DOLL'S life By John Rzeznik As told to by Jennifer Graham |
First off, I would like to apologize for the oversaturation of “Iris” last
year. Although it wasn’t the Goo Goo Doll’s first hit- “Name” was,
in 1995- it did bring us a giant slice of fame that we never imagined possible.
Recently, my band mates, Robby Takac and Mike Malinin, and I performed
at the American Music Awards and found out that we’re up for three Grammy’s.
That’s insane to me. When I think back on the first half of my 33
years on Earth, sometimes I can’t believe that I’ve made it here intact.
I don’t want to sound like I’m bitching about my upbringing. Now
I understand it was brilliant in many ways. My sisters (Phyllis,
41; Fran, 39; Glad, 36; and Kate, 35) and I are so close today because
of the tumult at home, in our tight-knit working-class neighborhood in
Buffalo.
For as long as I can remember, my dad, Joe, divided his time between his
clerk job at the post office and local bars like Three Deuces. When
he did come home, drunk and depressed, he’d pass out in his chair—or wouldn’t
even make it that far. Once, when I was about 12, my sister Kate
and I had to drag him inside, take off his clothes and put him to bed.
Anyone who doesn’t realize that alcoholism is an actual illness—not just
some character flaw—never met my father.
During my childhood, he had three heart attacks. A man in his fifties,
he was overweight, diabetic and he smoked and drank whiskey. (To
this day, if I smell whisky on somebody, it sends shivers down my spine.)
He just couldn’t stop. I hated him for a long time.
But
I loved my mom, Edith. She played the flute and got us well on our
way to reading and writing before the first grade. She took a job
as a teacher at my Catholic grade school, Corpus Christi, so we could go
their tuition free. When I was about seven years old, she turned
me on to music—first, accordion lessons, then a few years later, the electric
guitar.
My mom was hard on my dad, and there was a serious violent phase in their marriage. He would come home drunk when we were little kids, and they would start fighting. Once when I was 14, he hit her, and I punched him so hard in the face that he fell to the floor. But my mother turned on me, hitting me for not respecting my father. Like I said: It was insane. I had more than my share to rebel against, so I became a troublemaker. I’d get back at my dad through vandalism (once, in my early teens, I smeared blacktop fluid all over a funeral parlor) and by stealing money from his wallet. When I became a sophomore at Buffalo’s McKinley High School, my already shaky home life completely shattered. At 55, my dad got pneumonia, fell into a diabetic coma and died. My sisters were upset, but I was too angry to grieve. That emotion set in more than a year |
Friends to the rescue
Throughout high school, I was a punk; I even showed up to gym period in
combat boots so I wouldn’t have to participate. I was always skipping
school—who did I have to answer to? And three or four nights a week,
I would drink beer unit I blacked out. I was too young to have learned
from my father’s mistakes.
But this isn’t a story of doom and gloom. What happened next is the
basis for why I believe in God—or at least, a greater being than myself.
Just as things started to get really dark, somebody was sent into my life
to help me. In retrospect, I see there was a plan. You don’t
make it through a nightmare like mine and end up with this kind of success
without figuring that out.
During
my sophomore year, Joey O’Grady became my best friend and introduced me
to people who were into the same kind of music that I was, punk bands like
The Clash, the Damned, The Sex Pistols. I started playing with them
in garage bands, and for the first time in my life, I had something I really
cared about: songwriting and playing music.
After I graduated from high school, my girlfriend, Laurie Kwasnik, helped me apply to and get into Buffalo State College. Academia didn’t stick—I dropped out after freshman year—but that’s when I met another student and musician Robby Takac (who’s now 34). When we were about 19, we formed the Goo Goo Dolls (along with then drummer George Tutuska), taking our name from an advertisement in a magazine. |
By the time I was 20, we had a deal with Celluloid, a small label.
I wish I could tell young musicians that a record deal equals success,
but I can’t. The Goo Goo Dolls didn’t have a hit for 9 years (by
then we were with Warner Brothers). We put out five records, went
on brutal van tours and did everything we could to keep going. Not
to say there weren’t goo times. In 1990, I met Laurie Farinacci;
she became my wife in 1993.
With the double-platinum success of our fifth album, 1995’s A Boy Named
Goo, we quit our day jobs. After hearing our hit “Name,” the music
director for the movie City of Angels asked us to write a song, which became
“Iris.” Then, last September, we released our sixth album, Dizzy
Up the Girl.
Every day I’m reminded of my dad and his alcoholism, and my struggle with
his legacy. In every city we play, there’s a party. Radio programmers,
record executives, friends—everybody wants to buy you beer. When
I was in my early teens, I could have drunk them under the table.
But I’m everconscious of what happened to my dad. When you realize
the amount of destruction it can cause to not only yourself but the people
around you, it’s like, why bother?
A few years ago, I visited my dad’s sisters, Frances and Irene, in San
Diego. They told me something I never knew about my father.
They explained that their dad—the grandfather I never knew—died when mine
was just nine. He’d owned a bar, and my dad had looked forward to
taking over the business. But while my father was in the Navy, my
grandmother sold the bar, robbing my dad of his dream. They said
he was never quite the same after that.
The other night, I dreamed that my dad was sitting in his chair, and I
whispered in his ear, “I got enough money to buy the bar back.” He
started laughing. When I woke up, I realized that it was the best
closure I could ask for.