The Goo Goo Dolls
Vancouver Sun, July 22-29 1999
By Kerry Gold
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It's been a long, bumpy ride for Buffalo's premier rock band, the Goo Goo Dolls, and frontman John Reznik remains prepared to do battle. "People are always saying, 'You've come so far. Aren't you afraid of the big fall?'" he says, with an accent that sounds a little like Marlon Brando in On the Waterfront. "And I'm like, 'What makes you think that I can't have enough dignity and self-respect to gracefully get down and walk away when it's over? Why do I have to crash? I ain't gonna. 'Well,' they say, 'Why ain't you gonna crash?' Because my identity is not attached to how much fame I have."
It all started with three guys, Reznik, Robby Tarac, and George Tutuska, who'd established a loyal following with their blue-collar rock on the Buffalo club circuit. In 1989, the band released it's independant debut Goo Goo Dolls, and quickly signed with Metal Blade Records, a subsidary of Warner Bros. The Dolls followed with two highly praised albums, Jed (1989) and Hold Me Up (1992). A year later, the Dolls signed with Warner and released Superstar Car Wash. Although every publication from Rolling Stone to the L.A. Times devoted several column inches to praising the album, it flopped commcercially. That failure allegedly brewed tension in the band, creating an explosive atmosphere the next time they went into the recording studio and fuelling speculation about a break-up. But the 1995 album A Boy Named Goo, given a harder edge by producer Lou Giordano (Husker Du, Sugar), established the band commercially. Still, conflicts had poisoned relationships, and right before the album's release Reznik announced he'd rather quit than continue working with drummer Tutuska.
A hurt Tutuska went on the record, saying he'd been forced out of the band. The split caused a major tremor in the Buffalo music scene, since the Dolls were one of few acts to nab a major label deal and still reside there. Besides, people like the Replacements' Paul Westerberg prophesied that the Dolls had a great future. They couldn't call it quits on the brink of stardom.
"We were all going in different directions, and I originally had quit and Robbie came to me and said we gotta keep this together," says Reznik. "I said, 'I don't think I can do this with George, and that was it."
Tutuska was replaced with Mike Malinin, and the band spent the next two years touring. The single Name became a hit. They followed up with a sixth album, Dizzy Up the Girl, and another hit, Iris. They'd found stardom, not that it matters to Reznik, who remains fiercely protective of his professional integrity.
"I was pretty content making my records and doing what I do, and then, coincidentally what I did became popular," says Reznik, who admits to having moments of doubt throughout their decade in obscurity. "Sure, I wanted to quit and there was a point where I said, 'I gotta stop making $150 a week. I gotta start making some money. I gotta get a job.' But I would have always made music, whether I made money or not."
While Reznik is reticent to discuss the break with Tatuska, he is frank about the music industry and it's disregard for music when there is a buck to me made. "The alternative rock movement is in a big slump 'cause there were all sorts of bogus phony bands out there pretending to have actual credibility and depth, and the A&R guys were making quick bucks off bands, signing them, getting radio hits, then dumping them. And the intrinsic value of music had gone down because of that really heavy, bottom-line, corporate attitude about music as a commodity.
But Warner supported Goo Goo Dolls for years before they started selling records. "The guy that took over Warner, [who] wanted to get his one hit out of us before he dump us, got fired before he could destroy us."
Reznik retains control of his career and stands his ground because he doesn't care if it all ends tomorrow. "Sure, some of the decisions sucked and were really hard; parting ways with George sucked and was really hard because I still have feelings for the guy, but you know, that's what we had to do to stay alive - Anyway, enough of that crap," he says, catching himself. "No, I don't let anybody push me around and tell me what to do.
"My analogy for it is, I write the music then I put on the cool outfit on and go out and play but if I put my cool outfit on and write cool songs to match my clothes, then I suck, I'm bogus, I sold out.
"It's like, you know, I'm just not into banging groupies and doing blow, and throwing TV sets out windows." He says it's not as though he's never done those things or enjoyed them, but they made him feel like a jerk. "So it's kind of like, you are what you are man. And you're nothing more, no matter what anybody tells you."
Amen. The Goo Goo Dolls take over GM Place Saturday with Sugar Ray and Fastball.
**Note: I typed this article up word for word as it was in the paper, so all the weird spelling mistakes and stuff that you may have noticed were, in fact, in the article, and are not just mistakes on my part. Just to let you all know...**