In what clearly must be a cosmic coincidence, the Goo Goo Dolls released their album A Boy Named Goo and Collective Soul released their self-titled album on the same day: March 14, 1995.
Both albums yielded hit songs all over the radio and MTV: “Name” for the Goo Goo Dolls and “December” and “The World I Know” for Collective Soul.
There’s an almost certain chance that you can hear all these songs and much more performed live some 21 years later on Saturday, July 16, when Goo Goo Dolls and Collective Soul perform at the Santa Barbara Bowl, along with Tribe Society. Tickets are available here.
Robby Takac from Goo Goo Dolls and Dean Roland from Collective Soul talked to Noozhawk about the upcoming show, their bands’ latest albums, and those iconic albums released on the same day.
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Jeff Moehlis: What can people look forward to at the upcoming concert?
Robby Takac: You know, lots of hits. Probably a few where you’ll go, “Oh man, they did that one, too?” which is pretty cool; a couple of cool new cover songs; a handful of songs off of our new record, which we’re super excited about; and a super wicked awesome light show that we’re paying too much for [laughs]. No, I’m just kidding.
It’s going to be a great tour. You know, it’s the summer, man — people love to come see rock shows. And you pair that up with Collective Soul — they’ve got a whole bunch of songs you’ve heard on the radio your whole life. It’s pretty cool.
Dean Roland: Five dudes onstage doing what they love to do, for starters. That’s always been our thing, taking pride in the fact that we love what we do and we try to do it the best that we can.
Then the obvious songs that people know by Collective Soul, they’ll hear those, and we’ll play some new songs, too. It’s usually pretty upbeat and positive, spreading some good vibes.
JM: Dean, I understand that your fans can have a say in what the setlist is. Can you tell us how that works?
DR: We’re doing this tour with the Goo Goo Dolls, so our set is not as long as it normally would be if it was our own show. So we’re trying to figure out how to cram in 20 years of music into the whole thing and still play the songs that people know and play some new music.
We just wanted to incorporate the fans into the setlist, leaving a slot or two open where people could just choose on any given night which song, kind of randomish, out of our catalog we’ll play. [You can vote here].
JM: Can you tell us a bit about your latest album?
RT: Sure. The album’s called Boxes. It came out a few weeks ago. The first single’s called “So Alive.” It’s been doing really, really well.
We just released a video for it that we shot in our hometown of Buffalo with a local crew and cast. We shot it in an old abandoned train terminal next to Johnny [Rzeznik]’s old house where he grew up.
You know, it’s an exciting new album. It feels like a little bit of a chapter, like a page-turner for us, which I think is awesome after 30 years of making music together.
DR: It fits in nicely [with the rest of our catalog]. We actually were playing many of the [new] songs live even before we released the record. They blend in great.
Fortunately, our fan base really is open to what we do, which is such a great thing. We’ll play the songs that they’ve heard many, many times, but for us to play a new song is kind of a treat, to mix it up a little bit. It seems to be well received.
JM: Robby, I probably first heard about you guys when the album A Boy Named Goo took off. Looking back 20 years later, what are your reflections on that album?
RT: Yeah, that was the first big record that we had — that sold a couple million copies — but it always sort of felt like our band wasn’t all that big.
It sort of felt like the song was big — “Name” was a really big song. We were a little misrepresented by that song, I guess.
You know, we would do a radio station thing at a club, so it’d be like 6 in the afternoon or 7 in the afternoon. You know, it was a huge song.
We’d set up to play, and we’d come out to play our first song — we’d open with something from Superstar Car Wash or something, and people would be like, “What is this? Wait a minute, this isn’t that song we know from the radio.”
There’d be all these secretaries against the back wall that had heard that song at work. Eventually we’d play “Name.” Of course we saved it for last, because we knew everyone would leave the second we were done.
That song got really big, but the band itself wasn’t huge. We had a little bit more money, we had a bus and stuff, but it wasn’t really until Dizzy Up the Girl where we turned the corner, and the band actually started playing in front of thousands of people, and taking a real solid run at it.
JM: Dean, what are your reflections on the self-titled Collective Soul album, the one that came out in ’95?
DR: I look back with good memories. I mean, there was some struggling going on back then, a little bit, just adjusting to having success at a young age and trying to figure out a lot of things, how the business works and how to cope with a relative level of success, coming from a small town.
But I look back at it in favor. I mean, it was fun. We were kind of innocent, a little naive to everything. There’s something cool about that that I appreciate.
For the full interview with Robby Takac, click here, and for the full interview with Dean Roland, click here.
— Jeff Moehlis is a Noozhawk contributing writer and a professor of mechanical engineering at UC Santa Barbara. Upcoming show recommendations, advice from musicians, interviews and more are available on his web site, music-illuminati.com. The opinions expressed are his own.