Touring to promote the record saled is show buisness as usual. But the Goo Goo Dolls' "Dizzy Up The Girl" album tour pulling into Hershy May 16 has a higher purpose_feeding the hungry. "We've been collecting an average of a ton a week for the U.S.A. Harvest food drive," said John Rzeznik, the Buffalo trio's lead singer, songwriter and guitarist. "That's an unbelievable amount of generosity." If the public responds that well to the Dolls' next plea, the National Rifle Association is in trouble. "This summer, we're joining the gun control people," Rzeznik said, his voice raspy from singing power ballads like "Dizzy," "Slide" and the Grammy-and Oscar-nominated "Iris" (from City Of Angels") five nights a week on the road. "We've all been blown away and shocked and overwhelmed by what happened in Colorado. I want to see the gun lobby explain this one away." "The spread of gun violence in this country is the same as the spread of AIDS," he added. "It has to be seriously combated. You can't legislated behavior or morality. you ahve to legislate against stupidity and irresponsibility. "There is no reason anybody has to have a machine fun or a sawed-off shotgun. It's ridiculous. Guns DO kill people." "I hope those kids' parents are held responsible, too," said Rzeznik, who is childless. "Don't have kids if you're not going to take an interest in their lives. How can a parent not notice guys out in a garage putting nails, BBs and propange bombs together?" "The problem today having children is like a status symbol. Give 'em cute little names, give 'em timeouts. There were times I, as a little boy, was going things that were wrong. My parents disciplined me physically and otherwise. A slap on the ass is a direct message. I don't think I ever got an ass-whipping I didn't deserve. And I never doubted that my parents loved me." Rzeznik does not blam pop music for tragedies like the Colorado high school slaughter. "I think music has gotten more positive since the grunge was really big four years ago," he said. There is still a lot of angst, he conceded, "but angst isn't necissarily negative. I've had a lot of communication from people who said, "You really helped me through a bad time. It's more than them wanting direction from music_I'm not here to preach. They need somebody to identify with. "I don't see how you can blame (shock-rocker) Marilyn Manson (songs) either," he said. "It's like kids' psychotic interpretation of a comic book character. You can't blame art, just interpertaion. When a Moslem extremist goes out and bombs the World Trade Center, they didn't try to ban the Koran. The Bible provokes as much psychotic misinterpretations" as anything in pop culture." Orphaned at 15 and playing in boozy bar bands since he was 18, Rzeznik could have easily become notorious instead of famous. His battling, blue collar Polish parents divoriced when he was 11. They lived in adjacent apartments for four more years_and died whithin months of each other in 1980. His father succumbed to complications from alcoholism. His mother had a fatal heart attack. The oldest of Rzeznik's four sisters became his legal guardian until he graduated in 1983 from a vo-tech school as a plumbing major. The 18-year-old moved out that same year and joined his first band, a punk outfit called the Beaumonts. A year later, he and bassist-vocalist Robby Takac and drummer George Tutuska made a punk band of their own, the Sex Maggots. They were signed with in a year by the French label, Celluloid Records_for dismal sum of $1,500 for six albums. Celluloid told them to change their name. At random, the band picked Goo Goo Dolls from an ad in a detective magazine. The Dolls broke their contract in 1987 to sign with Warner Bros. subsidiary Metal Blade Records. Terms of that contract weren't much better, Rzeznik said, but the band didn't have th clout to renegotiate until their fifth album, 1995's "A Boy Named Goo" went platinum and produced the trio's first hit single, "Name". During the band's nine-month legal battle for better royalties, Tutuska was fired. He and Rzeznik had been banging heads for a long time and Takac was sick of playing the mediator. They hired drummer Mike Malinin away from L.A. band Careless a few weeks later. The new combination was an instant click. Rzeznik gradually took over lead vocals from Takac and the Dolls were no longer rocking with such a frenzied vengeance, trying too hard. The power ballad potential signaled by "Name" surfaced big time in "Dizzy Up The Girl," the Dolls' first album ender their renegotiated Warner Bros. contract. In the public eye, it looks like the Goo Goo Dolls have arrived. But Rzeznik isn't filling out any change of address cards just yet. Longecity is not a music industry long suit, he said. The Rolling Stones, the first rock'n'roll band he ever heard (on his sister's 45s), are an exception. Opening for the Stones for two weeks in March and April was "fantastic, an amazing experience," Rzeznik exclaimed. "The Stones are an unbelievable anomaly," he said. "I don't think any rock band will ever persist like that in the futre. Record companies today aren't as inclined to nurture artists through their career." "Our new record company (Warner Bros.) and our managment have done a great job," he said. "We're not a one-hit wonder anymore. But there is no solid ground, no resting on laurels, Everything is so hit-single driven." "I try not to think about commercial success. For me, that's not a priority, because it's something you can't count on." Now 33 Rzeznik has learned not to count on much. He seperated two years ago from Laurie, the catalog model he married in 1988. But they are still close friends, he said. And while there's a lot of angst in Goo Goo tunes, there's no self-pity. Rzeznik talks the same way. "They say, "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger.' Now I trust myself to be there for me." Not that he's alone. "I'm tight with my family. My sisters and I are thick as thievees," he said. "Living in Buffalo, near my family, stablizes me and gives me security. I have to go back there when I want to write." "I know who's real, and who's full of shit. It's a very strange thing we do in this buisness. You have to know who's real and who's not or you find yourself going through the looking glass." "I really, really believe in something bigger and stronger than me is watching out for me." The Goo Goo Dolls are playing the Hershey Park Stadium Sunday, May 16, with the Austin rock trio Fastball opening the show.