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A Band Named Goo / article
« on: Feb 7th, 2007, 6:25am » |
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A Band Named Goo
The Goo Goo Dolls bring two decades of rock to Memorial Auditorium
by Vincent Howard
February 07, 2007
“I find myself being exactly who I am at the moment when I pick up a guitar,” Johnny Rzeznik, lead singer and songwriter of the Goo Goo Dolls, once said of himself. “It’s kind of comforting, because I can never sell out. I’m not talented enough to contrive something like that.”
Since forming the Goo Goo Dolls in Buffalo, New York in the mid eighties, Rzeznik has been coming into his own behind his guitar. Like his biggest influence, Paul Westerberg, Rzeznik got his start doing covers of his favorite rock songs at local bars until he eventually began to write his own material. He picked up bassist Robby Takak and drummer George Tutuska soon after. The trio was eventually signed to Mercenary Records and released a self-titled debut in 1986. After Mercenary folded, the band signed with Metal Blade Records, the label that would release their next four albums. During their Metal Blade years, the Goo Goo Dolls began to develop a characteristic sound, which gained them a sizeable following on college radio.
The release of Super Star Carwash in 1993 marked a watershed for the band. The video for the album’s single, “We Are Normal,” appeared on MTV’s 120 Minutes program. “Falling Down,” another song from the album, appeared on the soundtrack for Son in Law, a popular film starring Pauly Shore.
These two songs showed a new level of maturity for the band. Rzeznik’s songwriting had become more fine-tuned, showing the promise of an emergent pop sensibility. The band’s style had also begun to shift away from the generic punk sound that defined its early material toward the more polished sound that would come to characterize their later material.
The Goo Goo Dolls followed Super Star Carwash with A Boy Named Goo, a title that mixed the band’s name with the title of a Shel Silverstein song, “A Boy Named Sue,” which Johnny Cash popularized with his 1969 album Johnny Cash At San Quentin. A Boy Named Goo marked a major turning point for the band. The album’s single, “Name,” a song that apparently tells the story of Rzeznik’s childhood as an orphan, was the band’s first hit. It reached the #5 position on Billboard’s Hot 100 chart. The song “Ain’t That Unusual” made the soundtrack of the 1995 film, Angus. A remix of “Long Way Down” was featured in the 1996 movie Twister. The album reached double platinum status soon after, a first for the Metal Blade label.
But the success of A Boy Named Goo did not come without its problems for the Goo Goo Dolls. Mounting tensions between Rzeznik and Tutuska came to a head during the album’s recording. Tutuska did finish the recording session with the band, but soon left after the album’s completion. He was replaced on drums by Mike Malinin, who has recorded and toured with the band since.
Financial disagreements also arose with Metal Blade after the release of A Boy Named Goo, adding to the stress the band felt upon the departure of Tutuska. Believing that Metal Blade had been dishonest with them about royalties, the band decided to look for another label to call home. They eventually agreed to sign a deal with Metal Blade’s parent company, Warner Brothers, who has released and distributed all subsequent Goo Goo Dolls albums.
The more accessible sound of A Boy Named Sue, along with the frequent radio play of “Name,” and the band’s deal with Warner Brothers, brought inevitable malcontent among the Goo Goo Dolls’ fanbase. Talk of the band “selling out” for commercial success soon became common. Apparently plagued with writer’s block, Rzeznik retreated from the public eye for the three years directly following A Boy Named Goo.
When the song “Iris” appeared as a single on the multi-platinum City of Angels Soundtrack in 1998, however, Rzeznik and the Goo Goo Dolls were again pulled back into the spotlight. The song’s video, which featured clips from the movie, was put on steady rotation on MTV, and “Iris” became an overnight sensation on American pop radio, holding the #1 spot on the Top 100 Airplay chart for a record eighteen straight weeks.
2004 saw the Goo Goo Dolls back in Buffalo performing covers again. This time, however, it was before an audience of 60,000. These fans reportedly braved the worst rainstorm the city had seen in decades to cheer the band’s performance of Supertramp’s “Give A Little Bit” with shouts and bursts of confetti.
“Give A Little Bit” went on to reach #1 on the US Adult Top 40 chart, and is featured on the band’s 20th anniversary album, Let Love In, released last year. Rzeznik and the Goo Goo Dolls are now on tour in support of that album, and are scheduled to appear at Chattanooga’s Memorial Auditorium on Saturday. The forecast is calling for rain, but fortunately for those in attendance, the Memorial Auditorium is an inside venue.
http://www.chattanoogapulse.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2007/02/07/45c91ca77 7932
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