Goo Goo Dolls: ‘Flower Power.

The Goo Goo Dolls play M-One at ANZ Stadium on Saturday.

“Hell, I don’t get to go out anymore,” laughs Goo Goo Dolls bassist Robby Takac. “I’ve been in this band for seventeen years now, man. I prefer to just sit in a pub and get loaded.”

We had been discussing Midnight Oil, Robby lamenting never having caught one of their shows. A surprise, really, considering how much time the Australian musical ambassadors spend in the US. Surely paths must have crossed at some point?

“I’ve never seen Midnight Oil,” he muses. “I’ve always wanted to see them. This is going to be a great opportunity for me to be a fan,” he enthuses. “In the late eighties they were huge here in the States, and I’ve wanted to see them ever since then.”

Seventeen years in a band is long time indeed for the overnight success the Goo Goo Dolls achieved with their last record Dizzy Up The Girl. It’s massive single Iris found a rapidly expanding worldwide audience for the band, and their follow up album Gutterflower is perhaps an even more satisfying listen.

“This record sounds a lot more like we do as a band, you know,” he affirms. “It’s easier to play. We had a little time after the last record to sit down and think about the equation, and we figured we might have gone over the edge a little bit with production and such. We tried to hold back this time from going for it all the time, and use a bit of moderation. I think we ended up with a record that sounds a lot more like the band live, just a rock band.”

Given the opportunity to go back, is Dizzy Up The Girl not the album you would have made in other circumstances?

“I love that record, but I think it should have been mixed a little differently. There a lot of stuff that gets pulled back. Don’t get me wrong, that record did super well for us, and I’m incredibly grateful for it. But in retrospect there’s things about it I would change, but that’s always going to happen. You always wish you did something differently.”

“We’ve been lucky because we’ve never had to sit down and think ‘man, we made a bad record, now what do we do?’ That’s really lucky for us. I think we’ve decided that if we hear a record when it’s done and think ‘that’s not good’ no one’s going to hear it. As long as we’re putting records together we’re happy with that’s enough for us.”

What has kept the band motivated through the last decade and a half.

“It’s really just been little mini victories. When we started out, our favourite bands we’re selling 30 000 records. So if we sold 15 000 we were half as big as our heroes, which was great for us. You have to evaluate what you’re doing with the times.”

The Goo Goo Dolls have toured almost non stop since the release of Gutterflower, not only as a full rock act, but also a string of lower key acoustic dates.

“John and I went out for a couple of weeks just playing acoustic shows,” Robby explains. “It’s something that’s nice to do. It’s something that separates the men from the boybands… You have to actually perform your songs. After being out here playing the songs every night, I think we’re closer to the songs now than we’ve ever been. I listen to it, and it really feels like it’s us. It feel so natural to be playing it. We actually play eleven songs from this album live now.”

Are the band’s fans happy to head so much of the new record when there’s seventeen years of previous work to draw on?

“I hope they’re loving it. We’ve only been playing the states so far, and our international touring actually starts with Australia. We’re doing Japan and Indonesia.”

I can’t think another band that’s tagged Indonesia onto their touring schedule…

“Yeah I know. We’re going to Jakarta. I think we’ve got some dates in Singapore as well. It’s interesting where this whole thing takes you. We’ve been to Bahrain, Bosnia, all over the place. In the name of rock music. It’s good way to see the world without having to kill people,” he jokes. “We haven’t made it to South America yet, but we’re going there in January. We got to go to Alaska last year, which we’d never done before. It was really exciting. We’re pretty fortunate, I think.”