Music: The Goo Goo Dolls
Johnny Rzeznik, singer/guitarist in the Goo Goo Dolls, is no songwriting neophyte. He’s been the band’s chief songwriter throughout its two-decade history, and he’s written or co-written an enviable number of hit songs, with tunes like “Iris,” “Slide” and “Name” among his dozen top 10 adult top 40 hits.
But over the course of writing and recording the ninth Goo Goo Dolls studio CD, “Something For The Rest Of Us,” Rzeznik said he found he still can learn about the art of songwriting, particularly in terms of learning how to deal with the times when ideas aren’t flowing.
“I think that’s the biggest lesson that I learned in writing this record,” Rzeznik said in a recent phone interview. “It’s really frustrating. It’s kind of scary looking at the blank page. You look at the blank page and say ‘Oh God, what am I going to say?’ How am I going toay it in a coherent way?’ Sometimes that causes me a bit of anxiety.”
Several people have had helpful advice for him, Rzeznik said, including Lamont Dozier, the legendary songwriter for Motown Records.
“I said to him ‘You’ve written so many songs, and you’re so incredibly talented. It’s like you’re just able to tap into this place inside yourself so easily,’” Rzeznik said, recalling a conversation he had with Dozier. “He’s like, ‘Well, I sit down and I work a lot.’ He goes, ‘When I get frustrated or something’s not coming, I go take a walk. Then I come back and 15 minutes later, it’s like boom.’”
But perhaps the songwriter who most directly helped Rzeznik grow during the writing of the new CD, which is called “Something for The Rest of Us,” was Andy Stochansky.
“(He’s) an amazing songwriter, and I actually produced an album for him about seven years ago,” Rzeznik said.
“It’s always a learning process with Andy, because he’s kind of prolific,” the singer/guitarist said. “It’s like I’ll write 20 songs in a year, and he’ll write 100. I’m always astounded by people who can do that. He’s just so comfortable with going to the well and diving in.”
Rzeznik, obviously, got more comfortable with the idea of working through times when ideas are not coming easily and respecting that it’s part of the creative process. But it’s also clear that he had some specific inspiration for some of the songs on “Something For The Rest Of Us,” which was released in August 2010.
While he’s usually written about love and relationships, on the current CD, Rzeznik said he found himself exploring a more topical direction in his lyric writing.
“It’s not like a concept album, because I hate that term, but a lot of the subject matter on the album is kind of addressing what people seem to be going through in a very angst-ridden time in America,” he said. “I’m kind of trying to speak to people who are going through pretty intense times right now.
Rzeznik said some of the lyrics were inspired by notes he had received from fans, some of which were surprisingly personal and candid.
“I don’t know why they want to tell me these things, but there’s a lot of separation anxiety with a lot of people who have loved ones who are off fighting two different wars right now, and people losing their jobs and feeling very insecure about that and losing their homes,” he said. “I just wanted to, I don’t know, man, just kind of try to give them some kind of hope or something.”
One song in particular, “Not Broken,” grew from a letter Rzeznik received from the wife of a returning soldier, who had been paralyzed and had avoided coming home to his wife.
“He was afraid she was going to see him differently,” Rzeznik said. “And she just wants him to know that she still loves him and still wants him. And he’s having a hard time adjusting to that, so he’s kind of hiding out in a hospital. The story really kind of touched me, and I kind of wanted to write a love letter for her to him, and let him know that it was OK to come home.”
The writing and recording of “Something For The Rest Of Us” was not particularly quick or seamless. Work on the album stretched out over about two years. The group (Rzeznik, bassist Robby Takac, drummer Mike Malinin) produced much of the CD itself, with Tim Palmer, Rob Cavallo and Butch Vig, also doing some production.
In fact, “Something For The Rest Of Us” was originally going to be released in fall 2009. But Rzeznik said the group backed off of that plan after realizing there was room for improvement on the CD.
“We had the album in our hands, and we listened to it and we were like ‘Wow, this is really good,’” he said. “Then we had Paul (Hager, who for several years has mixed the Goo Goo Dolls sound at concerts) come in and mix a couple of songs, and it was just, it just exploded out of the speakers. It was like ‘Wow, this is so much better.’ Then we started playing the songs in rehearsals as a band, as a five-piece, and they started evolving even more. We were like ‘We need to go back and re-do this.’ It is so much better now. We were afforded the luxury to go back and really dig deeper and come out with something that was much better than the original first draft, in a way.”
Not only does Rzeznik feel good about how “Something For The Rest Of Us” eventually turned out, he feels better about where the Goo Goo Dolls stand as a band now than he did a few years ago.
Leading up to the 2006 CD, “Let Love In,” Rzeznik voiced some uncertainty about how much of a future the group would have, even contemplating the idea that “Let Love In” could be the last Goo Goo Dolls album.
But in doing that previous CD, he, Takac and Malinin smoothed out some issues and started working better together as a band. Today, Rzeznik said the group members are in a good place and excited to be continuing the touring cycle behind “Something For The Rest Of Us.”
“It’s nice because everything feels really comfortable,” Rzeznik said. “The band is at a point, we’re one of the few bands lucky enough to be able to go out and earn a living playing live. And that’s a really comforting feeling because you don’t have to worry so much about chasing hits. Let’s face it, selling records is really hard now. It’s nice that we can go out and get our music out to people and they come out to see us.
“And in the space between (the 2002 CD) ‘Gutterflower’ and ‘Let Love In,’ we sort of lost focus on that because we were trying to pound so hard to be successful and do all of that,” he said. “We kind of lost our focus at certain points. It’s nice to have that back…Now we just sort of feel a bit more comfortable in our own skin and sharing our space together.”
The Goo Goo Dolls will showcase some songs from “Something For The Rest Of Us” on tour this summer, and Rzeznik said he remains excited about touring.
“It’s like I kind of feel like a dog that’s been stuck in the house for a long time and wants to go outside and run around,” he said.
To Go: The Goo Goo Dolls will be playing South Florida on Friday, August 5, 2011 at the Pompano Beach Amphitheatre, Pompano Beach. The show starts at 7pm. For info: www.livenation.com
