The mainstream came to The Goo Goo Dolls, The Goo Goo Dolls didn’t come to the mainstream. The Buffalo, New York, band had been making scrappy punk meets power-pop albums since the late ‘80s for Metal Blade Records, the same label that released early recordings by Metallica and Ratt, and playing shows with everyone from R.E.M. to Motorhead.
By The Goo Goo Dolls’ fourth album, 1993′s “Superstar Car Wash,” the band’s evolved into a spawn of The Replacements’ scruffy, yearning tunefulness. That LP even included a cowrite with The Mats’ Paul Westerberg, the excellent track “Stop the World.”
The band truly found their sound on their fifth LP, the deftly titled “A Boy Named Goo,” released in ‘95. Songs like raucous anthem “Long Way Down” and especially acoustic smash “Name” were undeniable pushed Goo Goo Dolls into multi-platinum, MTV stratosphere.
Recalling that ascension now, Goo Goo Dolls singer/guitarist John Rzeznik says, “I was always being myself. It was just that people who were influential in the music business got a hold of it and turned it into popular music, quote-unquote. The music didn’t really change as much as I was changing as a writer.”
Things really went bonkers on 1998 masterwork “Dizzy up the Girl,” an album stuffed with guitar-pop gold like “Slide,” “Iris” and “Black Balloon,” went on to move more than five million units,
“I wasn’t aiming,” Rzeznik says. “Like when “Name” and “Iris” and all those songs came out and they became hits, those songs were all written for me. And then the people at the record company and at radio and MTV and VH1 and all that they made those songs mainstream, not me. And the definition of mainstream or commercial or pop-rock or whatever changes as time goes on.”
Twenty-five years after “Dizzy up the Girl,” The Goo Goo Dolls are still releasing new music worthy of the band’s name and achievements. Although band members have come and gone, The Goo Goo Dolls continue to spin on the axis of Rzeznik and fellow founding member and bassist/singer Robby Takac.
This summer, Goo Goo Dolls are out on the road for their “Big Night Out Tour,” with jammy Maryland rock band O.A.R. as support. Tour dates at googoodolls.com/tour.
On a recent Friday, Rzeznik checked in for the below phone interview from tour rehearsals at a Weehawken, New Jersey, warehouse, near the Lincoln Tunnel. Edited excerpts below.
John, love the strings on “Run All Night,” the recent Goo Goo Dolls single. How did that song come together? And what’s something about interesting about working with strings on a rock song?
John Rzeznik: Well, I have a writing partner, and the song just sort of unfolded in front of us, which is great. I love collaborating with this guy, Greg Wattenberg – he and I do a lot of work together. I’ve been writing songs for almost 40 years, you know, and I need other people’s collaboration. And he’s also a very, very good producer. [Wattenberg’s cowriting and production resume includes hits with John Legend to Train to Daughtry.] And it is about like, well, we need to try something new here.
Working with strings is interesting because if you don’t do them the right way, it can soften the song up a little too much. I think Brian Wilson and The Beatles taught us that lesson of you make the strings very aggressive sounding, and then it works.
Is there a new Goo Goo Dolls album coming, too? The last one was 2022′s “Chaos in Bloom.”
Yeah, there will be. But right now, we’re just getting ready for the tour, and there’s other songs that are still in the works, but I’m not gonna have a chance to finish it until after the tour.
Do you think the rest of the next album would be in a similar vein as the single?
I’m not sure what’s gonna happen. You know, I’m at a point in my career where I’m like, you know what, I just feel like playing the synthesizer today, so I’m going to play with a synthesizer. Or I’m going to play with a drum machine or a banjo or an electric guitar or whatever. And then, whatever comes out comes out. And that’s a nice spot to be in.
I just think it’s hard right now unless you’re playing country music or you’re playing R&B, hip-hop or whatever to have any sort of commercial radio hit. It is what it is. So, it’s most important to maintain the tie between you and your audience and hopefully expand it a little bit.
Would you rather be known as a singer or a songwriter?
Um, songwriter. I’m just gonna say this, and I’m not fishing for compliments or whatever, but I don’t think I have a great voice. I just don’t feel like I’m someone like, like Bono or Chris Cornell that has this voice that it’s just like holy shit. I sing like me. I have no affectation at all in my voice, and I didn’t really model my voice after anybody’s there. You know, I just do what I do. Sometimes I listen to songs that we’ve done and I’m like, you know, it might have been a bigger hit of someone with a cooler voice was singing it. That might sound weird to say. But I think if I ever get remembered for everything, it’s going to be the songwriting more than the actual singing. So that’s that.
I’ll counter that by saying I think your voice has always been a tether to Earth for your band’s songs. Even when Goo Goo Dolls got super huge and had these big hits, the raspy real quality to your voice gave it more appeal than if someone with a super pure voice was singing.
Thank you very much for saying that, and I agree with that. Because in heavy metal and hair metal and all that, there are all these guys who had these like crazy, operatically trained voices. Then a guy like David Lee Roth comes along and his voice is different. It’s just cooler, even though he was not the greatest singer of those guys.
Since The Goo Goo Dolls are playing a run of shows in the South, who were some Southern artists that were important to you growing up?
R.E.M. was a huge, huge influence on me when I was a kid. I remember being high school and listening to those albums that came out on IRS [Records, the label that released R.E.M.’s early albums]. You know, back before you could understand what Michael Stipe was saying. Those were really influential on me. I loved them. They were great.
And the whole Muscle Shoals thing, that sound, it’s impossible recreate and still holds up to this day. There’s something so cool and vibey and special about that. And then there’s bands like Kings of Leon. I don’t know if you consider them Southern, but that band is f---ing amazing.
Do you remember where you where when you came up with that great ascending acoustic guitar riff for your song “Name?”
Yeah, I was living in an attic apartment in Buffalo, New York, with Robby. And I was just sitting on the couch one night, and I detuned my guitar all different kinds of weird ways and just freeform riffed around. And then it just came. I was like, oh, this is something to chew on.
Robby Takac, left, and John Rzeznik of the Goo Goo Dolls perform in 2022. (Photo by Amy Harris/Invision/AP)Amy Harris/Invision/AP
You mentioned Goo Goo Dolls bassist Robby Takac. You guys have been bandmates and partners and I would assume brothers for a long, long time. It doesn’t always work out that way. Why have you and Robby had this longevity and musical connection?
Because we both know our strengths and our weaknesses, and we stay in our lanes, you know, and it’s very important. And you know what, I’m not going to lie to you, there’s been a lot of fights over the past 30 years. Tons. But at the end of the day, he and I are better together than we are separate, so what’s the point? And people have asked me, “When are you going to go solo?” I’m like, never. “Why?” Because I’m because I’m better with Robby than I am on my own, and he’s better with me than he is on his own. Bearing that in mind that sort of tempers the arguments, you know?
Got a story from opening for Motörhead early in The Goo Goo Dolls career?
Yeah, we were back in catering, and I was standing in line right behind Lemmy [Kilmister, Motörhead singer/bassist/badass] to get my dinner and was the coolest guy. Those guys were so cool to us. And it was funny because nobody knew what to do with us, because we were hard and heavy and fast, but we were also super melodic and had big hooks. So, it’s like, we opened for Bad Brains. Then we played with Motörhead and then we opened for the Chili Peppers and then the Ramones and then R.E.M. We played with Soul Asylum and then The Replacements. We played with everybody. Because nobody could pigeonhole us.
Hell of a music education from being in close proximity to all those great bands, I imagine.
Oh, dude. And it’s so nice when you actually meet somebody who is your hero, and they’re nice to you. Because I’ve met so many people who I’m just like, “Wow, you’re a big influence on me,” and they’re just like, “F--- you.” [Laughs] Not gonna name any names, except for Sting.
What’s something that The Goo Goo Dolls haven’t done yet you’d still like to do?
I would love to do an entire festival tour around the world, which we’ve never done. I would like to write with the guys in The Chainsmokers and I would love to work with this producer named Dave Fridmann, who’s worked with Flaming Lips, Mercury Rev, a million different things. I‘d love to work with that guy, because he’s just like a mad scientist.
You grew up the youngest of five siblings, with four sisters. How did your sisters shape your musical taste?
OK, first of all, growing up in a very poor home with a lot of alcoholism, and all kinds of crazy abuse going on that definitely colors your world and your worldview.
And being the only boy in a family that colors your worldview. Listening to all their music, definitely affected my taste in music. They turned me on to everything. Gang of Four. Elvis Costello. They turned me on to Husker Du, The Clash, New Order, Joy Division, The Police. Just so much stuff -- everything that shaped me.
You know, and then having your parents die young, and then you wind up literally with your ass out on the street when you’re 16, that has an effect on you. In retrospect, it’s like it all had to happen that way. It was pretty challenging, but you get through it, and you move on, you work hard, and you get lucky, and things will be OK.
The Goo Goo Dolls play Sand Mountain Amphitheater in Albertville, Alabama. O.A.R. is the opener and showtime is 7 p.m. July 29. Tickets are $23 - $84 plus fees via etix.com.