BACKYARD PARTY WITH THE GOO GOO DOLLS; BAND ROCKS OXNARD HOME.
From: Daily News (Los Angeles, CA)
Date: September 7, 1999
Byline: David Greenberg Staff Writer

Brian Ahara celebrated Labor Day living a rock 'n' roll fantasy with some good company.

Having been selected from 2.3 million entries in the fourth annual VH1 Big Backyard BBQ contest, the 26-year-old Oxnard resident hosted punk rockers the Goo Goo Dolls, moshing with 100 friends and selected guests before a live televised audience.

" It's real exciting that this huge band is playing in my back yard,'' Ahara said prior to the show. "It blows me away every time I think about it or look out in my back yard and see the stage. It's definitely a good way to end the summer and by far the biggest Labor Day party I've ever been to.''

VH1's 65-member crew arrived Wednesday to transform his yard from a playground for his frequent baby-sitting chores - his sister, Camarillo resident Stacey Evans, has two small boys - into a outdoor concert hall.

Gone were the two dilapidated sheet metal sheds, one of which rusted to the point where it fell over, a wagon and scattered toys.
In their place was a makeshift stage with stacks of amplifiers on each side and an above-ground pool that served as a popular viewing area for bikini-clad women braving the overcast skies and frigid water.
Ahara, a business consultant, gets to keep the pool, as well as $3,000 in cash and a barbecue grill, as winner of the contest, which he entered via the Internet in June.

" I just entered because I thought it'd be really cool to win,'' he said. "I've never won anything. But I thought it was worth a shot.''

Previous winners have hosted concerts in Niagara Falls, N.Y. (John Mellencamp), Myrtle Beach, S.C. (Jon Bon Jovi) and Staten Island, N.Y. (B-52s).

Ahara, however, is the first winner whose back yard was large enough to hold the concert, allowing the production crew to shirk the responsibility of finding an alternative location.

" Their space has to be accessible to set up a band, security, a catering event and you have to have room for a production truck,'' said Mark McIntire, the network's marketing vice president.

The 100 guests, including 20 that Evans invited, feasted on baby-back ribs, soda and beer before the start of the show, which was broadcast live to the East Coast and delayed three hours until 7 p.m. for the West Coast.

The Goo Goo Dolls, who hail from Buffalo, N.Y., belted out a 10-song set that included the hits "Naked,'' and "Name'' from its 1995 breakthrough platinum disc "A Boy Named Goo.''
They ended the show with "Iris,'' a smash hit from the "City of Angels'' soundtrack that is included on the band's 1998 disc, "Dizzy Up The Girl.''

For the band, which toiled for a decade in smoky, off-the-beaten-path clubs before hitting stardom that including warming up a leg of the Rolling Stones most recent tour, the Backyard BBQ was a pleasant return to yesteryear.

Nursing a beer on the tour bus following the show, John Rzeznik, the band's tattooed lead singer and guitarist, recalled a date on the band's previous tour where the paid attendance could be counted on two hands.

"That was the Augusta, Ga., show,'' he said with a smile. "But it was the weekend of The Masters (golf tournament).''

Monday's concert, which coincides with the band's status as VH1's "Artists of the Month,'' forced the group to acclimate itself to something alien to most musicians: commercial breaks every two or three songs.

But the band took it in stride, telling off-color jokes during the down time and inviting audience members to do the same.

"It breaks the rhythm,'' Rzeznik said afterward. "It was definitely strange, but you've got to think on your feet, man.'' Concertgoer Dawn Kroskey, a 24-year-old Oxnard resident, said the entire setup had a surreal quality to it.

"It's kind of like a dream,'' she said. "I used to suntan in this back yard. Now it doesn't even look like the same back yard.''

Although Ahara has an unlisted phone number, Evans said she was deluged with phone calls from strangers since Ahara's name went over the airwaves as the contest winner three weeks ago.

One caller even offered to spend the afternoon pouring beer in exchange for placement on the guest list.

"I told them the guest list is already full,'' Evans said. "I can't even invite a couple of my friends. So I'm not going to invite strangers.''

OVER THE TOP: THE GOO GOO DOLLS HAVE HIT IT BIG WITH 'IRIS,'.NOW, WHAT'LL THEY DO FOR AN ENCORE?
Author: ANTHONY VIOLANTI
The Buffalo News
August 9, 1998

The song "Iris" has turned into one of the biggest hits of the summer, and for Johnny Rzeznik it helped break a serious case of writer's block.
Rzeznik is the lead singer and songwriter for the Goo Goo Dolls, the Buffalo band that includes Rzeznik's longtime friend Robby Takac. Three years ago, the Goos hit No. 1 with "Name," another introspective number.

"Name" helped the album "A Boy Named Goo" sell 3 million copies. It climaxed a grueling, decade-long climb to the top for the Goos. And it left Rzeznik in the precarious position of dealing with music industry expectations for his next record.

"It was the hardest thing I ever had to do in my life," said Rzeznik, who will appear with the Goos on Saturday at Artpark. "You see the road in front of you strewn with the carcasses of all the bands who had one big hit.

"You can have a huge hit one day, and the next day you're a bum. You can strangle yourself with fe! ar. Success threw me off balance. You wonder, how in the hell can you do it again? Your next record never gets easier; it only gets harder. And it scares you."

Rzeznik still looks like a rock star brimming with self-confidence. His long, sandy blond hair hangs on his forehead, and he has chiseled, handsome features and a swagger to his stage presence.

"Johnny always looked and acted like a rock star, even when he was broke," said longtime friend Rich Wall, program director at WEDG-FM 103.3, The Edge.

Rzeznik always had something else: the ability to touch emotions through his songs. That's why, when Warner Bros. Records asked him to write a song for the movie "City of Angels," it seemed a natural.
The film is about dealing with death, loss and moving on. Rzeznik, who lost both parents while still a teen-ager growing up on Buffalo's East Side, was touched by the movie. At the time, he was struggling to write songs for the Goos' next album.

"I saw the movie and I really liked it," Rzeznik said. "I went back to my hotel and wrote the song the same night. I was going through a heavy writer's block and it was a great exercise for me.
"It made me feel I could still write a song. It gave me a shot of confidence. That song came out of nowhere. I mean, the whole thing was like a gift from God."

The next hurdle was coming up with a title. "I needed a name for it and I was joking with a friend how pretentious Billy Corgan (of the Smashing Pumpkins) was to call his song 'Bullet With Butterfly Wings.'
"So I'm trying to think of a pretentious name for my song. I'm looking through a magazine and see an ad for a show that (singer) Iris Dement is playing. I thought, Iris is a pretty name. What the hell, I'll call the song 'Iris.' "

"Iris" reached No. 1 on the modern-rock and MTV charts, and the video has been nominated for an MTV Video Award. It also became the most popular track on the "City of Angels" soundtrack album, which has sold nearly 3 million copies.

"Iris" will be on the Goo Goo Dolls' new album, "Dizzy Up the Girl," which will be released Sept. 29.

"The sky's the limit on that album," said Stu Cohen, senior vice president for Warner Bros., who has been with the company for 25 years. "Everything is in place for that album to explode. Nothing could be better than having a No. 1 song like 'Iris.'
"I can't give you a number, but we think it will sell in the millions. They could sell over 100,000 copies the week it is released."

If that happens, the Goos will debut in the Top 10 for the first time in the band's long career.

"They've been humbled and they know what this business is all about," Cohen said. "So many young bands have a hit record, make some money and then fall apart. It's not going to happen to the Goo Goo Dolls. They did it the hard way, and they can handle it."
Rzeznik, more than anyone, is thankful that success is happening at a time he can cope with it.

"If this would have happened in 1988, I would have completely self-destructed," he said. "I was out of my mind back then. I was a crazy kid and there's no way I could handle this. I would have wound up getting killed or killing myself."

The Goos may be hot rock stars to the rest of the world, but in Buffalo they're still a couple of local boys who made good.

"They're blue-collar and regular people, kind of like what Buffalo is all about," Rich Wall said. He adds, however, that Rzeznik has a touch of rock genius.

"There's a certain reality in Johnny's music that comes from his heart," Wall said. "It's like when Otis Redding sang 'Pain in My Heart' back in the '60s. You knew it was real. When you hear Johnny sing a song like 'Name' or 'Iris,' you know it's real."

The Goos have been riding a roller coaster for the past three years. Just as "A Boy Named Goo" was released three years ago, the band broke up when original drummer George Tutuska left. Then came a royalty lawsuit against Warner Bros.

"Out of the chaos of the past few years, I finally learned to ask myself how I feel and what I want from the music," Rzeznik said. "Ultimately, that's the most important thing."

Things seem to have settled down. Warner Bros. reached a legal agreement with the Goos. New drummer Mike Malinin has settled into the band.

The Goos have been holed up in a Los Angeles recording studio for the past six months working on the new CD. It's being produced by Rob Cavallo, one of the top producers in modern rock. A long list of guest artists includes guitarist Tommy Keene, and Benmont Tench of the Tom Petty band. David Campbell, who happens to be the father of alternative rocker Beck, is arranging the strings for the album. Nathan December, tour guitarist for R.E.M., is now touring with the Goos.
Meanwhile, Rzeznik says he can't wait to get home and play before local fans again. Part of the concert proceeds at Artpark will be donated to Compass House, a youth service center. On Sunday! the Goos will head to Bethel to play at the site of the original Woodstock for the A Day in the Garden festival.

It's heady stuff for a band that was playing Buffalo bars a few years ago.

"You have to admire the Goo Goo Dolls. They did it the right way and never compromised," said Evan Laettner of local band Velour.
Rzeznik shies away from such admiration, saying young bands "don't want to be like us. The only advice I would give is, stay true to what you do. Be in love with music and not with fame, because fame is nonsense and it's nothing. Fame is for the weak."

Last week, after an appearance on "Late Night With David Letterman," Rzeznik tried to put all that has happened to him and the band during the past few years in perspective. He jumped on a plane in New York for a flight back to Los Angeles. And as the plane was rising in the sky, Rzeznik said, "I (was) just sitting there thinking, I'm the luckiest guy alive. I know it sounds corny, but that's the way I feel."

 

Boys Named Goo // Wheel of Fortune Lands on Dolls After Nine Years
From: Chicago Sun-Times
Date: April 30, 1995
Author: JAE-HA KIM

Goo Goo Dolls, hHead 7 p.m. Tuesday; Metro, 3730 N. Clark Tickets, $10 (312) 559-1212

Johnny Rzeznik is shivering. Though it's a warm spring day in Chicago, it's still not mild enough for the Goo Goo Dolls singer's outfit of T-shirt and knee-length shorts.

Bassist Robbie Takac barely gives Rzeznik enough time to warm up inside Johnny Rockets, where we're about to start a lunch interview, before he throws an ice cube at his friend. The ice hits Rzeznik's bare legs and both grin like teenagers.

"We're overgrown kids," said Rzeznik, 29. "You can't take us anywhere."
Surfing through the menu of burgers, shakes and desserts, Takac asks the waiter about a libation called the Nutty Monkey.

"I think that's only served during the summertime," our waiter said.

"Oh, well forget it then," Takac said. "We're only here for an hour."

Munching on their lunch - turkey burger for Rzeznik; chicken sandwich for Takac; fries all around - the Buffalo, N.Y., musicians spoke with Showcase about their hard-rocking pop trio, which will play cuts from its latest CD, "A Boy Named Goo," at Tuesday's Metro gig. The show will mark the Chicago debut of drummer Mike Malinin, who joined the Goos a few months ago after George Tutuska quit.

Their single "Only One" is No. 27 and rising on the Billboard album-rock tracks chart, and the accompanying video is being played on MTV's "Alternative Nation" and "120 Minutes."

Before the Goo Goo Dolls formed in 1986, Rzeznik worked as an assistant plumber. Oh, and about that band name: They got the idea from a doll ad they found in the back of a detective magazine.

Q. Judging by the success of groups such as Green Day, it seems your band would've had better luck debuting in the '90s than in the '80s.

Rzeznik: "A friend of mine said, `Who'd have thought that a jerk like you would've been ahead of your time?' And I don't mean that in the sense that we're so much smarter than anyone, 'cause we're certainly not. But the type of music we've always played suddenly has some popularity now."

Takac: "We've been running uphill for 10 years, and we're finally at a point where the steep isn't so high anymore."

Q. Who are your heroes?

Rzeznik: "I used to watch Tom Snyder on CNBC all the time. I stayed up all night to watch him. He's a cult hero. People call up just to say hi to him. He'll be like, `Hi, thanks for calling. Say hi to Dennis Hopper,' and the caller will be like, `Hi, Tom.' "

Q. OK, come clean. How many scrapbooks do you have with stuff about your band in them?

Rzeznik: "I don't have any. I don't even have any of our records. We have five records out, and I don't have one of them in my house."
Takac: "I have stuff saved from the '80s, when we started out, but I don't have `A Boy Named Goo.' Our new drummer has it."

Q. So let's say you're driving in a car and a Goo Goo Dolls song comes on the radio. You (a) sing along, (b) turn to the oldies station or (c) turn the radio off.

Rzeznik: "I listen to it once to see how the record sounds on that station and then turn the (radio) off."

Q. What is your take on alternative radio?

Rzeznik: "I'll tell you what's alternative: College radio is the real underground. It's gotten to the point where they won't even play some stuff if it's on a major (label)."

Q. Sometimes. But a lot of college stations are as regimented as the Top 40 stations.

Rzeznik: "That may be, since the whole idea of being in college radio is to learn your craft and then go out into the market and get a job. But college radio has come into its own. I mean, it broke R.E.M."

Takac: "To a lot of people, we're a brand-new band. This is our first record as far as they're concerned, and that's because radio's changing so much and we're finally getting heard. Bands like us can get played on regular stations now instead of having to go meet some kid named Tommy in the basement radio station of some college."

Rzeznik: "I like Tommy and the basement stations though."

Takac: "The point is that more people have the ability to hear us than when we came out in 1986."

Q. One of the reasons was because your band is difficult to define. I mean, there is as much power-pop in your music as there is hard rock.

Rzeznik: (In a faux, put-upon voice) " `They don't undertand me.' Oh well. Who cares? You are what you are. Human beings have puny brains, where they have to categorize and file everything away and make lists. People are weirded out by not knowing how to categorize something."

Takac: "There are so many factions now. The non-racist, vegetarian, skinhead rocker. . . Pop music pretty much covers it."

Rzeznik: "The Sex Pistols wrote pop songs with dirty words. That's all that is."

Q. Who do you think is cool?

Rzeznik: "I love annoying people. I love Jennifer Tilly, Rosie Perez, Roseanne."

Q. Is your wife loud and cloying, too?

Rzeznik: "No, she is one of the most calm, sedate, rational people I've ever met in my whole life."

Q. How'd you get her?

Rzeznik: "What do you mean, how'd I get her? (He laughs.) I'm not without my own charms, you know. She's so great. She manages a Disney store. I've got more pairs of Mickey Mouse drawers than any guy in the world

 

Always Evolving: Goo Goo Dolls singer sees himself growing as an artist
Las Vegas Review Journal
July 16, 1999
Author: Mike Weatherford

So, you think you'd like to tie that Goo Goo Dolls guy down in a chair and make him listen to "Iris" almost as many times as you have?
Don't worry. Someone nearly did.

"I was sitting in the dentist's office last night and she was ripping my gums apart for two hours -- I swear I heard the same 10 songs over and over and over," says singer-guitarist John Rzeznik, who wrote and sang the hit ballad. "That's radio in America, (but) I think that burns people out."

But when the shoe's on the other foot...

"I've been really lucky with that," he admits.

Two singles -- "Name" in 1996 and then "Iris" last year -- transformed the Goo Goo Dolls from a thrashy bar band to the headliners of Sunday's arena concert at the Mandalay Bay Events Center.

"I've had a lot of big hits on the radio and I'm really grateful for that," Rzeznik says. "I agree that radio may play songs too much, but then again I'm not gonna jinx myself. I'm glad they're doing it with my songs."

When someone tells him they've heard too much of "Iris"-- which first surfaced on the "City of Angels" soundtrack -- "I take it as a compliment," he says. "That's an indicator of how successful your song is, when it gets played too much."

Rzeznik also hopes his songs have more resonance than some hits in today's bubble-gum climate. It can't be ignored that the singer's good looks boosted the band's video exposure and teen-female appeal. "Hopefully that's not the only reason people come and see us," Rzeznik says. "I think we have a little deeper effect on people than, say, something like the Backstreet Boys, which is all about how cute they are and how good they dance."

On Sunday, the Goo Goo Dolls visit Mandalay Bay for the third night of a tour that will find out if their radio success translates into the role of arena headliners.

The Dolls are hedging their bets. They know this is an era where rockers have a hard time climbing above the theater and club level, so they're touring with Sugar Ray and Fastball. (Sugar Ray is almost equally billed, but technically an opening act because the Dolls close the show each night.)

"We knew the sum total of the people we could play to was much greater than what we could do on our own," Rzeznik says, adding, "It's a young show. There's a lot of dinosaurs out this summer."
On the other hand, "I don't think I want to get used to it. This may be as big as we ever get."

While not exactly dinosaur rockers, the Goo Goo Dolls have been honing their craft for 13 years, which may or may not aid their longevity.
Rzeznik and singer-bassist Robby Takac formed the trio in Buffalo, N.Y., York in 1986 with drummer George Tutuska, since replaced by Mike Malinin. Their early years forged a punky, garage-pop sound that critics dismissed as a poor man's version of the Replacements.

Things changed in 1995, when "A Boy Named Goo" gave the trio its breakthrough single "Name." Before that, Rzeznik says, "I wrote tons of hit songs, it's just that nobody ever heard them."

"It came when it did for a reason," he says of the breakthrough after years in the trenches. "It made sense to me when we put it all together, when me and Robby stopped and looked back on everything."

"I believe anybody can write one hit song, but yeah, they write their hit song and they're gone," Rzeznik notes of a trend all three bands are fighting.

(Sugar Ray is now a two-hit wonder, having followed the breakthrough "Fly" with "Every Morning. The band named its second album "14:59," a play on the phrase "15 minutes of fame." Fastball is an Austin, Texas, trio that's yet to match the success of last year's single, "The Way.")
But Rzeznik says song craft comes only after "you shed the fear, relieve yourself from being afraid to step out on the ledge and grow as an artist or musician."

Takac -- who writes separately from Rzeznik and sings his own compositions -- noted last fall that "our first record and our sixth record don't make a lot of sense if you don't listen to the records in between. But it makes perfect sense if you do."

"It's gotta be a natural evolution. It has to be organic," Rzeznik agrees. "I really, honestly have never put a note on a record that I didn't believe in. As cheese ball as that might sound, I don't care. It's the truth. I represent where my head is at at any given time without worrying about, `Will this fit into the genre of music that I'm allegedly in?' "

When people call the band's softer sound a sellout, Rzeznik tells them it's just the opposite.

"I think our band is a testament to how well you can do if you just hang in and do what you believe in and stick to what you're doing and just hang on," he says. "As long as you believe in what you're doing, you'll be OK."

For now, the summer tour is about having fun. Rzeznik thinks of the package tour as a smaller version of the Lollapalooza or Lilith Fair tours, a festival situation "without all that big hype." (In cities with outdoor amphitheaters, there will be a second stage for local bands and urban poets.)

In 1996, the Goo Goo Dolls played the Aladdin concert hall on a triple-bill between Bush and No Doubt.

"That was a really weird scene for us," Rzeznik says, alluding to bad vibes with Bush without going into specifics. "I learned a lot about how to behave when you're the headliner," he says with a laugh. "I definitely learned what not to do."

Goo Vibrations
Guitar World Magazine
May 1996
Alan DiPerna

After years of slogging it out in small clubs and bars, The Goo Goo Dolls finally make a "name" for themselves.

"Help yourself to some eggnog, boys!" It's the Christmas season, and the Goo Goo Dolls have just finished playing their hit single, "Name", on Late Night With David Letterman. The show's gap-toothed host gestures towards the massive bowl of eggnog he's been milking all night long. In unison, Goo Goo Dolls guitarist/singer John Rzeznik, and bassist Robby Takac drop their axes, race across the set and hurl themselves into the Jacuzzi-sized vat of off-white holiday cheer.

"The bizarre thing is that it wasn't at all rehearsed or planned," the blond guitarist marvels afterwards. "Each of us just new what the other guy was going to do. Later I was thinking, 'How the hell did we know?' After spending as much time together as we have, you become almost telepathic. It bugs me at times. But I think it's good for our music."

Nine years together is a long time. Especially when those years are spent slogging it out on the indie-rock club circuit. Formed in Buffalo, New York, in 1986, the Goo Goo Dolls haven't always had time on their side. They came out of the Northeast playing a swift, strong strain of classic American power pop at a time when the indie world was going gaga over the more metal- and riff- oriented grunge sound rushing out of North America's other end. The Goo Goos were relegated to respectable cult status -- valued by pop artisans but largely ignored by the mainstream of alterna-scenesters. By the time their fifth album, "A Boy Named Goo" (Metal Blade), was released last year, the band members had reached that age when a man starts to wonder if it really is such a good idea to spend life going up and down America's highways in a bus with his old high school buddies.

"The record company was starting to give us the old pep talk," says Robby. John recites from memory:

" 'Well boys, you made a darn good album. No one can take that away from you. Now go and write another one. Maybe that'll be the one that breaks through.'" When it's time to make the video for your second single and the label hands you the c-list of directors, you know you're in trouble," adds Robby. But fate intervened for the Goo Goos -- in the form of the influential Los Angeles radio station KROQ, which picked up on "Name," an introspective ballad from "A Boy Named Goo." The song hadn't originally been slated for release as a single, but when KROQ listeners went ape for it, the band and its label decided to roll with the flow. "It's a song that a lot of people relate to," notes Rzeznik, who wrote the tune. "There are little bits of that song in a lot of different people. It's kinda scary, too. I wonder how many senior proms are going to have that as their song this year."

"It's been a weird, crazy year in general for us," he adds, alluding to the not-entirely- friendly exit of the Goo Goo Dolls' longtime drummer,George Tutuska, on the eve of the bands big break. "But if anything, George's departure had strengthened the bond between me and Robby," says the guitarist. "There was so much tension in the band for the last four years. Now that's all over. Robby and I have been able to go back over the old material and rebuild things. The band is sounding better than it ever did. We're stronger than ever."

GUITAR WORLD: How old were you too when you first met?

ROBBY TAKAC: John was 19 and I was 20.

JOHN RZEZNIK: He's 31 now and I'm 30. It's funny how I met Robby, 'cause I was in a hardcore band with his cousin, who played bass as well.

TAKAC: I was in a metal cover band from the suburbs. Then I got a job in radio-- the progressive rock station in Buffalo.

RZEZNIK: When the Goo Goo Dolls first started, I didn't sing. I wouldn't sing. I was incredibly crippled by shyness when I was younger. I couldn't even talk to people without my hand in front of my face to hide behind. Robby really helped me to bring me out of my shell. He encouraged me to sing. He may have created a monster.

GW: When did you start writing songs?

RZEZNIK: I was writing songs all through high school. What I wanted to do -- and still want to do -- is get the sound of a big, huge, hard rock guitar, but play something really melodic, catchy and interesting with it. I was always really attracted to the power that metal and hard rock bands had in their guitar tone. But I hated what they did with it. I always hated heavy metal. Metal is vapid garbage.

TAKAC: When the band started, other indie-pop bands were scared to death of Marshall amps. Nobody would play Marshalls.

RZEZNIK: 'Cause it wasn't cool. Joe Strummer [of the Clash] didn't play a Marshall. But then, in the mid Eighties, punk, metal, thrash, and hardcore all hopped into bed together. It blew the whole thing wide open. What I find interesting now about being a songwriter is that, no matter what you write, some asshole is going to say you sold out. No matter what. I could go back to writing 2/4 hardcore beats and singing about President Reagan -- I was in a band when Reagan was president -- and people say I've sold out!

GW: It's strange how people are so concerned with authenticity these days.

RZEZNIK: What's amazing about people who are obsessed with the authenticity and legitimacy of these bands is that a lot of them were in metal bands a couple years ago. And now, suddenly, they've fallen onto the assembly line of alternative rock bands. it's interesting how the modern rock radio stations are still testing out the waters now -- they're still feeling out who the core artists are going to become. It could be real interesting to see how it all shapes up, 'cause there are so many one hit wonders now. And where the Eighties was all about technique and machismo, the Nineties are really about passion and soul.

GW: There was a clear-cut distinction in the Eighties between metal -- which was mainstream rock music -- and underground rock music.

RZEZNIK: Yeah, and I came from the latter side. I was always heavily influenced by the Replacements and the Clash -- and the Who, the Sex Pistols and the Damned. I worshipped Elvis Costello. He's probably one of the five best songwriters of the past 20 years. And I loved Depeche Mode, believe it or not. They were awesome -- great, great songwriters. And I thought some PIL singles were good. New Order had some great stuff. And of course Husker Du and Soul Asylum were a huge influence.

TAKAC: In the early days, we'd listen to Husker Du, the replacements, the Hoodoo Gurus and the Lime Spiders all the time.

GW: Did you have a particular overall sound in mind for "A Boy Named Goo"?

RZEZNIK: Yeah, I didn't want it to sound as produced as our last album, "Superstar Car Wash" -- although I think it was a great record, too. This time I wanted the album to have a bit more urgency, which I think we achieved.

TAKAC: We did a lot of it at Bear Tracks in Suffern, New York.

RZEZNIK: Which was weird, 'cause it's kind of a jazz studio -- a very pristine environment. I'm afraid we totally blew the karma of that place. [sheepishly] I broke the windshield of the owner's car.

GW: What, deliberately?

RZEZNIK: Oh, no, no.

TAKAC: See, the owner had this dog that fetched rocks...

RZEZNIK: I picked up this rock and it had dog spit all over it. Yuck! So I threw it to get it away from me. And it was like one of those slow motion things...The windshield shattered.

TAKAC: We just tacked it onto the studio bill.

GW: Was "Name" written about anyone in particular?

RZEZNIK: No. I don't know what half the shit I write is about. Sometimes, years later, I might hear an old song of mine and realize, "Oh, that's what that's about." But at the time of writing it, I'm too deeply involved to have that kind of perspective. As far as I can tell, though, "Name" is about having the inevitable regrets that come with growing up. With every decision you make in your life, you're going to have some regrets about which way it goes. You just have to choose which set of regrets you can live with the best, and try to minimize the amount of regrets you have.

GW: Is "Name" played with an open tuning on acoustic guitar?

RZEZNIK: Yes: [from low to high] D A E A E E [see transcription in the Feb. '96 GW] Both the top strings are high E strings. Whenever I tried tuning a regular B string up to E, it would pop. it was really tough on the tension. I've seen guys play "Name" with regular tuning. it doesn't sound right. I even saw a transcription of "Name" in regular tuning. There's no fucking way that would sound right.

GW: How did you come up with that tuning?

RZEZNIK: I was sitting on the couch one night, trying to find something interesting to play.

GW: Do you do that a lot?

RZEZNIK: I use all different kinds of tunings on guitar. We're a three-piece, so I'm always looking for ways to fill up the sound live. A lot of times I'll play with the E tuned up to F#, sometimes I play with my B tuned down to C, and there's some stuff with the E tuned down to D. But I don't do that too much--it's too "metal." I tend to write with open tunings as well.And in the studio I use a lot of E-Bow. I used it for things like vocal reinforcement on Superstar Carwash, like "Close Your Eyes" and "On the Lie." I also did a thing where I plugged the guitar into a Leslie and played notes with an E-Bow. Then I went back and did another track and played the second note of a cord. I built cords that way, and punched components of each cord in and out. It sounded a lot like an organ. I love the sound of Leslies, but it's hard to use that shit live. I use Marshalls live. I just spent $2,000 getting my
Marshall modified, and it exploded one night. I rented one to do the next two shows, and right out of the box it sounded awesome. That's what amazes me about Marshalls. Each one has it's own personality. As far as I'm concerned, the best Marshalls are the Mark II Lead 100-watt heads, the first ones with master volume, which they made from '75 to '81. Those are the best--with the 6550 power tubes. And there are some little mods you can do to a Marshall where you double the output of the first preamp tube, and it opens up the sound beautifully.

GW: Is that what you used to record "A Boy Named Goo"?

RZEZNIK: Yeah. I had two different Marshalls heads and two different bottoms. One had a little more low end than the other. I used an ESP Strat with an EMG in the bridge position for most of the tracks, and a Gibson Les Paul with an EMG in it for the extra beefy stuff. From the guitar, the signal was split between the Marshall and a Roland JC-120, which possibly has the most horrible-sounding distortion of all time. We just used it for a clean signal, which we mixed underneath the Marshall to give some clarity to the real low-end stuff. Sometimes when you're doubling up guitar tracks they tend to get a little muddy. Those JC-120 tracks actually came in handy when we did a remix of "Naked," 'cause we lifted a clean guitar out of the middle of the song and built an intro in the computer with it.

TAKAC: What was that cheesy guitar you used?

RZEZNIK: That was a Vantage: it was literally picked out of the garbage. Someone put a P-90 in it for me. I would use P-90's all the time if they didn't buzz so much.

GW: What did you use on the record, Robby?

TAKAC: I mainly played Fender P-basses, through Pearce amps. Those Pearce amps are really cool. They're made in Buffalo! I use my wireless in the studio. It gives a little extra gain.

GW: What if "A Boy Named Goo" hadn't made it big?

TAKAC: Even if it sold only half as much, I'd have still been happy.

RZEZNIK: But if had sold as much as our other records--which is about 50,000--I would have been looking for a new career. I would have been forced to put music in perspective and say, "Okay, I tried to make a living at this for nine years."

TAKAC: We barely scrapped by.

RZEZNIK: I would have gotten a job and played music on the side.

GW: Had you set yourselves a deadline? Like, "If we don't make it big by such a time we're gonna pack it in?"

RZEZNIK: Yes. I didn't want to be a 35-year old guy playing bars. It's so sad to see these guys in their late thirties who are still trying to make it. They still believe they're going to get the big record deal--the castle, the girls and all this shit. That's really sad.

GW: How did you end up on Metal Blade?

TAKAC: Nobody else would sign us.

RZEZNIK: Back in '86, '87, alternative bands--or what would come to be known as alternative bands, didn't get big record deals. And we were to heavy to be on Twin/Tone [the Minneapolis indie that launched Soul Asylum and the Replacements in the mid-eighties].

TAKAC: And we were to hard to be a college band.

RZEZNIK: And we weren't heavy enough to be on Megaforce.

TAKAC: We were in that gray zone--too rock to be alternative, too alternative to be rock.

RZEZNIK: Which, as it turns out, is now becoming the mainstream of music. So I suppose it turned out okay. People got tired of all the useless pop metal drivel that was shoved down everybody's throat--those guys were prettier than your girlfriend. Who could relate to People now want something they can relate to.

TAKAC: Also, people want to live vicariously through someone like Trent Reznor. People are pretty scared to do anything these days.

RZEZNIK: Well, it's a big, scary world.

TAKAC: So they get their dangerous rock stars--Trent Reznor and Courtney Love--and they live vicariously through them.

RZEZNIK: But people have always lived vicariously through their rock stars. The problem is there's no real life icons being generated now. My favorite new band--this week--is Oasis. Noel Gallagher and his brother Liam are the biggest assholes I ever met in my life. But they write fookin' great songs.

GW: What were the biggest obstacles you faced during those nine years of slogging it out?

RZEZNIK: Ourselves. We shot ourselves in the foot so many times.

TAKAC: During the first three or four years of the band, we were so reckless and self-destructive.

RZEZNIK: We went through all the booze and drug experimentation, all that nonsense. People came to our shows just to see if one of us was gonna die on stage. Robby was still kind of metal, and I had this big blond fucking coif--like a blond Robert Smith! We'd get up on stage and play so fuckin' hard. We didn't know what we were playing half the time.

TAKAC: We'd make up songs on stage. Just write some chords on a piece of paper and go out and play them.

RZEZNIK: We'd drink a couple cases of beer on-stage and break everything.

GW: When did you decide to stop all of that?

RZEZNIK: In 1990. I decided I wanted to see my 25th birthday. The girl who would end up being my wife was a big help and inspiration to me. At that same time, I started getting more serious about songwriting. Where Robby and I wrote together in the past, I started doing more on my own. it became a real challenge to me to try and complete my own thoughts, as far as songwriting goes. There are things I wanted to write about that I don't think anybody else could have helped me with--things going on in my head that nobody else could know about.

GW: What are the two most important things a band should know
about being on the road?

RZEZNIK: Get enough sleep, and learn to ignore each other when you have to . That's what I would say. [to Robby] Do you agree?

TAKAC: Yeah, and don't sit on any toilet seat! Just stay out there, man. That's the only way you're gonna do it. People aren't going to come to you. You gotta go to them.

GW: After struggling for nine years, how do you feel when you see bands disdainful of success? Or who act like success is killing them? That's become a fashionable pose recently.

RZEZNIK: This past week, I've been pretty disdainful of success. I suppose I gotta toughen up. But it just gets really tiresome having people invade your personal space. People pull my hair out. They want to steal the buttons off my jacket. Someone stole my hat. I mean, you're nobody for so long, and then all of a sudden someone thinks you're somebody. Just because you have a song on the radio that everybody knows. That's hard to understand. I'm the same person I was six months ago, when the song wasn't on the radio. I love to go out and meet people and talk to them. But occasionally you get people who are really belligerent. They want to pull the earring out of your ear. That's a rough thing to deal with. Then the next thing you know, they write on the internet that you're the biggest asshole they ever met in their life. Then you feel bad. I'm so grateful for what I have. We worked so long and hard for it. We did 260 shows last year, and we're going to do another 250 before this tour is over. That's a lot of work. And sometimes you gotta put on your happy face when you're really feeling tired, pissed off, or just plain shitty. That's the part I find very hard--putting on the happy face when I've just got in a fight with my wife on the phone about paying the rent on time. You can feel so powerless when you're 3,000 miles away.

TAKAC: Yeah, you gotta watch calling AT&T before the show, man. It's better to stay off long distance until you're done playing. Then you can go and have your arguments.

RZEZNIK: A lot is expected of you when you become successful. But we're just enjoying it, you know? It's so fleeting. it's always so sad to see bands get big on their first album then their second record comes out and bombs. And they're going, "Why? Why?" They can't handle it. We've already had a career. this is our fifth record. So we can maybe see it in a clearer perspective. Success is fleeting, so don't get used to it., 'cause it's gonna go away. If you realize that, then you enjoy it all the more when you do have it.

 

Prepare to Get Dizzy: an Interview with Robby Takac
By Gail Worley
Ink19.com

"I'm on the 34th floor, looking out my window," says Robby Takac, speaking from his hotel room in midtown Manhattan. "Trust me, there's nothing like this in Buffalo." The bassist for the Goo Goo Dolls (his band mates are singer/guitarist John Rzeznik and drummer Mike Malinin) is enjoying the success of the group's second number-one hit in their eleven year career: the romantic ballad, "Iris," from the soundtrack to the film City of Angels. Yesterday, the band spent hours in the MTV studios and tonight they will perform "Iris" -- complete with string section -- on the Late Show with David Letterman. In every sense, they are a long way from their home town of Buffalo, New York.

At a time when few bands survive long enough to accumulate a catalog of recorded material, the Goo Goo Dolls' endurance (not to mention their melodic, edgy power-punk music) is often compared to that of the late great, Replacements or even REM, who released half a dozen critically acclaimed albums before achieving mainstream success with the ironically entitled Out of Time in 1993. The comparison is something the band is used to hearing. "Our managers are always telling me that," Takac says, incredulous. "To me, it just seems weird. It's hard to see yourself that way, like when you're doing your own laundry," he laughs.

The Goo Goo Dolls sixth album, Dizzy Up the Girl, will be released on September 29th, the day before Takac's 34th birthday. Takac and Rzeznik have been in Los Angeles mixing the record since January. "We brought some friends in to play on this record," he tells me. "We'd never done that before." The litany of guest musicians includes Tommy Keane, Benmont Tench from Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, and Tim Pearce from Rick Springfield's band -- who played the mandolin on "Iris." "It's interesting to get other people's perspectives on your stuff," he continues. "[The recording] was very free-form and really came together in a very unique way that we never had before." Dizzy Up the Girl is certainly one of the more highly anticipated releases of late 1998.

How did the Goo Goo Dolls get involved with the soundtrack to City of Angels that produced this great hit song, "Iris"?

Our management company, Third Rail, has a film company as well -- they were doing the City Of Angels movie. Johnny was out in Los Angeles for awhile and went to a screening. They screen films prior to there being a score, so that everyone involved can see what's going on, so they can write to the film. John went home after he saw this screening and wrote a song. The story [of the movie] itself is pretty interesting, and that's the perspective John wrote from. Then he called up the soundtrack coordinator, went down to his office and played it for him. They decided right away that they were going to [use it in the film], before even hearing our version, just by him going in and playing acoustically. So we all flew out and in a matter of a week, we were in the studio recording it.

When we actually turned it into the film, they thought that the version we did -- that's the version that you're hearing on the radio right now -- was a little bit too grandiose. So they replaced it [for the film] with John doing "Iris" by himself -- an acoustic version. Obviously, we aren't the marquee act on that record. It's tough to go up against Alanis and U2. It's a great record.

And "Iris" gave you a number one hit.

At one point it was number one in five formats. Right now [late July] it's number three. It's kind of rare, I think, to get five formats going, it's a lot of ground to cross. We never really saw ourselves as cross-genre until "Name" got big. Our first record came out in 1987, and all of our records have had that element to them, even when we were sort of a hardcore band. But we've always been a bit more melodic than everyone else. We grew up listening to Hüsker Dü... drippy English new wave and stuff like that. I think that's what led us down a bit more melodic of a path. If you listen to the first record and then you listen to the sixth record, it doesn't make sense, it doesn't seem like the same band. At the time I was pretty much singing all the songs; John wasn't even singing. He started singing after the second record. But if you listen from record to record, it makes perfect sense where we are now, in comparison to where we started. We went in and really made an effort to play well and to have our growth be nurtured as opposed to fighting it, like a lot of bands do.

Yeah but look at it this way: You're in New York. Yesterday you did MTV all day and tonight you're on Letterman. How does that feel to you?

It's been such a slow build, I think we've managed to keep our heads. The first time we did TV was with Superstar Carwash -- three records ago now -- and that was Conan O'Brien. We've done Letterman three times, we've done Leno three times. MTV... I can't even count the number of times we've been [on] there. It's amazing you know, when MTV decides that they're going to latch onto you, it's like a roller coaster ride, man. They put you in just the oddest situations all the time. We did the Olympics through them, we played in Aspen through them, and down in Panama City, Florida, in the middle of a monsoon.

Would you guys move to Manhattan?

We lived here for a year actually. Johnny and I moved here right after the Boy Named Goo tour, which lasted 23 months. A long, long time. We stayed here for nine or ten months and wrote 90% of this new record here, which is called Dizzy Up The Girl.

Tell me about that, is the recording complete?

Yeah, it's all recorded. Right now we're mixing at this place called Ocean Way in Los Angeles with Jack Joseph Puig. He's pretty hot at this particular point. He did all the Jellyfish records, produced and mixed them, so we thought he was coming from an interesting angle. I like to think that we're trying to break a little bit of new ground every time we do something. We've been leery of going with the first guy, the logical choice. Jack was eclectic enough to where we thought he'd do a really cool job with this.

This record was really neat because we actually had enough money to go in and do it right. We looked at every single song as its own beast... it was really important for us to find the right vibe on every song. Simultaneously, as [the recording] is going on, "Iris" is going through the roof right? -- so we'd record for three days and then have to go do something... Go play on a TV show or do this or that and come back. So it's been sort of a process, time wise. A lot of the time we'd pretty much finish the song in a day, as far as the making of the bed of the song. Each song's really got a character of its own; different amplifier, different drum sets, different procedures of recording, which added to the uniqueness of the songwriting itself. This record has some of the heaviest stuff and, at the same time, some of the sweetest stuff we've ever done.

Do you think you'll put out a more rock single or will you stick with the ballad thing?

We generally don't release ballads first. That was a big mistake that was made by [laughs] the meeting of the minds on the Superstar Carwash record, prior to A Boy Named Goo, with a song we had written with Paul Westerberg called "We Are the Normal." It was the ballad from that record and I think they were going with the star-power, sort of thinking that Paul's involvement may have moved it along. I think that it would have been a smarter to have gone with some rock tracks first, not expecting them to cross over. That's sort of a weird predicament. We're expected now to cross formats. So you really have to fight to get the rock single out first.

It's kind of twisted, isn't it?

The good thing is it's not a prison for us, because it's coincidentally one of the things we do. I don't think John ever said to himself "I'm going to go write 'Name' now and I'm going to get on five formats."

The five format formula...

Exactly. It's just something he did and it worked.

What does the title of the record mean?

John has a friend who's some sort of a workaholic, if you will. She works all day and night, a music industry person. I think he felt she was getting a little tense and he said to himself in his head one day, or at least so he tells me, that he needed to take her out and "dizzy her up a bit" so she could forget about work. That's what it's all about: going out and letting go for a little while.

It's a very provocative title.

Yeah sure. I mean, the double entendres never hurt, right? It was actually the name of a song at one point, that was changed along the way. But it just sounded so unique and the imagery is really nice. When we first started kicking it around some of the feminist types had a bit of a problem with it.

I think it rules.

Once it's put into perspective and you're not looking at it so defensively, it's sort of fun.

Yes, it is fun. Tell me about this "A Day in the Garden" Woodstock anniversary concert coming up on August 16.

That will actually be the first big show we do. We have a new rhythm guitarist now, a side guitarist, Nathan December. He played on the last REM tour, Adventures in Hifi or whatever. The Brain Explosion Tour. He's been playing on and off with us for years and he's joining us now, so we're a little bit more free, playing live. It should be really interesting to see. I guess that show's going to be pretty big. It sold 12,000 tickets the first day.

It's got a good lineup, you, Marcy Playground, Dishwalla...

Third Eye Blind... Dishwalla opened up for us for four or three months last tour... a long time. We did a big club tour with them. They're really cool guys.

Didn't you guys open for Bush last year?

Those were four of the most humiliating months of my life. It was just very weird. I felt like I was sandwiched between this sort of comic-bookish spectacle.

Why is that?

We write and play rock songs -- that's pretty much our deal, there's no smoke and mirrors, no craziness or anything like that. No fanfare...

No Stonehenge...

No teenage girl camaraderie. Like, No Doubt, they're really cool people -- they were cool with us and we were cool with them, but it was just that the crowd seemed sort of bizarre to us. We weren't used to sitting in a hockey arena full of 14 and 15 year olds. Our crowd is a little bit more diverse, and a lot of people who dug us didn't want to pay at the $35 to sit through No Doubt, who no-one knew at the time, and certainly not Bush. Man, what happened with them? So fast, meteoric, up and down.

Who knows... maybe they'll come back.

Yeah, you know what else is weird? Remember we were talking about the five format thing? The expectations of that? Isn't it weird with a band like that, their first record sells six million copies and their next record sells a million and a half, and they're talking about what a miserable failure it is. Like, wait a minute.

And so many bands don't even get to sell a couple hundred thousand records.

Reprise never did that to Neil Young. Neil Young releases a record that sells nine copies and people go, "Let's see what Neil's going to do next!"

It's very rare that anything new really moves me anymore. I wonder if a record is really good or if it's just better than the last ten pieces of crap I listened to.

I'm not going to name any bands, but I'm sure that you could put a list together just as easily as I could, of bands that are basically one song bands.

One hit wonders.

And a label will sign them, and as long as they have that hit, they don't care what's on the rest of the record [laughs].

And have you noticed that there's lot of almost "novelty" rock that's coming out? Like that Harvey Danger song...

That was sort of my point.

And that "Closing Time" by Semisonic, who blow.

Keep going, I think you've got my list.

Cute little songs, but that's it, and they're on a major label, they have one hit song and they're gone. Certainly you've had the better situation of making consistently good records that people over 12 will buy. It's not like the Goo Goo Dolls are wondering "Gee, how do we top that song about hanging out in the liquor store?"

I feel like a prick, because you always want to be able to support your peers and what they do...

But crap is crap.

Good point [Laughs]. And the labels are nurturing this whole thing. They're not looking for the next REM, I don't think. It's too much of a quick fix now and everybody's so afraid this whole modern rock/alternative thing is just going to disappear. It's already morphing itself into Top 40. The problem is that anything worth a shit that's independent is getting scooped up, so [bands] don't really have much of a chance to develop and grow.

Let's wander onto another path now before our heads explode. I heard you and John on the radio just this morning doing a Fender guitar ad.

[Laughing]

"We like Fender Guitars, they rock, we're getting some for free just for doing this ad." Did you get free guitars for that ad?

We've had a relationship with them for the past couple years, yeah. They're really cool with us... anything we'd like to try. John gets these guitars put together that are a bit unorthodox, that he plays with a lot of different tunings. I'm sort of the same way, I play Fender Basses. Basically, the ads were cut from interviews. They'd send a guy into the studio when we were recording, set up a mike for an hour and they just talk to us.

They do make you sound pretty cool.

Have you heard the Richie Sambora one?

I think so.

It's the most embarrassing thing I ever heard in my life. He goes [imitates Richie Sambora's voice] "Hey, let's face it, Guitars get you chicks. And nothing gets you chicks like a Fender Stratocaster!"

Are you kidding me? Like "I'm married to Heather Locklear, and you're not!"

[Laughs]. Right.

Actually that's pretty funny.

Yes, it is. But I would assume it's true. I think that's why 90% of young, teenage males play the guitar. Chicks dig it. [laughs]

 

GOO GOO DOLLS FIND THEIR VOICE

From: Daily News (Los Angeles, CA)
Date: April 12, 2002
Byline: Phillip Zonkel Music Writer

MANY OF the Goo Goo Dolls' songs, hits and otherwise, are influenced by either personal or observational experiences with broken relationships, guilt and failure to communicate. For frontman-lyricist-guitarist Johnny Rzeznik, the apple doesn't fall far from the tree.

"I'm a musician, so of course I'm neurotic and irrational more than 50 percent of the time,'' says the 36-year-old.

Once again, Rzeznik takes those feelings and channels them into songs, this time for tracks on the Goo Goo Dolls' recently released CD, "Gutterflower.'' Taking to heart that misery loves company, bassist- vocalist Robby Takac, 37, adds some lyric loneliness to the disc.
Rzeznik's scruffy, pretty-boy looks and sensitive lyrics for such power-ballad smashes as "Name'' and "Iris'' have placed him among the ranks of rock pinups. The tracks on "Gutterflower'' won't diminish his reputation for poignant penmanship.

Phoning from backstage at "The Tonight Show With Jay Leno,'' where the trio - Rzeznik, Takac and drummer Mike Malinin, 34 - wait to play, Rzeznik, puffing on cigarettes in the band's dressing room, says most of "Gutterflower's'' tracks were fertilized by self-reflection.

"The hardest thing to relate to is yourself. It's the most frightening thing to make an honest statement about yourself and put it out for the world to scrutinize,'' says Rzeznik, citing the "Gutterflower'' track "Sympathy'' as an example. "That's a dangerous place, but I have faith in myself and my music. If I get hammered, I don't care. I'll get up and walk away.''

The only walking the group will do on Saturday is on and off the stage. At around 5:15 p.m., the trio headlines the Pioneer Rock-N-Roar Concert taking place outside the Terrace Theater at the Long Beach Performing Arts Center. The show is free to all Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach Saturday ticket holders.

For all the expectations put on this album, "Gutterflower'' has received overwhelmingly positive praise from critics.

"I don't hear a song like 'Iris' on this album. I hear songs that are as good as 'Iris,' that's an important distinction,'' says Larry Flick, senior talent editor at Billboard. "It's not trying or straining to be something other than what it is, which is the most important part.''

"I like the fact that they didn't try to go with a formula all the way,'' says Chris Patyk, assistant program director and music director at Star 98.7 FM (KYSR). "The song 'Sympathy' redefines them a little bit. It's basically Johnny and a mandolin. It's sort of a revelation for him as a songwriter, not depending on a big anthemic chorus or anything like that.''

But that musical change of pace doesn't mean the 17-year-old, Buffalo, N.Y.-bred trio has abandoned its ways. Patyk says it's still rock 'n' roll and that's the way the Goo Goo Dolls like it.

"They're not some pinup, sugary, throwaway band. They're a rock band,'' Patyk says. "This is the album that solidifies that piece that hasn't been in their career.''

The Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll describes the Goo Goo Dolls as "a garage band with a strong taste for melodic thrash ... that evolved over a decade into polished purveyors of mall-friendly, power balladry.''

But before balladeer Rzeznik took up the mike, Takac initially was the group's lead singer.

"I never thought about singing,'' Rzeznik says. "I was in the studio drunk one night and said, 'I want to sing this one.' Then I did. It was pretty good, and so I just started singing.

"I felt a little guilty about it at first because Robby was the singer,'' he continues. "But then I started singing more and more and more. He's cool with it. (Now) there's no reason to feel guilty.''

Following four releases and lackluster sales, the Goo Goo Dolls smashed into the mainstream with the acoustic ballad "Name'' from the group's 1995 3-million-copy-selling CD, "A Boy Named Goo.'' The crew's follow-up release, 1998's 3.5-million-copy-selling "Dizzy Up the Girl,'' which spawned the hits "Iris,'' "Slide'' and "Black Balloon,'' cemented the guys' position as princes of power pop.

"This is a band that used to pretend to be a punky type group,'' Flick says. "They've lost the pose of trying to be something that they're not. They're a better power-pop band than they are a punky-type band.

"Somewhere along the lines, they've become very clear on who they are as a band,'' Flick says. "That's important to have a realistic vision of who you are and what your intentions are. This is a band that wants to make popular records.''

GAGA OVER GOO GOOS' SUCCESS - SORT OF.(L.A. LIFE)
From: Daily News (Los Angeles, CA)
Date: July 15, 1996
Byline: Mark Brown
Orange County Register

Sometimes you just can't win.

Goo Goo Dolls singer Johnny Rzeznik was thinking about getting out of the whole music rat race altogether.

"I was just thinking, `If I can't make a living playing music, I'd better do something with my life,''' Rzeznik said from his home in Buffalo, N.Y. He wasn't about to go back to college to become a social worker, as he'd been planning. On the other hand, "I don't want to be playing in bars for 30 people when I'm 40.''

And for much of Rzeznik's life, that's just what he's done. Play in bars and clubs and release critically acclaimed albums such as "Hold Me Up,'' "Superstar Car Wash'' and "A Boy Named Goo'' that sank without a trace.

But then "A Boy Named Goo'' floated to the surface again. It's a well-known story by now and a somewhat frightening look at what luck and the tastes of one person can do to a band's career. KROQ-FM (106.7), the Los Angeles new-music station, started playing "Name'' after program director Kevin Weatherly stumbled across the cut at home one weekend. Other stations followed, from alternative to adult to hit radio.
"He's called some pretty big hits before they were hits. The guy knows how to pick a hit,'' Rzeznik said. "You'd be amazed how many people who work in the music industry don't know anything about music.''
And suddenly, the Goo Goo Dolls were the latest 10-years-in-the-making overnight sensation. They play the El Rey Theatre on Wednesday and tour through November, when they'll begin work on the next album.

Success has brought a few problems. It alienated some older fans. And it confused newer fans who heard the acoustic ballad "Name'' and thought they might have found a harder-edged Hootie & the Blowfish. Imagine their surprise that the Goo Goo Dolls have always been a hard-edged punk-alternative band.

"We have a much harder sound, generally. We're a rock band. We're not America,'' said Rzeznik, referring to the soft-rock group of the '70s. "We play a lot of really hard rock songs, a lot of really heavy songs.''
"You put a ballad on the record to give the record a chance to take a breather - a slow dance.''

And as for the fair-weather fans who left when the Dolls got big?
"Music elitists always, always heap disdain on anything that has commercial value,'' Rzeznik said. "They consider themselves to be much more intelligent than the public at large. When people who shop at Kmart start buying your records, (you) must (stink).''

"Almost 2 million people bought my record. It's hard for me to believe they're all idiots with bad taste.''

Those elitists see having a major-label deal as a sellout; some fans abandoned the Goo Goo Dolls after they left the indie label Metal Blade.
Warner Bros. "llet me nurture my way through four records before they got a hit out of me,'' he said. "They didn't drop me as soon as my first record didn't sell a million copies. Nobody at Warner Bros. has ever told me to write something. And they've never rejected a piece of music I sent them.

"This is the first time I've ever sold a lot of records for them. They believe in what I do, otherwise they wouldn't have kept me around for so long,'' he said. "They're really an artist-driven label.''
"Back when we got signed, alternative bands weren't getting million-dollar deals. Now they do. We were happy to have any record deal that came our way,'' he said.

"We were an alternative band when there was something to be an alternative to,'' Rzeznik said. "I'm not pointing fingers at anybody, but there are a lot of people who were playing (metal) three years ago who are suddenly alternative. I have a lot of acquaintances around the music scene in my hometown that were dorky metal guys. As soon as Nirvana hit big, they chopped their hair off and bought a new guitar. It's so funny.''

He shrugs off the imitators. "The authenticity of a band shows through after a while. A band like Pearl Jam is huge for a reason. They're great,'' Rzeznik said. "And they mean what they're singing about. That's all you can do.''

The critical backlash came as well. Before the success, there were glowing comparisons of the Goo Goo's work to that of ex-Replacements leader Paul Westerberg.

"Before I had any success, the critics loved me - loved me, loved me, loved me,'' Rzeznik said. "As soon as you get a little success, they bag you. The majority of my press is great. I can't believe it. But the constant comparisons to the Replacements is a little old.

"I haven't forgotten who my influences are. Paul is five years older than me. We listened to the same music growing up. He was just making records before I was. He is one of my influences, definitely. But so is Cheap Trick, so is KISS, so is Aerosmith, Elvis Costello, the New York Dolls, Iggy Pop. I could go on and on and on. But for someone to compare me to the Replacements is a compliment.

"The Replacements were supposed to be one of the most influential bands of the '80s. The second they actually influence someone, they bag them for sounding like the Replacements.''
That he shrugs off as well.

"There are a lot of people who are allowed to write about music simply because they have a journalism degree,'' Rzeznik said. "They don't know anything about music. People who write about music should really know about music."

Beyond the Goo: success Rising from the underground to pop platinum has altered the Dolls and their audience. But singer John Rzeznik will take any fan he can get.
From: Chicago Sun-Times
Date: May 28, 2002
Author: Jim DeRogatis

GOO GOO DOLLS
WITH SENSEFIELD
WHEN:7:30 p.m. Wednesday
WHERE:Riviera Theatre,4746 N. Racine
TICKETS: Sold out

With 1998's "Dizzy Up the Girl," the Goo Goo Dolls became the rare rock band to break into the multiplatinum pop stratosphere, thanks to romantic hits such as "Iris." But this was very different group from the one many fans had long been familiar with.

Songwriters John Rzeznik (guitar and vocals) and Robby Takac (bass) first came together in their native Buffalo, N.Y., 15 years ago. And while Rzeznik maintains that the band could not continue without that partnership intact, the emphasis has shifted dramatically in recent years from Takac's pop-punk to Rzeznik's lush balladry.

These days, Rzeznik is front and center in the videos with his spiked hair and black eyeliner, while Takac hovers like a shadow in the background. I spoke with Rzeznik about the changes the band has undergone prior to the start of a tour in support of the new "Gutterflower" (Warner Bros.), which brings the Goo Goo Dolls to a sold-out show at the Riviera Theatre on Wednesday.

Q. I first saw the Goo Goo Dolls at a small club in 1987. A lot of people who knew the band back then think it's almost a completely different group today. Do you ever feel that way?
A. I see it as a logical progression, but I'm up to my eyeballs in it. There are a lot of people who came on board, obviously, after we had a couple of hits on the radio. I don't think a lot of people really know the whole history of the band, but I don't think they care. I think they just enjoy what we do.