Things That Go Goo Goo In The Night – 1998 Article

Contributor Bailey forwarded us a very interesting 1998 interview with the Goo Goo Dolls, which touches on several topics, and mainly focuses on the band’s success thanks to the hit single “Iris“.

There are a few cool stories and jokes in here, and I think overall the interviewer did a nice job providing a general idea of the music group both as a whole and as single individuals.

What I find most riveting is the listing of some musicians the band members are inspired by. There are some names in there I never thought they could be linked to the Goo Goo Dolls. Anyhow, I won’t spoil it for you and will leave you to discover this new data all by yourself.

The article also came with a picture of John, shown below. It was written by an Australian magazine.

Apparently the original website it was posted on is not online anymore, and only the archived version is present.

Here is the interview. Thanks again Bailey for the heads up.

Things that go Goo Goo in the night

By Paul Cashmere

Goo Goo Dolls have been called “America’s best known unknown band”. They were happily thrashing around beats and bars in the USA for 8 years before registering their first hit with “Name” from “A Boy Named Goo”.

Recently, after 12 years in existence, they finally crossed over the gap from alternative rock band to pop band thanks to the movie “City Of Angels” and the song from it “Iris”.

“Dizzy Up The Girl” is Goo Goo Dolls 6th album.

There is no reason why it has happened now for them. Their sound has been fairly consistent for nearly a decade. They really don’t know why now either.

Undercover’s Executive Producer Paul Cashmere sat down with singer John Rzeznik, bass guitarist Robby Takac and drummer Mike Malinin

One of the things you are noted for being is “America’s best known unknown band”. Are you starting to feel a bit known now?

John: I think we are a little more known. Probably since the middle if 1995 we have been doing OK. We had our first hit and then it became our second hit and people started to know who we are”

Was there a particular point in time when suddenly people started to recognize you walking down the street?

Robby: Not so much for us. Jon gets a little bit. I think the success of “Name” was a pretty big part of the whole thing coming up, but slowly but surely we have been infiltrating American culture and American media and starting to take off a lot more.

Then Iris came along. Did it suddenly make you feel like pop stars?

John: It’s cool, I’m glad. I don’t feel like Whitney Houston. It’s nice. Like we’ve been a band long enough without hits to really appreciate one when you get one. It’s great.

Mike, does a band get a point where you can think you can do this forever and not having to worry about having a hit?

Mike : Well I only joined them 4 years ago. They were a band 8 years before that. It was cool. When I joined I had my fair deal of gigs in front of 20 people. Then it started taking off.

But if you only joined 4 years ago, you can claim you are the one that created the success!

Mike : Absolutely. My karma and my charisma bought fame to the band.

What about the first time you guys heard one of your songs on the radio. Describe that feeling.

John: You know I always listen the first time I hear it. The first time, I’ll catch it just to hear how it sounds on the radio. After that, when I hear it, I turn it off. Just because it feels weird listening to yourself, you know what I mean.

Mike : You know I love it. I crank it every time it comes on the radio but that’s just me.

Robby: You know our rise to where we are now was very slow. We did college radio in the States for years. College radio is a real thing in the States but it only goes to like two mile radius of where we were. So it wasn’t really like a shock hearing it come outside of the stereo. I think the shock is hearing it sandwiched between some of the things I hear it between now. I used to hear it between Sonic Youth and Husker Du and now it’s between Backstreet Boys and something else.

John: It’s weird to me to be on pop radio because there are so many bands that are manufactured factory girl groups and all boy groups that wear matching clothes. Like we are a pretty organic kind of rock band. It’s kind of strange. I think like the way pop radio is in America and I think we are one of the only real bands on it.

You’ve been on the Conan O’Brien show. What was that like?

John: He’s a great guy. Of all the late night guys, he’s the nicest one. He’s a pretty cool guy. He’s like the same age as us, so we sort of related to each other. I’ve actually had a conversation with him. When you are on Jay Leno or Letterman, well Jay Leno is really nice, but Letterman doesn’t really say anything to the bands.

Robby: He (Conan) also lets bands come on and play something other than their hit. You can come on and just play. You don’t get much of that on American TV.

How many songs did you write for Dizzy before you went in to record?

John: As many as are on the record.

Robby: We’ve always done that. Probably one of the few bands that do that. We write a record then go and record it.

Mike: I was amazed when I first joined them because they had four records and out of curiosity I said “give me tapes of stuff that didn’t make the record” and they were like “we don’t have any”. It’s pretty bizarre.

John: There’s stuff in my house.

Robby: And there’s stuff in our heads but nothing that actually made it to the group. Making a record is about taking a snap shot of things that have actually happened to you. It’s all valid.

One story had it you wrote and recorded this album very quickly after Iris became a hit in the States.

John: Yeah we were in the middle of writing songs for Dizzy Up The Girl when I got the call to do Iris. It sort of all happened at the same time. Writing all this other music then writing for this film. It all came together pretty quick. I had been having a bit of writers block before that, but once the wheels got turning the momentum picked up pretty quick.

Was the song actually written for City Of Angels?

John: Oh yeah. The producer and the music director of the film called and asked me if I wanted to write a song for that movie. They flew me to Los Angeles, I saw the film and it was great. It was easy to latch on to.

There is no actual mention of Iris in the song. Does the song actually have another name that you wrote it by?

John: No. It’s funny. I was trying to be pretentious and arty by calling it that. I figured if Billy Corgan can get away with it, so can I. So I figured what the hell, I’ll tap into the pretentious market. It was just a cool name. I just wanted to call it something cool.

What’s all this American press over the last few weeks where they are comparing Iris to Billy Joel’s “Piano Man”. Have you been hearing all this?

John: I saw that once. I saw that written up. Wow, Piano Man. I’m a big fan of songwriters. People who are known for their songwriting and he’s (Billy Joel) a guy who is known for his songwriting. Elton John is a song who is known for his songwriting.

Robby : And that song 25 years later is still on the radio.

John: So hey man, maybe I’ll be able to put my kids through college.

Robby: Maybe you’ll be able to buy the college.

John: Maybe I’ll be able to start my own college.

In terms of a sound, Goo Goo Dolls do have a distinct sound. Iris could have been off a previous album. It’s a nice musical sequel to Name.

John: Name, gosh, I don’t know. I definitely think we’ve made moves. I definitely think we’ve moved ahead and progressed. Sometimes we take small steps forward. It’s not like we were going to become a goth metal band. That will probably happen on the next record. It was a little too soon for that. I don’t even know what I’m trying to say.

Well neither Name nor Iris are really indicative of Goo Goo Dolls sound. You are a much tougher sounding band than those songs indicate.

Robby: At times. All the records have lots of different things on them. So it’s only natural that a song like that would be the most successful. There’s other songs on the record that could be equally as successful at a rock format. But a song like Dizzy couldn’t be as big on a pop station as a song like Iris because Iris deals with so many different kinds of people’s tastes.

John: That’s the one thing that I really dig about having written a song like Iris. It made me feel really good to have written something like that because it cut across so many boundaries. We are living in this time in pop culture when everybody is subdivided into these tiny little groups. A song like that comes along and it just goes voomp. Right from here to there. I like that. I like the fact that I was able to do that. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to do it again. The planets lined up and it just sort of happened. It went from alternative rock to Top 40 and rock. I am glad that it happened.

Robby: Playing music with this group is a really cool thing. Getting back to Piano Man. If we had to go out and play Piano Man for an hour and a half it would really suck man. We can go out and play that song and three minutes later and three minutes later be raging so hard that it’s unbelievable. There’s all sorts of things we can do. Over the years we made sure there were no limits and boundaries that we put on our records. No-one can push us into one direction or another. They just let us go, and it’s nice.

City of Angels is one thing, but the really impressive thing is that you’ve also been on the soundtrack to a Freddie Kruger movie.

John: That was a great soundtrack to be on. Iggy Pop was on there. It was a whole lot of metal bands.

What’s that Goo Goo biscuit that they have in Tennessee?

John: hahaha Goo Goo Biscuits. It’s a cluster. It’s got peanuts and caramel in it too and it’s disgusting. People throw them at us on stage.

Mike: I love them

John : He’ll actually eats food that strangers throw at him.

Anyone would think you were the drummer.

Mike You got it

Is there a favorite drummer joke that you have?

Mike Q. What did the drummer get on his IQ test? A. Drool. That makes me feel good

John: Q. What has three legs and an asshole on top? A. A drum stool.

My favourite musician. Q. What does a stripper do with her asshole before she goes to work? A. Drops him off at band practice.

Q. What happened when the drummer locked his keys in the car? A. It took him three hours to get the bass player out.

Were you really once called the Sex Maggots?

Robby: A long time ago. We were playing loud fast obnoxious music in the mid 80’s. Anything to be offensive right. Well there we were. Very offensive.

Kiss are often written up as a band fav. Have you heard the new album?

John: Not yet. I’m afraid to buy it.

Robby: I’ve ignored most of Kiss after ’78.

John: I’ll go all the way to Love Gun and that’s it

Robby: I’ll go all the way to Dynasty.

John: Ok. I’ll go to Dynasty but then again, occasionally, I’ll go as far as Lick It Up, and that was ’83

Robby: Really. That’s some pretty dangerous territory.

John: Pretty much ’79 was the end. At that time when Kiss were huge and Cheap Trick were huge, what a great period. Right before the new wave thing caught on.

There’s a bit of Australian connection with you guys. You play a Lime Spiders song and an INXS song.

Robby: There are a lot of good rock bands here man. In a time when we were searching for them, this is where they seemed to be.

John : Hoodoo Gurus were great. They were just one of the greatest bands

Robby: They were just using the power of the Marshall amp back in a time when others were afraid to put their Rickenbachers and Fox’s away. They were basically to me like an REM with loud screaming guitars.