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Ghosts of all kinds enrich Goo Goo Dolls’/ article
« on: Nov 2nd, 2006, 6:40pm » |
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Ghosts of all kinds enrich Goo Goo Dolls’ Let Love In
By steve newton
Publish Date: 2-Nov-2006
Goo Goo Dolls singer-guitarist and main songwriter Johnny Rzeznik had it pretty rough as a kid growing up in Buffalo, New York. The fifth and youngest child in a working-class family, he was only 16 when, within a year of each other, his mother and father passed away. On the phone from his home in Los Angeles, the rocker relates how the loss of his parents helped push him to find expression through music. “I mourned their deaths for a long time,” he recalls, “but it also changed a lot of my circumstances, you know. It was a shock, but it launched a pretty interesting adventure that I’m still on. You know, one thing disappears and a lot of other things appear right in front of you.”
Like countless kids have done, Rzeznik took refuge from his troubles in the Rolling Stones’ Hot Rocks compilation of ’72, in particular the song “Gimme Shelter”. Eventually he would form a metal-edged punk trio that would morph into a radio-friendly pop-rock band with multiplatinum success. For the Goo Goo Dolls’ latest CD, Let Love In, Rzeznik returned to Buffalo with producer Glen Ballard (No Doubt, Alanis Morissette), mainly because the City of Angels wasn’t inspiring him anymore. “It’s a city that’s full of illusions,” he says, “and Buffalo has no illusions.” He wrote the new disc’s “We’ll Be Here (When You’re Gone)” for his hometown. “And through the fence I see a ghost of a place that used to breathe,” he sings, “You know it choked away the sun, but we still had food to eat/And now everyone is gone to a place that won’t be home/Can they keep their family strong? Will they make it on their own?”
“It just amazed me at how the city had been gutted when all the industry moved out,” he explains. “It’s a really romantic place for me, strange as that sounds, ’cause it’s big and old and there’s tons of beautiful architecture. And I don’t think you’ll meet finer people in your life.”
It may sound like Rzeznik is on the payroll of the Buffalo Tourism Bureau, but he is seriously considering a permanent return to his roots in the City of the Sabres. “I like winter,” he says, “I dig the seasons [in Buffalo].” And besides, that’s where his four sisters live, and they’re all Goo Goo Dolls fans. They are now, anyway. “At first they were skeptical,” he says. “’Cause I was always bumming money from them to keep the band goin’. But I paid ’em all back.”
“Better Days”, another Rzeznik-penned track on Let Love In, was seen by CNN as inspirational for victims of Hurricane Katrina. “I don’t need boxes wrapped in strings, designer love and empty things,” goes a line in the song, “just a chance that maybe we’ll find better days.” The network used the song in its New Orleans aid campaign. “I don’t know how that happened,” says Rzeznik, “but they called and said, ‘Can we use your song?’ and I was like, ‘Of course.’ When they reopened the Superdome [in New Orleans], we got invited to play, and it was amazing because there was supposed to be about 5,000 people, and then around 25,000 showed up. I think it was a big shot in the arm for that town, at least emotionally.”
The Goo Goo Dolls play the Orpheum Theatre on Sunday (November 5).
http://www.straight.com/content.cfm?id=21664
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