Veteran Buffalo pop-rock band Goo Goo Dolls’ return to a more upbeat sound on their new album, Magnetic, which hit stores this month, is the result of a number of positive things going on.

First and foremost, frontman Johnny Rzeznik, the group’s 47-year-old singer-songwriter-guitarist, has given up drinking and is about to get married in L.A. in July for the second time (he divorced his first wife in 2002).

He’s clearly moved on from the downer vibe of the group’s last post-9/11 influenced disc — 2010′s Something for the Rest of Us.

“I really felt as though I really had to stop obsessing over the negative things in the world,” says Rzeznik, seated beside Goos bassist-singer Robby Takac — the proud papa of 16-month-old daughter Hana with his wife — in Toronto.

“There was part of me that was just really starting to become very tired and a little bit bitter and I think it really started to show in my work on Something for the Rest of Us, which was a darker record… that whole process of making that album really jolted me into a really kind of depressed place, really kind of out of it, and I had to get out of that place… there was certain amount of self-indulgence. Like somebody said to me, ‘Depression is an incredibly selfish disease,’ and I’m like, ‘Yeah, you’re right. It really is.’ But sometimes you just can’t help it… It was a really dark time to be an American.”

Good thing for Rzeznik the one thing he’s always found solace in the last 27 years with the Goos — the music — was there to save him from himself.

“The ability to actually pick up a guitar and have an outlet to create something anytime,” he says. “And then it’s a choice. What are you going to create? Are you going to create something great or are you going to create more misery in your life?… This (choice) fits better and it feels more comfortable… The theme that sort of unfolded itself as we went along in the process of making this album was, ‘Get up, get out, live your life.’ ”

You can hear the positivity in the band’s new single, Rebel Beat, inspired by an Italian street party in New York.

“I wanted to refocus on ‘Where is my own hope coming from?” says Rzeznik. “And a lot of it is coming from the girl that I’m marrying.”

Adds Takac, who’s moved recently back to Buffalo from L.A.: “It’s interesting that the two of us had this gear shift in our lives, kind of, at the same time.”

For Magnetic, the group — who are co-headlining a North American summer tour with Matchbox Twenty — hooked up with a number of producers and co-writers, including Rob Cavallo (Green Day).

“On this album one of the brightest spots, for me at least, was the fact that Rob Cavallo was back in our lives and running the label (Warner),” says Rzeznik. “And I could go into his office with a song and he would literally pick up a guitar and start playing the song with me. And we actually wrote a bridge to a song in his office.”

http://www.torontosun.com/2013/06/18/goo-goo-dolls-return-with-new-upbeat-album
By Jane Stevenson ,QMI Agency

Dan MacIntosh (Songfacts): Let’s talk about the new album, Magnetic. First of all, why did you choose to name it that?

John Rzeznik: I keep trying to come up with a better story for it, but really, I got a phone call from my manager who said, “You need a title for the album. Try to make it one word.” And that word just sort of rolled off my tongue. I was, like, Magnetic. And then we went back and tried to find 100 other names for it, and something just stuck with that name.

Songfacts: No pun intended. It sticks. So, how was the experience of recording it?

John: It was a really great experience. It was a lot of fun. I learned a lot from a lot of really great writers and collaborators with me. All the producers were really great. We did one of the songs down in Culver City, actually, at Greg Wells’ studio down there.
 life is moving really quickly, and I better get up, get out and live it before it’s too late

Songfacts: Do you oftentimes work with collaborators, or do you work better by yourself?

John: I wrote most of our material on my own over the years, and I started making friends with other songwriters over the past few years and we collaborated on other people’s material. Then I was like, ‘You know, I had a really good time doing that, so why don’t we do it for our albums?’

Songfacts: The song your band is most famous for is “Iris.” When you sing that song now, what do you picture in your mind? Do you have certain visuals that you conjure up to inspire you when you sing it?

John: Yeah, I try to get back into the moment of the original intention of that song. Like, what was I thinking and feeling when I was writing that song? And sort of go back into it in that way. That helps. That puts me right back in the mood to play it, over and over and over again.

Songfacts: So what kinds of things were you thinking about when you wrote it?

John: When I wrote it, I was thinking about the situation of the Nicholas Cage character in the movie. This guy is completely willing to give up his own immortality, just to be able to feel something very human. And I think, ‘Wow! What an amazing thing it must be like to love someone so much that you give up everything to be with them.’ That’s a pretty heavy thought.

Songfacts: Were you commissioned to write it?

John: I was, yes.

Songfacts: How often does that happen, and how comfortable are you with those kinds of experiences?

John: I did a couple of songs for a Disney movie [Treasure Planet]. I’ve written songs for two of the Transformers movies. And I did that [City of Angels] movie and then they used a bunch of our songs in other movies. But I like it. I like it because it puts me in the role of supporting cast member. I have my subject matter in front of me and I’ll read the script, I’ll see the movie.

I’ll try to talk to the director, if that’s possible. I’ll talk to the music supervisor and ask them what kinds of things they want. To me, it’s a really great exercise for songwriting because you have to fit what you’re doing in a very supporting role. It’s not the main thing. You’re there to support the vision of the director, and support the story. And enhance whatever part of the movie you’re asked to put the music into.

Songfacts: Have you ever had the chance to talk to Nicholas Cage about the song and his role?

John: No, no, no. Although I did sit behind him at the premier. [laughter] I didn’t talk to him.

Songfacts: I’ve talked to songwriters before that have said that when they watch movies, they get ideas for songs. In fact, they’ll write down little notes and then after seeing the movies, they’ll write songs. Has that ever happened to you?

John: Yeah, definitely. That definitely happens. Music and books. You read a line in a book or something. Or maybe reading poetry. A lot of times I’ll just get it with having conversations with people where somebody says something and you’re inspired by it. You just run with it.

Songfacts: In 2008, you were inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame. You were given the Hal David Starlight Award. What did that mean to you?

John: It meant that I got recognized by my peers as a songwriter, and that meant a lot to me. Because I don’t really care about the whole rock star thing. It’s more important to me to be a writer. I’d like to be remembered more for being a songwriter than a guy in a band.

Songfacts: Who were the songwriters that really inspired you when you were learning your craft?

John: Ray Davies, a lot. I really love what he did. Simon & Garfunkel. Paul Westerberg. Bob Mould. There are a ton of them. Later on, I discovered all the people I was supposed to be influenced by, guys like Tom Waits and Leonard Cohen. It’s interesting to listen to what they’re doing. It’s nothing like what I do, but it’s interesting to have them influence you in a certain way. Certain words that they use, or the way that they’ll say them, can sort of creep up into your own writing. I can appreciate any kind of song, as long as it’s done well.

Songfacts: I think it’s interesting that you mentioned Paul Westerberg, who is one of my favorite songwriters. When you were starting out, a lot of people compared your band Goo Goo Dolls to The Replacements, which I think was a fair comparison – and not anything to be ashamed of, by the way. You’ve certainly outgrown those comparisons. Did you feel any pressure to separate yourselves so that you wouldn’t get lumped into that comparison all the time?

John: I knew I had to work really diligently to find my own voice because we were so heavily influenced by them and I listened to them so much. Music is like the telephone game, you know? I listen to Paul. I reinterpret it this way. Someone’s reinterpreting it a new way. I hear young bands that have a taste of us in them, and you can tell that they’ve been influenced by things that we’ve written. I embrace it. I love it. I think it’s really, really awesome. And that’s how music evolves and carries on.

Songfacts: Can I put you on the spot and ask you if you have any favorite Replacements songs?

John: I would say “Unsatisfied,” “Answering Machine,” “Left of the Dial,” “Happy Town.” I love their version of “Black Diamond.”

Songfacts: If it were me, I’d say Let It Be and probably the whole Tim album.

John: Yes! Hootenanny, as well. I love that.

Songfacts: To circle back to where we started, what do you like most about the new album? Are there songs that stand out as your favorites?

John: There are songs that stand out as things that I like, but it changes every day. I find things that I like and hate about them every day. I really wanted to push myself as hard as I could lyrically into writing something that I really enjoyed singing and I felt thankful and reflective of where I am in my own life.

Songfacts: Are there any recurring lyrical themes on the album?

John: Yeah, when I look back on it now, the theme that really sticks out for me, or the thread that kind of runs through all the songs on this album is that life is moving really quickly, and I better get up, get out and live it before it’s too late.

http://www.songfacts.com/blog/interviews/john_rzeznik_of_goo_goo_dolls/

By Dan MacIntosh

Sometimes, you have to go through the darkness to get to the light. On 2010′s “Something for the Rest of Us,” the Goo Goo Dolls wrestled with some demons, but on “Magnetic,” out June 11, John Rzeznik, Robby Takac and Mike Malinin have come out the other side and into the sun.

Since forming in 1986 in Buffalo, the Goo Goo Dolls have provided a steady stream of melodic, textured hits, including “Iris,” “Black Balloon,” “Slide” and “Better Days,” to lodge more top 10 songs in the history of Billboard’s Adult Contemporary charts than any other artist. The first single off “Magnetic,” the uplifting, anthemic “Rebel Beat,” is headed in the same direction.

Rzeznik talked to MSN about giving up drinking, the song he unintentionally wrote for his fiancée and why some fans may complain about the new album.

MSN Music: You’re getting married this summer and Robby’s wife recently had a baby, which helps explain so many songs about being in love and being happy —

John Rzeznik: It’s wanting to have these things.

Right. The difference between wanting and actually having allowed you to keep that bittersweet wistfulness and slight doubt that anchors so many of your songs.

I think that’s just a big part of my personality. I can see the cloud in every silver lining [laughs]. By the time you get to be my age, that means you’ve gone through your first round of adulthood and now you’re starting the second round. The thing that struck me the most was I definitely didn’t want to write a bunch of ballads. I wanted more uptempo, more fun. The theme unwound itself in front of me: “OK, this is your life, you got to get up, you got to get out, you got to live it because it’s going quick.”

The lushly romantic “Come to Me” could be a perfect wedding song. Did you write that for your fiancée?

I didn’t intend to, but I guess I did. I was just sort of writing. She’s great. She’s really strong, a good person, I know she’s got my back. I’m really happy that we’re [getting married], so that song definitely, that’s for her.

Are you going to sing it at the wedding?

No, no … that would be so, just kind of cheesy [laughs] … Maybe I’ll hire someone else to sing it.

What made you decide to co-write with Gregg Wattenberg and John Shanks instead of writing the bulk of the material alone, as you have in the past?

The process has become really sort of stagnant. I felt like I needed to go back to school and learn some more from some other people on what I was doing and get some different perspective. Anybody starts to repeat themselves over and over and over again. I figured, we’ve done 10 records, that’s a lot of material.

This album sounds different sonically from past albums, with a stronger emphasis on rhythms and harmonies. How intentional was that?

I’m sure some people will criticize it negatively [because of] some of the things that we did musically. I mean, this is not a heavily guitar-driven record; there’s a lot more keyboards. I wanted to experiment more with rhythms and things like that, also use a lot more vocals as instruments, building these big walls of vocals and harmonies. It just freshened up the whole sound of the band.

You stopped drinking recently. How did that affect your songwriting?

I don’t think I’ve ever written anything worth using when I’ve been drinking, and generally when I work, I never drank. … It’s not when I’m drinking that’s the problem, it’s the day after. … I went through periods in my life where I was just drinking way too much, and then there’s times when I didn’t drink at all, and then I was sort of hitting a period when we were doing “Something for the Rest of Us” where my drinking was occupying way too much of my time and it was making me really, really miserable and it was making me ineffective and it was really making the people around me unhappy.

Did you reach the tipping point?

I’m generally a pretty shy person. I know it doesn’t seem like it. I get really anxious in social situations, so alcohol really worked for a long time. It was a social lubricant. But it got really a little bit out of control there and it wasn’t working. That’s the bottom line: It just stopped working.

As a writer, do you still worry about where the next song is coming from?

Yeah. I still worry about it sometimes: “Is this the end?” I’ve done this my entire adult life and it’s the only real job I’ve ever had that’s lasted this long. Sometimes you worry about how am I going to make a living. Sometimes these kind of fears creep into my head: “How am I going to make a living?” “What if nobody wants to hear this,” you know? I’d be lying if I said I didn’t care what people thought of what I did.

Last fall, Billboard named “Iris” the top song in the 20-year history of its Pop Songs chart. What was your first thought upon hearing that?

That was an incredible, incredible experience. When I first saw that, I was shocked and then I saw we had another one in the top 10 and had three on the list. I was like “Whoa, man, whoa, this is, wow …” I never would have thought. And then my second thought, “I thought I’d have more money … [laughs] I thought I’d have more dough.”

How do you keep that song fresh performing it night after night?

Honestly, I always try to remember to be grateful that I have one song that I actually was able to connect with people to that level. That’s a really cool feeling, like, “Wow, I actually built this thing, I actually built this song and people all over the world, like, 15 years later still connect with it.” Then I also remember that people come to see us and that song is really important to a lot of people, so, you know, I would be an arrogant jerk not to play it.

You’re touring this summer with Matchbox Twenty. Why is that a good fit?

I think we share a lot of the same kind of audiences. The response has been really amazing. It’s not like a ’90s sort of revival tour because both bands are still putting records out, both bands are still on the radio with current songs. “Rebel Beat” is on the radio now and they have had two singles off of “North” on the radio now, and so both bands have these huge long string of hits and we both have new material out, so it’s great for both of us.

Have you thought about writing with Matchbox Twenty’s Rob Thomas?

I would love for me and Rob to write together. He is really talented, he’s a great singer and he knows how to craft a song really, really well. I’ve always enjoyed what they represent as a band: just really solid songwriting. That’s the most important thing to me ultimately.

http://music.msn.com/music/article.aspx?news=812821

By Melinda Newman
Special to MSN Music