Goo Goo Dolls don't gaze backward

The Goo Goo Dolls have been around a long time – long enough to where the band has reached that point where there’s always some sort of milestone available to acknowledge, if it chooses to do so.

Last year was the 20th anniversary of “A Boy Named Goo,” the rock band’s 1995 commercial-breakthrough album that featured several big singles, including the smash hit, “Name.”

When the band’s record label was putting together a 20th-anniversary edition of the album, it reached out to Goo Goo Dolls bass player Robby Takac, requesting memorabilia that could be used in the liner notes.

Takac was getting ready to hand over some goodies, but then he stopped himself.

The upshot: Takac says that he and his Goo Goo Dolls partner, singer and guitarist John Rzeznik, are more interested in what’s next than what was.

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This year is the 30th anniversary of the band, and, again, it’s not being celebrated internally with fanfare.

At the very least, Takac acknowledges that 30 years sounds, well, "weird."

“We’re really not making a big deal about it. The inclination would be to do your 30-year tour. John and I always talk about it. It just feels like we got some more stuff to do yet.”

The band’s recently released album, “Boxes,” shows that the band is still willing to try new things. On the album’s first single, “So Alive,” a piano hook and electronic drum beats are pushed to the front, and the guitar-bass-drums foundation, which was the sound of the band in its early days, only comes out during the chorus, and almost as background music.

Takac says that the move to this new sound began on the band’s previous record, 2013’s “Magnetic.”

“I think we were looking for something new to do. On ‘Magnetic,’ John started doing a little more writing with some producers and started working with some other people. I don’t think that that record was without its growing pains. But I think it led us to the situation we’re comfortable with this time going into it. We had a little glimpse into it with ‘Magnetic’ on how it could work. I think with this record the outcome was a little more what we were shooting for,” he says.

The difference between the raging, Replacements-styled pop-punk version of the Goo Goo Dolls in ’86 and the slicker ’16 version might seem vast, but Takac says the changes from album to album have been incremental. “Whatever we do next will be built on what we have done in the past, as always. But when you come to see us play, we’re still a guitar band. A huge swath of our career is based in that world, and it’s nothing we’ll ever leave, but right now it’s fun to play around with some new things as well.”

In terms of its past accomplishments, the Goo Goo Dolls have about 12 classic songs of which Takac says, “We know we’re not going to get out of the building alive without playing.”

Twelve hits is enough to keep the band out on the classic-rock circuit for another 30 years, if that’s what it chooses to do.

“Maybe,” Takac laughs. “I don’t know. It’s lasted 30 years now. It seems like we have some more gas in the tank. I hope so.”

If you go

What: Goo Goo Dolls with Collective Soul and Tribe Society

When: 7 p.m. Wednesday, August 3

Where: PNC Pavilion, 6295 Kellogg Ave., Anderson Township; 513-232-5882

Tickets: $75, $55, $39.50