Girl right next to me, will you tell ’em your name and think about me?

There exists what I believe is a pretty potent link between three Goo Goo Dolls songs which were released in the span of 9 years. What may be intersecting throughout these tunes, merging them together? A common denominator: John Rzeznik’s former wife Laurie Farinacci.

Not much is known about the couple’s life and relationship before they decided to get a divorce in the early 2000’s, and rightly so. With this post, I want to focus on a couple of things about how their relationship, as well as Laurie, have played a big role in helping shape the band’s direction, both for good and bad. All of the information provided below is publicly available.

So, what do we know about the story between the two? Well, Laurie and John met in 1990, dated for two years, and in 1992 they were engaged to each other. They both lived and worked in Buffalo, NY. According to those who knew them during the “Continental” days, they were madly in love with each other. In 1993, they got married. Producer and longtime friend Armand John Petri was John’s best man at the wedding. Laurie came from a big Italian family, and at the time she was dating John she was working as a model (it is not specified which type of modeling she was performing, or whether or not that was her primary or secondary source of income). They lived together for 5 years, until they separated in 1997. They shared a house or apartment and had a dog named Chloe. Thanks to the success of “A Boy Named Goo”, John was able to buy a bigger apartment for them, where they moved in and shared living accommodations until their separation was established. In 2002, they officially divorced. Below is a picture of Laurie taken in 1994, one year after they had married. To my knowledge, this is one of the only two photos of her published online and taken within the 1990-1998 time frame.

I remember seeing another picture of her in an online article published around 1997 or 1998. It showed her hand in hand with John, as the two were walking about. I don’t remember much about it because I saw it a long time ago and unfortunately I did not save it in my computer. I do remember it looked like they were attending some kind of public event (maybe a gala?), and she was as tall as him and wearing black shades.

Why the divorce? Rumor is Laurie was getting tired of John’s lifestyle as a Rockstar trying to make a living with his music. In an interview I read online many years ago, but I cannot locate as of right now, Laurie declared that after “A Boy Named Goo” made the band popular nationwide, she began struggling with the fact that John was rarely present at home, as he was on tour all over the USA, or even outside of the States, performing all the time. In that interview, she said something like “I wanted him to come home and be my husband”. Another thing she mentioned is that, from 1995 onward, the marriage with John was beginning to get in the way of her plans of going back to College, or something along those lines. After the divorce in 2002, John met Melina Gallo in 2005 and married her 8 years later, marking the event as his official second marriage.

So what about the aforementioned link between three Goo Goo Dolls songs? 1993’s “Girl Right Next To Me“, which appears in my favorite album “Superstar Car Wash”, was likely written by John in honor of his love for Laurie. This is a wild speculation of mine, but it makes sense because of their life events during those years, and the fact that the lyrics kind of give it away. My interpretation of the lyrics is that he is basically saying Laurie is the girl of his dreams, and he feels safe when he is with her.

We all know that 1995’s “Name” was the song which made the band popular and launched it toward mainstream stardom. What many do not know, however, is that Laurie played a big role in the creation of that tune. According to this interview (archived version here in case it gets deleted), “Name” was penned out of pressure from her.

“This song, is really the song, we were gonna, I was gonna quit playing music because we couldn’t make any money doing it and I was married and my wife wanted to have a real life, which to me, sounded f-ing horrible. And so I had the ultimatum put to me, and uh, so I immediately went, sat on the sofa and I was like, ‘I gotta write a f-ing song, I gotta write a f-ing song. And I wrote a song, and this is what came out…”

To what degree did Laurie inspire, or push John, to write that song? Who knows. I speculate she may have tried to make him work on a tune more aligned with the radio needs of the time, even if it was somewhat detached from the musical standards the band had been adhering to until then. Anyway, the above quote reinforces the theory that John and Laurie’s marriage was a struggle for the both of them, in terms of how it was handled, with the former (John) having financial issues and the latter (Laurie) wanting them to have a normal life, that is likely one where her husband wasn’t outside of the house touring that much. While the hit song likely helped the couple in terms of financial stability, it actually made things overall worse as it forced John to be even more absent from home to satisfy both the label’s and fans’ needs, whilst Laurie found herself even more alone than before. Just a speculation of mine, given the claims made above. However, the band “made it” and released such an amazing and popular song, and as a consequence was given the chance to release a plethora of other fantastic songs after that, hence fans should also thank Laurie for her initiative, and for providing John with the right motivation to expand his horizons and give all of his best in penning the one song which changed the band’s destiny for the better during very, very hard times.

The third, and final component comprising the aforementioned link is another songs, which appears in 2002’s “Gutterflower”, named “Think About Me“. This tune was actually written by John for, and dedicated to, Laurie. Sometimes, he would introduce the song as a composition he wrote for a girl he lived with for 5 years (this is certainly a reference to Laurie), and perform it with a pretty sad intro where he basically confesses he still cares for her and thinks about her. You can listen to the intro yourself, here is a couple of videos where it is introduced to the audience: Video 1, Video 2. After “Dizzy Up The Girl”, all the eyes of fans and critics were on the development of the next album. “Gutterflower” turned out to exhibit a pretty dark tone. It is speculated that was the case because of John’s struggles with the divorce from Laurie.

Where is Laurie Farinacci today? At the time I am composing this post, she still lives in Buffalo, NY and makes a living as a successful social worker with plenty of experience in the business on her shoulders. As you can see from her Linkedin account, she went back to College in 1997, the same year she separated from John.

That’s all I have about the matter at hand. If you have read through all of this until the end, you now know Laurie Farinacci is probably the one responsible for the Goo Goo Dolls’ success. If it weren’t for her pushing John to write “Name“, we fans may not be here today celebrating years of marvelous releases. Maybe I am exaggerating a bit, but I like to think that a somewhat “obscure” character from the band’s past was likely responsible for their second greatest hit ever.

Below are more recent pictures of her. They were taken (left to right) in 2020, 2021, 2022, and 2023. Thanks for having been part of the Goo family, Laurie!

UPDATE: Thanks to a user on Reddit for reaching out to me with an insight. Laurie was actually featured in two Goo Goo Dolls video materials. In the first one (the July 4th show documentary), she is seen with John at night in the backstage as they were rehearsing. In the second one (the VH1 BBQ concert) she actually hops in on stage and dances as the band performs “Black Balloon“. Below is the video featuring both cameos.

UPDATE #2: User Bailey sent us a couple of articles where John briefly talks about his relationship with Laurie. These interviews add a bit of context about the rapport between the two individuals, on top of confirming some of the speculations made in this post.