"Failure is Not An Option"

By: Renee J. Daigle

Its all about passion, drive and the frienships you make along the way to success. Withouth pitfalls of being just a kid bands would have never been formed and songs about life never would have been written.

There is something to be said about philosophizing with a songwriter that can leave you inspired. In the short time that I was able to converse with John Rzeznik from the goo goo dolls, I found myself intrigued by this tenacious rock star.

"I believe our band is caught between a rock and a hard place right now because, we are actually a real band. We play our own guitars and write our own music. I'll be at a radio station doing an interview and then they will play one of our songs, and then after our song they will play Brittany Spears and then a Green Day song after that. Before you know it, the Backstreet Boys and then a song by Smashmouth. In a way its really cool because the music lines are being blurred and its one of those things that I really admire, because I really don't like that factory stuff" Johnny explains.

"I'm convinced that theres some big old factory somewhere that they do audio animatronic things they build and the teach these guys how to dance and they write these horrible songs in a computer and then just go out there" he says laughing.

Its bizarre! Pretty soon, I think people are going to be jonesing for some heavy dose of truth!" Johnny declares. If failure is not an option, then who do you hold as your musical aspirations? he replies, "Paul Westerberg. He is to me what Chuck Berry was to Keith Richards, of course, theres no comparison! But its that kind of thing that really changed me. Think about it... when someone for the first time picks up a guitar, what's the first thing they say? "who do I want to be?" When I was a kid, I wanted to be Ace Frehley. and then I go into punk and then I had to be Joe Strummer" says Johnny.

On a more serious note, John discloses, "All I want people to know is that our band fucked everything up and we still did it. I just want them to realize that your cant avoid the bullshit, but take it easy and dont worry about it. That you become worried that you wont get your dream and you sell your soul metaphorically, because you want your dream so bad. Be patient it will happen."