“Johnny Rzeznik Still Won’t Tell ‘Em Your Name” (2020 Interview)

Our contributor Bailey has dug up a pretty recent interview lead singer Rzeznik did in 2020. We usually do not find it useful to share interviews which do not align with the timeline representing the main focus of this blog (1985-1998). However, in this case we make an exception because here John discusses a very interesting fact which took place during the recording of “A Boy Named Goo”.

Specifically, we get to read a few claims made by Armand John Petri, a longtime friend and collaborator of the Goo Goo Dolls (he produced the second and third album, and pre-produced the fourth and fifth ones before MacKillop and Giordano took over respectively).

Petri and Rzeznik comment about the months before “A Boy Named Goo” was released, and the struggles pre-production and recording sessions came with. Most of it is stuff we already know (John thinking about leaving the band and go back to school for a political science degree, issues with former drummer Tutuska, etc…).

What’s interesting here is that the original version of “Name“, that is its inception, was actually quite different from the one we all came to know.

Petri recalls Rzeznik turning up to one session with two tracks – “Broadway” and a track they tentatively titled “Acoustic Song,” which would become “Name.” Since “Broadway” was largely unfinished (ending up on 1998’s Dizzy Up the Girl) they started on the latter. At that point, the track was four bars longer in each verse and more rock-influenced, which Petri attributes to Tutuska having handled the percussion.

And then:

“John started playing acoustic guitar for the demo then went, ‘The drum track’s screwed up. I can’t play to this,’” Petri recalls. “The drums just weren’t that good, but that led to the evolution of the song. I cut four or eight bars from each verse and that’s how the whole concept of the percussion happening during the verses came about.”

These two paragraphs reinforce our (now well-established) conviction about the bad blood between Rzeznik and Tutuska (fully detailed here), which went beyond the “cheques issue” and oftentimes focused on clashing views in terms of how the successor to “Superstar Car Wash” had to be approached on a musical level.

“He said, ‘Can you tell me how you got ‘Name’ to sound so good on the demo?’” Petri says. “I told him I played percussion on it and he goes, ‘Tomorrow when everyone’s gone, will you come back and play?’ I did it in secret because no one wanted to upset George. He had a temper. I finally told the band last year. They were like, ‘What? How could you keep that quiet?’”

To me, this sounds like they decided to discard George’s drum sessions without even telling him. Was that episode another point of contention which ultimately led the latter to being kicked out of the band?

You can read the full article here. (Archived version here).