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from Robby Takac. . . |
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Don't ever commit yourself to something that is really funy. Cuz, uh, it'll come back to haunt you. -- on their name |
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I believe in anything that causes mass hysteria in children. -- on Pokémon |
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Screaming and yelling I guess. -- on what he brings to the band |
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My songs are in millions and millions and millions of households, whether they're on the radio or not. To me, that's a brilliant victory. |
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I'm trying to picture some little girl whose favorite bands are like Goo Goo Dolls and Savage Garden or 'N Sync going 'aw, that Johnny is so cute. I'm going to buy all his early records,' and putting it on and then screaming and running to her parents. |
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I don't think I've weeped so much since, like, 'Born Free'. It's bad. -- on the City of Angels |
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I'm like a cockroach, nothing affects me whatsoever. |
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. . .So am I disappointed that his songs are always the singles? Absolutely not. Do I wish one of my songs would be a single? *insert Robby laughter* Well, if I had one I could probably move into a house a little further up the hill, but no, I don't really care. |
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When no one wants to talk to you, that is when you want to talk to everyone. |
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Right after that happened, the guy that ran the studio that we recorded at decided that we could do anything we wanted there, he just started givin' us time because he said, 'Holy shit, you mean Elektra Records actually spent the dollar it cost to call you from New York to tell you how bad this was? -- on their studio guys reaction to Elektra's response to their demo tape |
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You don’t want to go too far ahead with goals. Who knows -- maybe one day we’ll have a ballet company, Rob & Johnny’s Ballet Company. We’ll do interpretive dance. |
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The first time I was in Omaha it was 11 degrees outside, it was freezing. The next time I was there, it was 111 degrees and cows were exploding, they were boiling inside and dying. Land of the exploding cows. |
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For years we've been playing and writing songs that sound happy. And yet if you listen, the words are all like "My brains are falling out of my ears; would someone please pull me together?" |
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I don't sound like Barry White when I talk for nothing. I've played in every smoky nightclub on Earth. |
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Q: Do you eventually plan to settle down, and have a family of your own? Little Robbies running around? |
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A: Yeah. My wife's Japanese. I think my kids are gonna look like bumblebees. I'm not sure why. |
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Robby's version of the Gutterflower girl story: "It was kind of obvious she didn't want to be there considering she spent most of the day kicking people in the nuts and throwing food. There's a flower in her hand on the record and we had to superimpose the flower in from another shot because she kept eating them. I'm not kidding you, dude. She was a terror, man. . .As we were leaving after a long day of shooting. . .I saw her mom dragging her out and she threw a bowl of spaghetti on the wall, and I was just like, 'You know what? That girl just does not want to be here." The whole article can be found here. |
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Our first record was sort of a drunken car crash. |
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I think John gets pissed sometimes when I say this, but you know how at most shows, the minivan pulls up and drops the kids off? The minivans at our shows go drop the kids off, circle around back, park and go in with their friends. You know? It’s kind of weird. |
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For us, we go out and play every night and it was always a lot heavier. Sometimes it was like a ball peen hammer to the forehead of a few business suit wearing, secretary types that came to hear us. Especially in the early days, the only song that anyone knew by us was “We Are The Normal One.” We’d come out to an audience expecting 10, 000 Maniacs and that’s what they got alright! They got serious, screaming maniacs is what they got! |
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I’m really excited to see how this whole thing goes, you know? We might get shit whipped at us, I don’t know. I don’t think so, but maybe! I think that we’ve been around long enough now that we’ve earned a bit of respect. Hopefully, we won’t get too many sneakers whipped at us. I do spend a lot of time in the backyard with my wife and a few cardboard boxes full of shoes. I have her just whip ‘em at me randomly while I have the guitar on so I have ninja like reactions now. -- on touring with Bon Jovi |
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It’s a business built on people’s dreams. I mean, with our first deal, we only got 1500 bucks, but we were like, “You like what I do and you’re going to put this record out? Okay, cool. We’ll take that 1500 bucks because a) I don’t have that 1500 bucks and b) because if I don’t take it, somebody else is going to.” Then, boom! You’re gone for five records and that’s how the business works. That’s so weird. |
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Yeah, but I don’t think anybody wants to listen to somebody with 100 million dollars bitch. It’s like, “Shut up, man!” That’s what everybody thinks when he goes to Congress and sits down and spins his gold ring around. They go, “shut up!” -- on Don Henley promoting bill on downloading music |
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I just bought a recording studio in Buffalo and we have 3 Pro Tools rooms and we’re trying to keep that full right now. Someday I’ll retire there and write my manifesto. |
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People romanticize the tour bus. (But) when it boils right down to it, it's just like living in a trailer. It's a nice trailer, (but) it smells like shoes and old shirts, and someone always drinks the last Coke before you get to it. --on touring |
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In circles were're being over exposed, I don't think it hurts us. When it comes to pop radio, yes there was a point in my life where if I heard "Mr. Jones" one more time I was going to gouge my ears out with a compass. But you and I have the option of chaning our channels. In the circles that care, it doesn't *really* hurt us. |
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Who knows, maybe one day we'll have a ballet company, Rob and Johnny's Ballent Company. We'll do interpretive dance. |
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Those were the four most humiliating months of my life. It was just very weird. I felt like i was sandwiched between this sort of comic-bookish spectacle. -- on opening for Bush |
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I think that's why 90% of young, teeange males play guitar. Chicks dig it. |
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It's the most embarrassing thing I've ever heard in my life. He goes *imitating Richie Sambora* "Hey let's face it, guitars get you chicks. And nothing gets you chicks like a Fender Stratocastor!" |
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Two Days in February story, taken from The Daily Goo July 10th, 2000: |
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All right. . . . 2 days in february. . . off of our second album entitled Jed. . . . was indeed recorded on the street. . . in 1988. . . on the front steps of trackmaster studios, in buffalo n.y. . . to an audience of the guy who owns the tattoed belly on the inside of A boy named goo, his 8 foot long snake, a friend of ours taking video. . . and armand petri producing from the upstairs studio. . . . it took us 22 takes to get a version that we liked. . . that took us well into the evening. . . so a guy across the street in the apartment building called the police on us for making too much damn noise too damn late. . . . so. . .that's why you hear us say . . This is dedicated to chief doug and the guy across the street, take 22 and call me in the morning. . . . .oh. . . and chief doug. . . he held up traffic for hours between san francisco and l.a in 87.. . . long story . . . .and there you go. . . thanks kara! |
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If we sound Canadian occasionally, it’s only because we grew up on the border. -- in an interview with cananda.com |
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*from Maximum Ink:
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MAX INK: I have to preface this whole interview by saying that I'm one of the only people I know who's listened to the Goo Goo Dolls since the beginning, and am a bigger fan of your newer material. That said, I saw the Los Angeles show at the Troubadour, and I was a little disappointed that the set wasn't customized for the club setting. I felt like the intimacy of the club was lost when you performed the same set you would have done in an amphitheater. |
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Robby: It's really interesting that you say that, because we're at this really weird point right now where after twenty years of making music, the first seven or eight years have worked their way out of the set due to the fact that it's always been important for us to be relevant, and to not feel like we're resting on the laurels of our past achievements. Being one of the few bands that's been around for the past twenty years is a unique position to be in… I don't know if you noticed, but we didn't play “Name” that night. John and I were talking about it backstage, and actually got in a huge argument over it, because I was like, “You're gonna piss a lot of people off if we don't play that song.” There is going to be a select group of people there that are only there to hear that song, because our songs are mainstream songs now. That song is the soundtrack to a part of someone's life, and that's a song that they come to hear you play. I understand that, and I don't have a problem with that, but we've been wrestling with that whole thing a lot lately. The one thing I do know, is that we can walk up on the stage and have a body of work that can touch everybody in that room at one point in the night. It's hard to stray away from having that experience with those people, you know what I mean?
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