 7:30 p.m. Wednesday.
Where: The Amphitheater at Clark County, 17200 N.E. Delfel Road, Ridgefield.
Cost: $26.50 lawn, $39.50-$67.50 seats.
Information: Call Ticketmaster 360-573-7700.
http://www.columbian.com/lifeHome/lifeHomeNews/06192006news37038.cfm
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