More Goo Stuff

60 MINUTES

"THE HOUR OF MUSIC THAT ROCKS MY WORLD"

with Johnny Rzeznik of the Goo Goo Dolls

by VIC GARBARNI

Guitar World

February 2000

          "I honestly believe that, as much as I love punk rock, it can be a very limited form of musical expression," admits Goo Goo Dolls guitarist/vocalist Johnny Rzeznik. "You have to push out the walls musically and emotionally. You have to constantly challenge yourself to grow."         

  After spending a decade amassing impeccable indie-punk credentials, this working-class trio from Buffalo, with the defiantly smart-ass name, broke free from the confines of three-chord punk orthodoxy in 1996 with the top-five hit "Name." Surprisingly, it was a propulsive acoustic rocker based on one of Rzeznk's totally orignally tunings. He followed that artistic break through with the even more adventurous hit "Iris," first featured on 1998's City of Angels soundtrack. Later that year it became the centerpiece of Dizzy Up the Girl (Warner Bros.), arguably the most successful rock album to straddle both sides of the millenial divide. With its bizarre, original guitar tunings and light-versus-shade acoustic/electric dynamics, the album may become this generation's Led Zeppelin III.      

     In addition to "Iris," the triple-Platinum album has spun off three more consecutive top-10 hits - "Dizzy," "Slide" and "Black Balloon" - each boasting a different and distinctly unique, pretzel-logic tuning, something which has enabled the band to dramatically stretch the musical and emotional range of its songs. Dizzy Up's fifth single, the Springsteen-ish rocker "Broadway," will be released early in the new year.        

   And what prompted Rzeznik to strike out into a new sonic territory on the guitar? "I found that winding the guitar strings into these weird tunings became a strangely hypnotic way of musically meditating," he says. "Screw practicing scales. You can sit there and get lost experimenting. You look up at the clock and it's four hours later - but it feels like only five mnutes. That's when you realize you're touching something bigger than yourself. And that music can be a conduit to a deeper place inside ourselves.     

      Of course, some things never change. "Every day, man, I still gotta get on the phone with some guy named Booger at a local radio station who always asks the same question," says Rzeznik with a sigh. "Hey, Johnny, this is Booger on the morning show... so where'd you get that stupid name?"

          Rzeznik's 60 Minutes choices all center on the musicians who inspired him to have the courage to escape his limitations - both musical and personal.

"GIMME SHELTER"

THE ROLLING STONES

Let it Bleed (ABKCO, 1969)

"PROBABLY THE GREATEST SONG EVER WRITTEN. It's so dark, it makes Nine Inch Nails sound like Elvis Costello. It actually makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up. And when Merry Clyton sings that middle section - forget it. That kind of a magic moment only happens once every 10 years in a studio. The lyrics definitely suggest someone who's looking for someplace to hid from the insanity of the world. And Keith's splash of notes in the intro is fantastic. I'm still trying to figure out how he did that."

"COMPLETE CONTROL"

THE CLASH

The Clash (Epic, 1977)

"I THINK STRUMMER AND JONES WERE ONE OF THE MOST prolific pairs of writers since Lennon and McCartney. They never stopped progressing as songwriters, which really inspired me. Like us, they started out as angry you men playing just three chords very, very loud. And as they got older they allowed themselves to become more sophisticated. But even on their early punk songs, like this one, they never denied the value of melody and harmony in their music."

"HARDLY GETTING OVER IT"

HUSKER DU

Candy Apple Grey (Warner Bros., 1986)

"BOB MOULD IS ONE OF THE GREAT UNDERRATED songwriters of the 20th century. This song has a raw emotional power that in no way could have been contrived. You know that this is truly what was on his mind and in his heart at the time. He was one of the biggest influences in terms of guitar playing. He used a lot of alternative tunings, and always in a way that struck a real emotional chord in me."

"SHOOT OUT THE LIGHTS"

RICHARD THOMPSON

Watching the Dark (Rykodisc, 1993)

"I BOUGHT THIS COLLECTION AFTER BEING TURNED ON to Richard Thompson by things Bob Mould said about him. He's a great songwriter and one of the most incredible guitarists I've ever heard. He's got this very Celtic vibe in his music - very ethnic sounding, like some of Jimmy Page's stuff. The solo in this song is just astounding. First he rips and you like a fingernail going down a blackboard, and the next moment he's elevating you to some place beyond yourself. Listening to it, I'm going, 'Okay, that bit really got me. Oh, God, now that one just killed me!' He's another guy who picks up a guitar and out pours exactly what he's thinking and feeling."

"HYPER ENOUGH"

SUPERCHUNK

Here's Where the Strings Come in (Merge, 1995) "THEY PUSH THE BOUNDARIES OF MUSIC while still crafting really great arrangements. There's a lot of atonality in their music, things that are just slightly askew or slightly out of tune. But they really rock. I'm going to get hung for saying this, but Superchunk are so much more musical than a band like Sonic Youth, who I always thought were pretentious wankers who tried too hard to be cool in an arrogant and contrived way."

"STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN" (LIVE)

LED ZEPPELIN

The Song Remains the Same (Swan Song, 1976)

"I LOVE PAGE'S GUITAR SOLO ON THE LIVE VERSION. IT'S so sloppy, but it's just so charged with spontaneous emotion. The beauty of Page is that he could get a deep rock groove going, but he was also able to switch gears and play something acoustic like 'Tangerine,' with its ubtle alternative tuning. I went back and listened to him when he played in the Yardbirds, and I thought, Wait a minute, he went from that to this? There was a serious metamorphosis at some point in that guy's life. He really plugged into something that was beyond the material world."

"LEFT OF THE DIAL"

THE REPLACEMENTS

Tim (Sire, 1985)

"PEOPLE ALWAYS ASK ME WHO I THINK THE GREATEST punk band of all time was. And it's got to be Paul Westerberg and the Replacements. Why? Because they showed that you didn't have to wear the punk uniform. They were always pushing out the musical boundaries of what punk meant. And that was real nonconformity in the scene they came up in. When you go down the left side of the radio dial, there's nothing there except college radio - which was the only outlet for bands like us when we started. So this song really struck a nerve with me, becasue it's aout accepting your obscurity."

"RIVER"

JONI MITCHELL

Blue (Reprise, 1971)

"GOD, THAT SONG, MAN. IT MAKES YOU FEEL... I FEEL like I'm going to cry just talking about it. When she starts playing 'Jingle Bells' as the song goes into this very melancholy, minor sort of thing - forget it. I get a lump in my throat. She makes you feel all the innocence that's inevitably lost as you go through life. I really believe that women have much easier accss to their souls than men do. Because as men we're taught to wear masks, to drown our emotions in competition and making money. Now women are being forced to do that, too. But I just admire their capacity to bear their spirituality so much more deeply than men."

1965

THE AFGHAN WHIGS

(Columbia, 1998)

"I CAN'T PICK JUST ONE SONG. FROM TOP TO BOTTOM the whole album fits together seamlessly. Greg Dulli has the ability to make something really dark that still sounds incredibly beautiful. Lyrically, he's so lascivious it's unbelievable. Musically they're kind of punk, but they draw outside the box. Greg is great with horns and piano. It's beautiful, dark and cold - all at the same time. They definitely can set a mood."

"BORN TO RUN"

BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN

Born to run (Columbia, 1975) "NOW, THAT IS A PUNK ROCK SONG. IN A LOT OF WAYS, IT inspired our song 'Broadway.' It's the same kind of deal: it's about being a boy turning into a man, and wanting to feel your independence. And being willing to fight for it. What a great theme for a song. By the way, does anyone outside New Jersey know what 'sprung from cages on Highway 9' is all about?" [laughs]

"WHAT IT'SLIKE"

EVERLAST

Whitey Ford Sings the Blues (Tommy Boy, 1998) "WE ALL KNOW THE MUSIC INDUSTRY HAS THE EVIL FACTORY out there somewhere, just pumping out these audio-animatronic human beings that dance around and make this horrible musical pablum. I think there's this conspiracy to make the world unbelievably stupid. And just when you think it's hopeless, along comes somebody like Everlast and speaks a little bit of truth without being self-righteous. And it really strikes a chord. Because, God, I think people are really, really hungry for some truth.