What's in a 'Name'?

Goo Goo Dolls score a hit nine years in the making

By David Sprague Rolling Stone, December 14, 1995

        It's Saturday night, and the cupboards on the Goo Goo
Dolls' tour bus are bare - a state of affairs 
that doesn't sit well with the blue-collar boys accustomed to
downing a hearty meal before an honest night's work. The quest
for nourishment is further hampered by the fact that most of the
restaurants in Baltimore's Little Italy are guarded by tuxedo-clad 
maitre d's who look aghast at the prospect of seating a
party led by a pair of scruffy guys in bermuda shorts and
baseball caps. But one spaghetti house - its awning adorned witht
he motto A VERY CASUAL EATERY - looks more promising,
particularly once bassist Robby Takac notices an autographed
photo of the Romantics in the window.
     "That was a great time in music, speaking as a member of the
original MTV generation," Takac says, chuckling. "People were
less concerned about being hip. Nowadays it's all credibility.
It's like a country club worrying about letting the wrong people
in."
     In the nine years since the Goo Goo Dolls formed in their
hometown of Buffalo, N.Y., their blue-collar ethic has seldom
been in vogue. Nevertheless, Takac and guitarist Johnny Rzeznik
willfully ignored the parade of bandwagons, intgrating nary a
trace of grunge, hip-hop or techno into their raunchy, rootsy,
Replacements-esque sound. That purism earned the Goo Goo Dolls
plenty of critical respect, but albums like 1990's exhilarating
Hold Me Up and the slightly slicker SuperStar Car Wash(1993) slid
into bargain bins with alarming speed.
     "We stopped operating under the illusion taht we were going
to change the world and sell millions of records when we were
18," Rzeznik says. "But it was really discouraging to think in
those dark moments that nobody cared."
     When the Goo Goo Dolls' fifth album, A Boy Named Goo, was
issued at the beginning of this year, things didn't look much
brighter. The band was on the verge of imploding after Rzeznik
and Takac parted ways with drummer and band co-founder George
Tutuska. But five months after the album's release, its third
single, "Name," began a slow but steady climb up the charts, just
as Rzeznik's self-imposed deadline for success was looming. "I'm
almost 30, and I can't do this much longer without looking like a
jerk," Rzeznik says. "I don't want to embarrass myself."
     Maturity has crept into the Goo Goo Dolls' universe in
increments. They have cut down on their alcohol consumption,
disavowed the Ramones-inspired decision to hide their surnames
and, most significantly, garnered their first bona-fide hit in
"Name," a moody ballad that is on the verge of doing the trio's
fortunes what "Runaway Train" did for Soul Asylum. "People assume
I wrote the song with success in mind, but that's bullshit,"
Rzeznik says. "It's never been my goal to be famous. It's just
that your mind works differently when you're 29 than it did when
you were 19."
     As the only aspiring plumber with a spiky punk haircut at a
Buffalo vocational high school, Rzeznik was more than just an
outcast - he was a target. "I used to get beat up a lot," he
says. But teen turmoil soon gave way to other concerns. Rzeznik's
father, weakened by years of alcohol abuse and factory work, died
when the guitarist was 15. His mother passed away less than a
year later.
     After a breif flirtation with hardcore punk in the early
 80s, Rzeznik met Tutuska and Takac, who had moved from the Same
East Side neighborhood in Buffalo to the suburbs. The trio
christened itself Goo Goo Dolls, a decision Rzeznik likens to
getting a bad tattoo ("You think it's cool one drunken night, and
then you're stuck with it forever," he says). The band's 1987
debut captured the embryonic band snatching riffs from T. Rex,
the Angry Samoans and the Replacements.
     That last influence grew as Rzeznik(who called in ex-Raplacement
Paul Westerberg to contribute lyrics to "We Are the
Normal," from SuperStar Car Wash) assumed more songwriting
duties. But while the tunes have gotten more sophisticated, the
band's old slash-and-burn aesthetic still surfaces in concert.
     In Baltimore, joined by new drummer Mike Malinin onstage,
Goo Goo Dolls speed through a dozen songs in 30 minutes. When
"Name" is tossed off three quaters of the way through the set,
the crowd certainly takes notice, but rave-up ending doesn't
signal a mass exodus.
     "It's not hard to tell the people who haven't seen us
before, since they're the ones standing at the front looking at
us like this," Takac says, fixing his face in a shellshocked
grimace. "I'm just glad we don't seem to have lost too many
people who were there in the beginning."
     The memory of the one person they did lose still weighs
heavily. Rzeznik and Takac say that Tutuska had lost interest in
the band.  But Tutuska, who started a contracting business after
his ouster, says the split can be traced to financial disputes.
"It sounds ridiculous, but it came down to a fight over about
$600[in royalties]," he says. "It was more a matter of principle.
We lived together for going on 10 years, and sudden;y trust
started to evaporate." A spokesman for the band denies the
charges.
     Tutuska isn't optomistic about burying the hatchet. "I don't
know if you've ever spent any time on a construction site, but
the radio is on all the time," he says. "I'm working 60, 70 hours
a week, and every time I hear ['Name'], my hands start to shake.
There's too much to overcome."
     Goo Goo Dolls may have traded rusty vans for a cushy though
snackless tour bus, but Rzeznik insists that they haven't become
insensitive, big-spending rock stars. "My wife and Robby's
girlfriend still have to have their jobs becausse if they don't,
we don't make the rent," Rzeznik says. "But id I have a choice
between earning $500 a week as a janitor or $200 a week doing
this, I'll do this. I'm sure I'll have the chance to be a janitor
later."
  
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