The story of how the latest Goo Goo Dolls album came together sounds romantic: a couple of teens from Buffalo, New York, leave home on a quest to become rock stars, only to return to make their eighth album after they feel something is lacking in Los Angeles.

But going home was not easy for Johnny Rzeznik, lead singer of the Goo Goo Dolls. Once he left the City of Angels, he had to face the demons of his past.

“It was like every day, a different demon would reappear,” Rzeznik tells andPOP on a recent trip to Toronto. “There were terrible memories there. I drove by the house I grew up in. They took my mother away in an ambulance and she died in front of that house. I drove by the church where I had to go and eat at the soup kitchen because I was out on the street at 16.”

It wasn’t easy, but it worked. After spending the winter of 2004 confined to a 100-year-old ballroom in Buffalo, the Goo Goo Dolls ? Rzeznik, bassist Robby Takac and drummer Mike Malinin ? wrote one of their most personal albums yet.

“Let Love In,” released Tuesday, was recorded with producer Glen Ballard and includes “Better Days,” “Stay With You” and a cover of “Give a Little Bit.”

Rzeznik, 40, admits that he didn’t consider returning to Buffalo to work until that winter, but says he should have done it sooner.

“It was 80 degrees outside. Fucking Christmas in California sucks. It’s the worst. It’s unnatural,” he says. “So I packed up the U-Haul truck and drove myself back home and dug in for a long cold winter, and it did me a lot of good as a writer.”

It also did a lot of good for him as a rock star who began questioning his purpose in the music business. Recording the band’s previous release, “Gutterflower,” Rzeznik was unhappy and says he lost sight of what he was doing.

“There was a point in my life after Gutterflower that I got numb and I hung out alone most of the time,” he says. “I didn?t really want to deal with anybody. When we started working on this album, I decided that it ’s no way to live. Being real hurts, but at least you’re feeling something.”

Heartbreak is an underlying theme on “Let Love In,” but it’s not necessarily the heartbreak between couples, he explains. Rather, he uses that as a metaphor for something larger.

“The more I read, the more I honestly believe the saying that ignorance is bliss. I think the real theme of the album is hoping for hope; hoping that you can be vulnerable enough to be brave, hoping that you can be brave enough to speak your mind and your heart without any fear.”

The album is something he is “proud” of, and which brought the group closer together. Pride is an emotion they needed desperately, because after the relatively low-selling album in 2002, the Goo Goo Dolls almost split.

Rzeznik, Takac and Malinin sat down after a lengthy tour and had a long conversation about whether or not to continue.

“I’m not that sentimentally attached to being a quote unquote rock star,” says Rzeznik. “You have to understand your limitations. When it’s time to stop, we’ll know.”

That time wasn’t after their seventh album, and it probably won’t be after this one either.

“It’s not as much about sales as it is about how you feel doing it. If I start hating doing this and it makes me miserable, I wont do it anymore. This is not our last record. The way I’m feeling about everything, I could go back and do another album,” says Rzeznik.

That would make nine albums, on a career that started in 1986, when Rzeznik and Takac formed the Sex Maggots. They soon changed their name to the Goo Goo Dolls and released their first album in 1987. Their big break came in 1995 with the release of “A Boy Named Goo,” which included the hit “Name.” Their biggest hit to date, “Iris,” followed in 1998, the same year Malinin became an official member of the band.

They have a hard time putting into words the secret to staying together for so long.

In fact, they are surprised they’ve been able to co-exist for 20 years.

“When another band meets us,” says Takac, “they’re like, ‘how the hell do these guys stay together?’”

“Dealing with us,” continues Rzezkin, “I’ve heard it described as like trying to hurt cats. Everyone wanders. He’s looking at something shiny,” he says, pointing to Malinin, then turning to Takac. “He’s talking about roasting pumpkin seeds. I’m looking at some girl I shouldn?t be looking at. We need one of those ropes with the knots in it that they take the kids to the zoo in kindergarten with to get anywhere.”