Sanity - May 2002

The Goo Goo Dolls are back with a new album Gutterflower. Danny Keenan in Los Angeles speaks to them about Sinatra, Marilyn Manson and a crazed fan.

The huge success of Goo Goo Dolls' Dizzy Up The Girl album allowed Johnny Rzeznik, Mike Malinin and Robby Takac the luxury of spending more time on their follow up Gutterflower. They recorded at Capitol Studios in Los Angeles, where some of the greatest names in music put down their tracks. In fact, they paid tribute to Frank Sinatra by setting up a bar in the studio and stocking it with the kind of top booze Sinatra would have approved of.

"I was supposed to be in the studio playing guitar," Johnny Rzeznik laughs, "But I was out buying bar stools, drapes, mirror balls, lava lamps... and cases of booze!" Rezenik learned to sky dive to get over his fear of flying after their plane almost crashed in a thunderstorm on their last tour. He also played the Pink Floyd song "Wish You Were Here " with Fred Durst on a September 11 tribute show in New York. And when the Goo Goos get back to Australia in October, they hope to get enough time to explore the Great Barrier Reef.

What is the origin of the title Gutterflower?

Johnny: "A friend of mine gave me a book on poetry by Pablo Neruda. I was reading this one poem called The Beggars and he used the term Gutterflower to describe homeless people. I thought that was nice. I thought it was a striking way of describing a bad situation. How he found beauty in this kind of bizarre situation."

Dizzy Up The Girl was a big album for you guys. Was it easy to follow it up and do you put much pressure on yourselves?

Robby: "I guess the idea is that you try not to, right? You try to just do your next record. We've been oddballs for a long time, so it just let us make the next record that we were gonna make. We finish it and say "Are we happy with it?' Here's our offering."

The new album sounds a lot edgier and tougher than Dizzy Up The Girl. Was that a deliberate thing, or did it just unfold that way?

Johnny "It just unfolded that way. We'd been on the road for a couple of years and that will certainly toughen your view of the world. We chose a different mixer this time, which has a lot to do with it. That same kind of edge was on Dizzy Up The Girl when we recorded it, but in the mix it was softened up a little too much. Which is fine. I'm not saying anything bad about that, but I felt like we needed to have someone more aggressive mix it, but that was about it."

Whilst it has its gentler moments, it doesn't have the big "Iris" or "Shine"...

Johnny "The big lush ballad. My head is not there. I did that already. That was just one period of time in my songwriting or whatever and that was a great time and a great period. I felt like I was so in love with the world, in a weird way. With this album, I'm going. Whoa! (laughs). I wasn't having a lot of sentimental thoughts."

What has inspired the lyrics on Gutterflower?

Johnny: "At least on my songs, I'm really just trying to find my place and find out what's real. You get confronted with so much garbage in the world and it's so disingenuous. All I want is some truth, damn it! (laughs)"

Did you find any?

Johnny "I don't know. That's a good question. Tune in next time, maybe I will know."

What's the strangest interpretation you've heard of one of your songs?

Johnny "Once you put it on a piece of tape, press it on to a CD and then put it out to the world, it's completely up for interpretation, scrutiny and that whole thing. It doesn't belong to you any more. So everyone's entitled to their opinion of it. I've had some pretty twisted interpretations of what I've done."

What's the best or worst?

Johnny: "The worst one was that I was communicating telepathically through my albums and this girl decided that she was going to physically assault me, because I was communicating telepathically with her. That was a lot of fun."

Robby: "And did you stop? (laughs)"

Johnny "Well yeah. Once she busted me, I cut it out. She's screaming in my face 'Get out of my head!' So I'm like. Okay. Cool. I won't do it any more. How ya feeling? It was very sad in a way. It was very sad to see this girl, coz it was obvious that she was truly and profoundly mentally ill."

The first single from the album is "Here Is Gone". Tell us about that track.

Johnny: "It picked up where the last album left off. I think it's a good way to introduce people to the new stuff. It's really funny, coz I was writing the music to that song and sitting on the phone talking to a friend of mine. I said to her, playing the riff, Check this out. I got to where the chorus is and I said, Okay, what do you think I should do? Go up or should I go down? She said to go up, so I went up."

Robby "And there's the Marilyn Manson duet."

Mike: "It's a hidden bonus track."

Johnny "It's so hidden I don't even know about it."

Mike: "So hidden, it's off the CD. It's past the 78th minute! (laughs)"

Johnny: "Time out! I just have to say that we never did anything with Marilyn Manson. This is a joke. Can we please put a disclaimer here saying this is a joke."

WORDS DANNY KEENAN