By Corey Levitan
Van Gogh's "Irises" (1889) was marked by pronounced brushstrokes and morose subversion of a pleasant theme. The Goo Goo Dolls' "Iris" (1998) was marked by a pronounced melody and a morosely executed guitar solo.
Coincidence? Who knows? But the Dolls ditty has achieved a little cultural history of it's own. It recently became the most-played song by a group at multiple radio formats in any one week, according to Broadcast Data Systems, which monitors radio airplay for the "Billboard" radio charts.
Everywhere you turned the radio dial this summer, the Goo Goo Dolls pleaded "I just want you to know who I am" until, finally, everyone on the planet did.
"I guess we were pretty surprised by the attention that song got," Goo Goo Dolls bass player Robby Takac tells Circus Magazine. "That's some pretty heavy company to be in-U2, Alanis Morisette and Sarah McLachlan-and especially to be singled out of."
Hoping to sustain the wave generated by "iris" and "A Boy Named Goo," the band's multi-platinum 1995 album, the Goo Goo Dolls recently released a sixth CD, "Dizzy Up the Girl". It's first single, "Slide" snuggled right into most modern-rock radio playlists this fall.
"I think this album seems much more creative," says Takac, who wrote and sings 5 of the 13 tracks on "Dizzy Up." (Guitarist Johnny Rzeznik is the group's main singer/songwriter.) Recorded at L.A.'s Track Record studios, the new album resonates with the band's penchant for kickass power ballads. Between the grooves, moreover, lies a perceivable injection of soul.
"Our other five albums were pretty much assembly-line records, for a lot of reasons," Takac explains. "And I think we've reached out pretty far on this one. Our producer, Rob Cavallo, was a huge part of that. He's a really creative guy, whereas out producers in the past have mostly been engineers who help us do the record."
"Dizzy Up" also benefits from the addition of Tom Petty keyboardist Benmont Tench and string orchestrator David Campbell, who happens to be the father of alternative rock god Beck.
"I guess anyone can hire him," says Takac. "You just have to have the cash."
The Goo Goo Dolls got their start in on the small but active Buffalo, NY music scene in the mid 80's. Takac was in a punk band called the Monarchs with a cousin of Rzeznik's. Rzeznik was in a punk band called the Beaumonts. Chemistry ignited when the future band mates were introduced.
Rzeznik was a self described freak. Donning a Mohawk haircut that made him a target for bullies, the singer was attending a vocational school as an aspiring plumber. There was a dark emotional defect hidden inside Rzeznik that pipe wrenches would never have fixed, however.
Born into a blue-collar Polish family, his parents both died when he was 15. (Four older sisters helped raised him.)
Barely out of their teens, Takac and Rzeznik formed an angry punk band called Sex Maggot, with drummer George Tutuska. Their influences included the Replacements, Dramarama, Buzzcocks and Rolling Stones, although Rzeznik once regreteeably admitted that his favorite band growing up was Triumph.
Impressed with Sex Maggot's performance at a local club, a promoter offered to start booking and managing them under and more acceptable name they could come up with. One night, while slightly under the influence, the boys looked through the pages of a "True Detective" magazine and destiny looked back: it was an ad for something called a Goo Goo Doll.
"It's a noisy, annoying little toy," says Takac. "They had them going back to whem my grandmother was a kid. Believe me, it we could change our name, we probably would. But at this point…"
Spending only $750 for studio time (about the price of 100 Goo Goo Dolls) the group released it's self-titled debut in 1987. The followup was "Jed" in 1989, released on Los Angeles indie Metal Blade Records. The records tanked but, thanks to nonstop touring, the Goo Goos became a club attraction throughout the Midwest and South. The "Austin American-Statesman" newspaper even predicted the Band "just might be to the 90's what R.E.M. and the Replacements were to the 80's…"
In the beginning, Takac sang every song. "But, little by little, John started singing more and the commercial potential of everything started to look up," says Takac. "not that was were necessarily driving for that, but it just sort of happened."
"Hold me up" followed in 1991, "SuperStar Car Wash" in 1993. The latter album gave the group a regional hit in "We are the Normal", which Rzeznik co-wrote with one of his idols, Replacements singer Paul Westerberg. But the band was still neither platinum not a national act, its albums selling in the area of 50,000-80,000 copies each.
It took more than a decade together before the Goo Goos enjoyed their first real "Name" recongnition. That arrived via the 1995 hit "Name", from their 5th album, "A Boy Named Goo" (a play of Johnny Cash's "A boy named Sue")
"It probably took to long…because the climate at the radio wasn't right. Back when we started, there was no hope even for a band like R.E.M. to get huge."
Even with a hit, the band members were still earning a reported $6,000 in royalties each per year, requiring them to keep day jobs. "I don't remember how much money it was," says Takac, who worked overnight radio DJ in Buffalo (putting him in the awkward position of spinning and announcing his own hit song). "That label signed us a long time ago, and shit changes. Let's just say it was not a good relationship for one of the two parties."
The Goo Goos successfully sued to get out of that contract; they now record exclusively for Metal Blade's distributor, Warner Bros. Records. But the frustration took its toll on relationships within the band. Drummer Tutuska received his walking papers in 1995. (He's not playing with a Buffalo band called Hula).
"It just wasn't working with him anymore," Takac explains, side-stepping specifics. "We had been together a long time and shit gets weird over the years."
The band -which not splits its time between Buffalo and L.A.-hired new drummer Mike Malinin and spent nearly two years on the road, playing to progressively larger audiences and attempting to avoid the pitfalls of "overnight" success like only 10-year veterans can.
But the history-making success of "Iris" has turned up that pressure-cooker. As rock observes all know, there's a thin line between making history these days and becoming history.
The pressure's there," says Robby. "We've had a steady rise and, knock on wood, it's still rising. So we'll see how it goes."
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