Biography 

On A Boy Named Goo, America's best known unknown band, The Goo Goo Dolls, up
the alternative music ante with thirteen new songs that defy convention, the
odds and your preconceptions. Produced by Lou Giordano (who's worked with
everyone from Pere Ubu and Husker Du to Sugar and the Smithereens), and
featuring the Goo's new single and video, "Only One," A Boy Named Goo puts
The Goo Goo Dolls front and center in the back-to-basics revolution that
began with the Ramones and continues unabated with this rabidly original
Buffalo band.

The group's third Warner Bros. Records release, A Boy Named Goo is also a
full-bore follow-up to their critically-acclaimed 1993 release, Superstar Car
Wash, bringing to the band's hook-ladened hardcore pop a whole new dark-edged
luster. "This is who we really are," asserts guitarist-vocalist Johnny
Rzeznik. "This is what we sound like to ourselves."

It's a sound that has taken The Goo Goo Dolls a long way from their upstate
New York stomping grounds, even as it remains true to their raw,
uncompromising roots. The group, which also includes bassist/vocalist Robby
Takac, got their start on the small, but lively Buffalo music scene in 1986.
Garnering a loyal local following, they released their first independent
album, Goo Goo Dolls, a year later, even as they expanded their base with a
spate of national touring.

Signing to Los Angeles-based indy powerhouse Metal Blade Records, The Goo Goo
Dolls released Jed in 1988. By that time, word on the grapevine had already
made them a major club attraction throughout the Midwest with growing pockets
of fervent Goovers on both coasts. The word was out, and critics wasted no
time in picking up on the deafening buzz. "A blast of school's-out
exuberance," enthused the Los Angeles Times, "a roar of youthful rage."
"Thrash-packed pop and well-articulated rage," was how Rolling Stone
described The Goo Goo Dolls chemistry, while the Austin American-Statesman
predicted that the band "just might be to the '90's what R.E.M. and the
Replacements were to the '80's..."

With that kind of response, it was only a matter of time before the group
began attracting major label attention. In 1991, they released Hold Me Up,
under Metal Blade's distribution deal with Warner Bros. Records. Additional,
non-stop touring ensued and, in between time, the band recorded an original
song,"I'm Awake Now" for the soundtrack to Nightmare On Elm Street 6. It
wasn't until the Spring of the following year that they found time to return
to the studio to begin work on a new album.

Produced by Gavin McKillop, of Toad The Wet Sprocket renown, Superstar Car
Wash went even further in proving The Goo's axiom that gut-level,
guitar-based rock and roll had a place in the pure pop spectrum. "It's about
time The Goo Goo Dolls conquered the world," insisted their hometown paper,
the Buffalo News, and the group took up the challenge with six months of
virtually continuous touring. Aside from headlining their own SRO dates, the
band also opened for Soul Asylum nationally and took a swing through Europe
for some selected dates. They made numerous TV appearances, including a
performance on Late Night With Conan O'Brien and contributed a version of the
Rolling Stones' "Bitch" to the AIDS benefit album, No Alternative.

It wasn't until early last year that the group returned to Buffalo to begin
writing and pre-production on what would become A Boy Named Goo. Work
proceeded at home and in a local studio as the songs and the sound of the
album began to take shape. "At first we tried a real high-tech approach,"
explains Rzeznik, "with all sorts of bells and whistles. But after awhile we
realized that the best way to get what we were after was to get a boom-box,
hit the record button, and just start banging away."

The "banging" was shaped and molded into actual songs with the able
assistance of the group's longtime collaborator, Armond Pietrie, and by the
time Giordano (the group's first choice for producer)  arrived in June, they
were virtually ready to begin the recording process. Basic tracks were cut in
New York, with additional recording and overdubs done in Buffalo. "What we
were getting was very natural, very true to form," Rzeznik explains. "We'd
done our homework...we knew exactly what we were going for and Lou locked
right in."

But the process was not quite complete. Additional sessions were scheduled in
Los Angeles, this time with producer Rob Cavallo, the man behind the boards
for Green Day's multi-platinum Reprise debut abum, Dookie. "Originally we
were going to do some 'B' sides," explains Robby Takac, "but the tracks came
out so well we ended up using two of them on the album." The songs in
question: a cover of "Disconnected," from the pioneering Buffalo punk band,
The Enemies, and "Slave Girl," from Australia's Lime Spiders.

Now, it's all come together on A Boy Named Goo. "I look at our career as
having three stages," remarks Rzeznik with a smile. "Drunk, hungover and
sober. I wouldn't exactly say we're in our sober phase now, but we are dead
serious about making the best music we can." 

Which is exactly what The Goo Goo Dolls deliver on A Boy Named Goo: the very
best from one of the most promising young bands in America.