KERRANG! July 17, 1999

THE UNLIKELY LADS

In America, the GOO GOO DOLLS are award-winning rock stars who out-sell Marilyn Manson and Rob Zombie. But then, they have spent 10 years playing shitty bars, witnessing incestuous sex acts and fending off accusations that they're boring...

As the sleek, aerodynamic lines of a stylish black limousine glide to a purring halt outside a South London rehearsal studio, abject curiosity gets the better of a gaggle of passing schoolgirls. Who, they wonder, is lurking behind the seductive tinted windows? Necks crane, eyeballs boggle, and as the passenger doors swing asunder to disgorge their unknown cargo, a series of perplexed shrugs are exchanged. As the young ladies swiftly turn on their heels in obvious disappointment, the Goo Goo Dolls - currently one of the hottest multi-million-selling rock bands in North America - stroll entirely unmolested from car to studio.

Shucks. Superstardom certainly sucks when no one knows who you are.

THE GOO Goo Dolls are no spring chickens. Last year's multi-platinum 'Dizzy Up The Girl' album was their sixth full-length effort and none of them will ever see 30 again. This 'overnight' success has taken the trio well over a decade to achieve.

John Rzeznik, the band's guitarist and main singer, initially hooked up with bassist/co-vocalist Robby Takac in 1986 in their native Buffalo, New York. The Goos' eponymous debut album - an infectious cohesion of The Replacements and Cheap Trick, followed in '87 - but the band's ascent to mainstream acceptance was sluggish. Three albums later, in '93. the Goos finally enjoyed fleeting chart success with the 'We Are The Normal' single, but it wasn't until '95's 'A Boy Named Goo' album that they finally hit pay-dirt. Though frequently written off as one-hit wonders by the US media, the Goos confounded the critics last year with 'Dizzy Up The Girl' and its attendant smash hit single 'Iris', a heart-string-strumming power ballad featured on the soundtrack of 'The Crow: City Of Angels' movie. They've since been comfortably encamped in the 'Billboard' Top 20 for literally months, receiving no less than three Grammy nominations for their troubles. Suddenly, after spending years in the arena of the terminally tepid, the Dolls are not just hot. they're steaming.

SETTLED AROUND recently-recruited drummer Mike Malinin's kit in their London Bridge rehearsal retreat, Rzeznik (dandified clobber, auburn mane and smouldering demeanour) and Takac (jackdaw croak, lilac-tinted lenses, to all intents and purposes a young Ozzy Osbourne) discuss their dizzying rise from the gutter to the stars. "We just did what we did, kept doing it and hung together until things came around to us." shrugs John modestly. "I don't know any rock 'n' roll bands that were formed in the '80s that still exist as rock 'n' roll bands. Nobody else that came up at the same time as we did and survived, but we managed to. We've been a punk band and a garage band, but I've got the dubious distinction of being a guy who can write ballads. That's only one part of what I like to do. but it's the part that gets the most attention from the mainstream, which is kind of frustrating to us."

Does the fact that you spent so many years slogging around the toilet circuit make success taste even sweeter?

"Rather than just enhancing the taste of your success." the singer continues, "it helps you keep it in perspective. I'm enjoying the fact that I don't have to play in little shitty bars in front of 20 people any more. but I'm not dating any supermodels and I don't drive a Ferrari."

There must have been moments when you thought, 'F**k this for a game of soldiers - I'm jacking it in'?

"As you get a little older," croaks Robby, "you start to think. 'Do I really want to be 33 and still struggling? Am I struggling to make this something that it was never supposed to be?'. And luckily for us. every time that attitude crept in, something would happen which made it all seem worthwhile."

THERE HAVE been some pretty strange moments during the Goos' journey from zeroes to heroes.

"The most bizarre occurrence," John reminisces, "was when I was about to see an incestuous sexual relationship be consummated in front of me in Miami while the other two members of my band were lying on a beach somewhere doing cocaine." "I wasn't in the band then." interjects Mike hastily. "So I'm free of this."

"I think one of the psychological low points was when we'd just put out 'A Boy Named Goo'," remembers Robby, "and we thought, 'Okay, we're gonna go out there and show the world'. So we went down to Georgia, pulled into this club and they'd forgotten we were playing. There were eight paying customers - and one guy wanted his money back because we didn't play long enough. I just remember lying in the bus, crushed."

The Goo Goo Dolls have attained their stardom without the use of hype. They've no image to speak of, just a handful of good tunes and a heartbreaking ballad or two. Which means there's a danger that, to a constituency dazzled by the gung ho exploits of Marilyn Manson and the sheer spectacle of Rob Zombie, they'll appear as conservative, uncharismatic and frankly boring as a drizzly weekend in Eastbourne.

"If people think that, f**k 'em," spits John. "Right now we're selling more records than Marilyn Manson and Rob Zombie. We're about a guitar and a song. and that's it. I'm not here to entertain people with my offstage high-jinks."

So thats us told. The Goo Goo Dolls have already conquered America, and we're next. The trio recently sold out the 2.000-capacity Shepherd's Bush Empire in London with absolutely no media support - a sign that stratosphere- scraping success is only a matter of time.

But while their career shoots onwards and upwards, their feet remain firmly on the ground. They're still able to walk the streets of London without fear of recognition, and are the first to admit that if they'd attained this level of success back in '87 they'd have collapsed into a morass of chemicals and alcohol. But still, even with years of experience, it must take a bit of getting used to?

"Well, I can spend $50 on a haircut now and not worry about it," reveals John. "What 1 also like about it is shoving it to all the pricks who bet against us. I certainly shoved it up their ass as far as I could with 'Iris'."

But best of all, in a world of musical martyrs and sonic seditionaries, John Rzeznik is under no illusion as to where his band stand in the great scheme of things. The future of rock 'n' roll, he happily admits, they ain't.

"I like the fact that people are finally starting to appreciate what we're doing musically. Even if we're never considered to be one of the great rock 'n' roll bands, at least we're keeping the flicker of rock 'n' roll out there until the next Nirvana or the next Pearl Jam. Maybe that's why we're here: just to keep rock 'n' roll alive until the next great band comes along."

The Goo Goo Dolls, then: self-appointed keepers of rock's sacred flame. And long may they flicker.

GOO GOO DOLLS' 'Dizzy Up The Girl' album is out on July 19.