Goo Goo Dolls - Iris

Goo Goo Dolls formed in 1986 in Buffalo, New York, and by the time 1998 rolled around, they’d already had a pretty successful career. They’d released five albums, and one of their songs, “Name,” from 1995, had become a Top 10 hit. But things really changed for them when they made the song “Iris.” It originally came out on the soundtrack for the movie City of Angels, which came out in 1998 and starred Nicolas Cage and Meg Ryan. “Iris” spent a record-breaking 18 weeks at number one on the radio, and became one of the best selling songs of all time, with over 14 million copies sold, and over 4.5 billion streams. So for this episode, John Rzeznik of Goo Goo Dolls came over to my place, and he told me about how he wrote the song. He told me how the Grammy-winning producer Rob Cavallo helped them expand their vision, and how the version of the song in the movie isn’t actually the version that everybody knows. For more info, visit songexploder.net/goo-goo-dolls. https://songexploder.net/goo-goo-dolls

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Hrishikesh Hirway?

  You're listening to Song Exploder, where musicians take apart their songs and, piece by piece, tell the story of how they were made. I'm Rishi Kesh Hirway.

• 0:11Hrishikesh Hirway?

  I'm going to be on tour, playing some shows this fall. I'm going to be in London on Wednesday, November 18th. I'm going to be performing solo at Rough Trade Records on Denmark Street, and I'm going to be in conversation about my music moderated by one of my favorite actors and writers, Matthew Bainton. And a ticket to the show also gets you a copy of my album on vinyl or CD. And in December, I'm going to be on tour supporting S. Carrie. We're going to be playing a bunch of shows in the Northeast US. So I hope to see you in one of those places. You can find all the details and get links to tickets at songexploder.net/live. That's songexploder.net/live.

• 0:55Hrishikesh Hirway?

  This episode is sponsored by Tidal. If you're an artist or if you know somebody making music, you should know about Tidal Upload. It's a way to share and sell music without the usual barriers. You can upload your music directly to Tidal at no cost. You decide how you want to release it. You can share it publicly with Tidal listeners, or you can keep it private until you're ready. Or you can sell your music directly through Tidal Upload. Your music will also be considered by Tidal's editorial team for their playlists. And if your track is selected for their spotlight program, you'll get $1,000 bonus and you'll be on one of their marquee playlists. And now, Tidal has dropped its platform fee to 0%, which means you keep more of your earnings there than on any other platform.

• 1:39Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Visit tidal.com/songexploder to create an account and start uploading your music for free. That's tidal.com/songexploder for zero platform fees on every sale. Your music, your earnings.

• 1:56Hrishikesh Hirway?

  This episode is sponsored by the podcast What It's Like to Be. Do you ever think about what other people's workdays look like? Satisfying some of that curiosity is the idea at the heart of bestselling author Dan Heath's podcast, which is called What It's Like to Be. In each episode, Dan interviews someone from a different profession to find out what it's like to be a professional Santa Claus, or a Secret Service agent, or a long haul truck driver, or an aerospace engineer at NASA, just to name a few examples. The show gives you an insider view into all kinds of jobs from a wide range of industries, answering questions like, what do mail carriers learn about us from our mail?

• 2:38Hrishikesh Hirway?

  There are so many jobs out there that exist only as titles in our imagination, if they even register that much. This show is a chance to reach beyond what you know, or think you know. If you're curious to learn more about the work lives of other people, check out What It's Like to Be, wherever you get podcasts. This episode contains explicit language.

• 2:59Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Goo Goo Dolls formed in 1986 in Buffalo, New York. And by the time 1998 rolled around, they'd already had a pretty successful career. They'd released five albums, and one of their songs, "Name," from 1995, had become a top 10 hit. But things really changed for them when they made the song "Iris." It originally came out on the soundtrack for the movie City of Angels, which came out in 1998 and starred Nicolas Cage and Meg Ryan. "Iris" spent a record-breaking 18 weeks at number one on the radio, and became one of the best-selling songs of all time, with over 14 million copies sold and over 4.5 billion streams. So for this episode, John Resnick of Goo Goo Dolls came over to my place, and he told me about how he wrote the song.

• 3:41Hrishikesh Hirway?

  He told me how the Grammy-winning producer Rob Cavallo helped them expand their vision, and how the version of the song in the movie isn't actually the version that everybody knows.

• 4:14Speaker 01

  My name is John Resnick.

• 4:16Hrishikesh Hirway?

  And who else is in the band with you?

• 4:17Speaker 01

  Robbie Takekak. It's just me and him. We are the band and Robbie and I make the records.

• 4:24Hrishikesh Hirway?

  And how did you two first meet?

• 4:26Speaker 01

  Oh, I met him in college when I was 19 and we were playing hardcore music.

• 4:30Hrishikesh Hirway?

  And how did it go from you guys playing hardcore to the sound that it became? Because it's a pretty big shift.

• 4:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think a lot of it had to do with being exposed to a lot of different music that I had never really heard before. And, and also, you know, when you play in a hardcore band, there's no girls there. And, you know, we forgot, rule number one, why do you play in a band? You know, well, you know, to meet girls. Why? Because I suck at sports. Okay, you know, and I had met a girl who eventually became my first wife. And it was bizarre because I was truly so smitten. It was like all of a sudden, you know, my little love bubble started showing up in my music. You know, you're in love and it changes you chemically.

• 5:17Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Okay, let me fast forward a little bit to right before you started working on Iris. What was happening in your life at that time?

• 5:24Speaker 01

  Well, that girl and I were getting divorced. I know. It's like it always ends the same way. You know, and I'm like going through divorce. I moved out here and I moved into a hotel called the Le Park over in West Hollywood. And I was just so frustrated with everything that was going on. There was so much change going on in my life, my personal life, my professional life.

• 5:50Hrishikesh Hirway?

  What was happening on the professional side?

• 5:52Speaker 01

  Well, I wrote this big hit song with name, song name.

• 5:56Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Yeah.

• 5:57Speaker 01

  And everybody went, yeah, John, you wrote a big hit song. Do it again. And it's like, uh, you know? I stopped writing. I felt like I couldn't write. And then I got a phone call from my manager. And he said Danny Bramson, this guy Danny Bramson, who's a music supervisor at Warner Brothers. And he invited me over because he wanted me to write a song for a film called City of Angels.

• 6:26Hrishikesh Hirway?

  What did they tell you about the film?

• 6:28Speaker 01

  So it's the story about this angel who has immortality.

• 6:33Speaker 01

  But he's lonely and he sees this woman and he just wants to know what it feels like to feel what all these humans are feeling because he's just going around watching them. And so he makes this leap and he gives up his immortality for her, for love. And you know, and then he winds up, you know, getting spanked by it. And at that point in time, I could really relate to that story. And basically it's a remake of Wings of Desire, which is great, great, great movie.

• 7:03Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Yeah.

• 7:03Speaker 01

  So he's like, I'm going to show you the scene of this movie and I want you to see if you can come up with something for it.

• 7:10Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Did he happen to tell you why he wanted you specifically to write a song for the film?

• 7:15Speaker 01

  I don't know why he wanted me, but it was an opportunity that however it came about, I was lucky enough to get it. So I saw it and I went back to my hotel and I went to some video shop and I got Wings of Desire and I put it in the thing and I'm watching it. And I thought, where am I going to write this from? And then I said, well, what would I say? What would I say to that woman? I had a guitar and because I detuned and use alternate tunings, I'd gone a little too far and I popped two strings off the guitar. So I had four strings on this guitar left and I detuned the low E to a B, the other three strings to Ds.

• 7:55Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Yeah.

• 7:55Speaker 01

  And I'm just playing.

• 8:00Speaker 01

  And I'm just running this like basically the shape of a power chord, but very simple.

• 8:15Hrishikesh Hirway?

  So you're in your hotel room and you're thinking about this scene. Do you remember what the first lyrics were that you came up with? What was the first jumping off point?

• 8:25Speaker 01

  Can I, is it okay if I grab that guitar?

• 8:27Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 8:29Speaker 02

  This is a cool guitar.

• 8:30Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 8:32Speaker 01

  But I do this when I write songs. I'll be like,

• 8:43Speaker 01

  you know what I mean? I'll do, I'll do like the, you know, when people do their impersonation of Bob Dylan?

• 8:55Speaker 01

  So that's how I get melodies and I always find melody first. What sits on top of the chords? And what does it make you feel? And then sometimes a word will come out. You're sitting there going,

• 9:08Speaker 01

  and I don't want to be like you. I don't want to be like you. I don't want the world.

• 9:34Speaker 01

  I don't want the world to see me 'cause I don't think that they'd understand. When everything's made to be broken, I just want you to know who I am. I don't want the world to see me 'cause I don't think that they'll understand. When everything's made to be broken, I just want you to know who I am. So I was, you know, I'm this otherworldly being who wants to be a human. You know, I don't think he planned for all the pain that came along with being human, really being human. But I just love that concept of like, yeah, I'm so in love with you. I will give up everything for you.

• 10:19Speaker 01

  You want to feel so bad, even if it feels bad. And this helped snap me out of the writer's block. To have the script and a film, instead of just trying to like pull stuff out of thin air, it was like, oh, okay. Yeah. I found my subject matter.

• 10:42Speaker 01

  So I took it back to Danny and I played it for him on the four string guitar.

• 10:48Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 10:49Speaker 01

  And then Danny was like, yeah, let's go do this. So then I went over, there was a place here in LA called Swing House,

• 10:55Hrishikesh Hirway?

  That beat is not what I would have expected.

• 10:56Speaker 01

  which is like a very, very classic old rehearsal spot.

• 10:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, we couldn't figure out the math on the drum machine.

• 11:00Speaker 01

  And one of the guys that worked there set up the drum machine and microphone and we recorded it.

• 11:02Speaker 01

  That's why it's so disjointed.

• 11:05Speaker 02

  Can we listen to the demo?

• 11:06Speaker 01

  Sure, sure, sure.

• 11:25Speaker 01

  You can see the tuning isn't completely there yet. So I had to add the top two strings. And I tuned those to D. So we got five Ds and one B.

• 11:38Hrishikesh Hirway?

  I really appreciate how committed you were to that D string.

• 11:40Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, very committed.

• 12:04Speaker 01

  And I took that demo to a producer named Rob Cavallo. And then we went in the studio. You know, he did some tweaking. And Rob Cavallo fixed the drum pattern and came up with the proper beat.

• 12:23Speaker 01

  And it has that sort of 6/8 feel to it.

• 12:27Speaker 01

  But I don't think those side sticks made it to the final. I, oh my God, I lose it every time I hear a side stick.

• 12:34Hrishikesh Hirway?

  No, they're definitely in the final version of the song.

• 12:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, they're on there.

• 12:38Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Yeah.

• 12:39Speaker 01

  I hate this song now.

• 12:44Hrishikesh Hirway?

  And were you thinking about a specific drum sound that you wanted?

• 12:48Speaker 01

  I looked at it as an opportunity to like, take the next step. So, it should feel epic. It should feel a little bit bigger and a little more muscular than what we had done before. You know, because we'd mostly worked in Buffalo and, you know, we were a punk rock band when we started. But then, you come to a city like Los Angeles where your resources are unlimited. So they rented this beautiful set of drums and all the gear I got. It was the first time in my life I got to play like five guitars and go, oh, I like that one.

• 13:28Speaker 01

  So we tripled.

• 13:37Speaker 01

  Add the bass.

• 13:48Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Who's playing that mandolin?

• 13:49Speaker 01

  That's Tim Pierce's player. One of the greatest session players in history of recorded music.

• 14:01Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Do you know whose idea it was to bring him in?

• 14:03Speaker 01

  Rob's. This is where Rob turned us on to some crazy stuff.

• 14:12Speaker 01

  Jamie Mahobrack is a crazy talented keyboard player. Another amazing, interesting guy that Rob Cavallo introduced us to.

• 14:26Hrishikesh Hirway?

  And can we listen to your vocals?

• 14:28Speaker 01

  Oh god, yeah, sure.

• 14:40Speaker 01

  When everything feels like the movies. Yeah, you bleed just to know you're alive.

• 14:50Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Was it a hard song to record?

• 14:51Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, that note is crazy high.

• 14:54Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Yeah, the high note in the chorus.

• 14:55Speaker 01

  Yeah. But I remember taking a singing lesson before I went in. I'd never taken a singing lesson. And I went to some guy here in L.A. And did all the warm up with me. And I'm like, oh, okay, cool. And then I just went back to the studio with all this like confidence. I'm like, I know how to sing now. Took a singing lesson. There we go. And, uh, you know, and then I just went in and did it. And I don't want the world to see me. Cause I don't think that they'd understand. When everything's made to be broken. I just want you to know who I am.

• 15:39Hrishikesh Hirway?

  My conversation with John Resnick continues after this. This episode is sponsored by LinkedIn. Anyone who's ever had to spend money on marketing knows how tricky it can be to feel like you've spent that money wisely. Well, with LinkedIn Ads, you can be sure that you'll get a great return on your investment. You can target your campaigns by company, industry, job title, and more. Spend $250 on your first campaign on LinkedIn Ads and get a $250 credit for the next one. Just go to LinkedIn.com/songexploder. That's LinkedIn.com/songexploder. Terms and conditions apply. Thanks to Stio for sponsoring Song Exploder.

• 16:24Hrishikesh Hirway?

  I took a trip to Iceland this summer. And because it was the summer, I didn't really think about dressing for the cold. Even though I was hiking and I was planning on seeing some glaciers, I thought, it's August. But then I got there and I realized I made a huge mistake. Now, though, I have a Stio hometown hooded jacket, and I just wished I'd gotten it before my trip. All of Stio's clothes are designed and tested in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, by locals who live, work, and ski in below-freezing temperatures. I'm headed back out into the cold this winter, but now I'll have my insulated, hooded Stio jacket. Ski season's almost here, so gear up now, the way the locals do.

• 17:05Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Go to stio.com/songexploder for 20% off your order. That's S-T-I-O dot com slash songexploder. Stio dot com slash songexploder. Stio, designed and tested in Jackson Hole.

• 17:23Hrishikesh Hirway?

  There's a new podcast called Before the Moment with Nile Rodgers. In every legendary music career, there's a moment right before it all changes. And in every episode of this podcast, Nile Rodgers talks to a legendary musician about the choices, the events, and the relationships that shaped their career before the moment that everything changed for them. Every story is unique and opens a window into the lives of some of the biggest names in music. And Nile is the perfect person to lead these conversations, because for over 50 years, he's played guitar with artists like Diana Ross, David Bowie, Madonna, Daft Punk, and Beyoncé. In the first season of the podcast, some of Nile's guests include John Legend, Miguel, and more.

• 18:07Hrishikesh Hirway?

  New episodes are coming out every other Tuesday. Listen to Before the Moment with Nile Rodgers wherever you get your podcasts.

• 18:18Hrishikesh Hirway?

  One of the things that I think is interesting about the song, just structurally,

• 18:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:23Hrishikesh Hirway?

  is that you have a really long instrumental section.

• 18:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:29Hrishikesh Hirway?

  What inspired that?

• 18:31Speaker 01

  I tend to get a little dramatic in my music, and I like a lot of dynamics.

• 18:50Speaker 01

  Whatever feels right, you know? Bring in Tim Pierce again. Tim also played that crazy guitar solo, too.

• 19:24Speaker 01

  Then Rob was like, "We're gonna put strings on this." And Robbie and I were like, "Wha- wha?" You know, we were very reluctant to do it. So Rob's like, "No, no, don't worry about it. We're gonna try it, it's gonna be cool." And then we were like, "Well, okay, but if it freaks us out too much, we reserve the right to say no." "Okay, fine." And then we met the king, David Campbell, one of the greatest composers, string arrangers, and Beck's dad.

• 19:54Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Yeah.

• 19:55Speaker 01

  So they got an eight-piece ensemble. And Robbie and I were in the control room, and we were kneeling in front of the glass, watching the players. And when they came out and started playing,

• 20:11Speaker 01

  Robbie and I were like, "Uh-oh, uh-oh, it's kinda cool."

• 20:25Speaker 01

  And then I'm like, "You know, if we do this, there's no going back to what we were doing." And he's like, "Yeah?" And then we were both like, "Fuck it, let's do it."

• 21:18Speaker 01

  So, in the spirit of moving forward, you know, we did it and it worked. And we took a lot of shit for it, but it worked.

• 21:28Hrishikesh Hirway?

  I guess I'm surprised to hear that you took shit for it because at that point, on your previous album, you had a ballad that was like a big hit.

• 21:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, Name.

• 21:38Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Yeah.

• 21:38Speaker 01

  Name, yeah, but that was more ragged and worked in that sort of world that we were living in of like Soul Asylum and The Replacements and R E M.

• 21:48Hrishikesh Hirway?

  And this was more produced?

• 21:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, and it was a little scary. It was a little scary because it was a very, very fine recording, a very fine recording engineer. And it was also like, oh my God, are we sellouts? You know, because that was a big deal back then. Now everyone is trying to sell out as hard as they can. You know, there is no such thing as selling out anymore, which is interesting.

• 22:10Hrishikesh Hirway?

  I wanted to ask you about the title because the name Iris is not in the song.

• 22:14Speaker 01

  No.

• 22:15Hrishikesh Hirway?

  And it's not in the movie either.

• 22:16Speaker 01

  No.

• 22:17Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Where did the title for the song come from?

• 22:19Speaker 01

  I was seeing a girl when I was living out here. We were having coffee and looking at the L.A. Weekly and Iris Dement was playing.

• 22:26Hrishikesh Hirway?

  The singer?

• 22:27Speaker 01

  Yeah. And I just said, Iris, that's a beautiful name, you know, Iris. And they were like, yo, you got to name this song. And I was just like, it's called Iris. They're like, what do you mean? It's called Iris. Just leave it, leave it. Because I was listening to Melancholy and the Infinite Sadness.

• 22:44Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Yeah.

• 22:45Speaker 01

  And it was like the Billy Corgan thing, you know, Bullet with Butterfly Wings or whatever. And you're like, huh. Yeah, man, I gotta have one of those cool names for my song. It's not in the song, but you just call it that, you know? I mean, that was a thing for a while.

• 22:57Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Yeah.

• 22:57Speaker 01

  But I just love that name.

• 22:59Hrishikesh Hirway?

  So after you finished the recording, how was it received when you handed it in? Because you were writing this for the soundtrack, but also for the scene in the movie, right? It had to play in the actual film.

• 23:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, right. I was definitely writing the song for the film. But the director got the song.

• 23:18Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Yeah.

• 23:19Speaker 01

  And he didn't like it. He didn't like it and he was like, this is, this is too big. It's too dramatic. It's not working. Can you record a completely stripped down, just you and an acoustic guitar playing it? And I bitched and moaned about it because I was, you know, full of my own shit. You know, so I was in the studio with a guy named Jack Joseph Puig.

• 23:43Speaker 01

  You know, and he set up this beautiful microphone and gave me this beautiful guitar. We just like started playing. And I don't want the world to see me. Cause I don't think that they'd understand. When everything's made to be broken. I just want you to know who I am.

• 24:10Speaker 01

  It flowed and I softened my position on the whole thing. Because I was told, and this was great advice. I was told, listen, you were hired to do this, to support the vision. And that humbled me. And I was like, okay, if this is more closely related to his vision, of course. Okay, fine. And nobody remembers that version, I don't think.

• 24:39Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Cause you only hear it in the movie.

• 24:41Speaker 01

  You only hear it in the film, yeah.

• 24:45Hrishikesh Hirway?

  But then the full band version that you did, that came out on the soundtrack. Were you surprised that that ended up being such a big hit?

• 24:54Speaker 01

  So Danny Bramson was talking about the soundtrack. And I was like, who's gonna be on this? And he was like, well, U2, Peter Gabriel, Alanis. And I was like, I just want to be on a record with those guys, you know? Yeah, and that song was very, very much the dark horse. I mean, you know, come on. You're going up against U2 and Alanis and Peter Gabriel. But the soundtrack came out on Reps Records. And that radio team decided they were gonna work it.

• 25:26Hrishikesh Hirway?

  And was there a specific moment where you realized that the song had become a huge hit?

• 25:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, you know when it dawned on me? Okay, I remember this. A guy, a guy came up to me. I don't know where I was. I was just doing something. And a guy just walks right up to me and he's like, "Hey, man, you're that guy from that band." That's always how people approach me. "Excuse me, you're that guy from that band." And then he says, "Man, I gotta tell you, I love that song, Iris, man. But they gotta stop playing that shit on the radio, man. It's just on there so much. Every time I turn on any radio station, I gotta hear that song. I'm getting sick of it." And then I was like, "All right, it worked." Cool, man.

• 26:22Hrishikesh Hirway?

  And now here's "Iris" by Goo Goo Dolls in its entirety.

• 26:56Speaker 02

  And all I can taste is this moment And all I can breathe is your love

• 27:06Speaker 02

  And sooner or later it's over I just don't want to miss you tonight And I don't want the world to see me Cause I don't think that they'd understand When everything's made to be broken I just want you to know who I am

• 27:45Speaker 02

  And you can't fight the tears that ain't coming Or the moment, the truth in your lies When everything feels like the movies Yeah, you bleed just to know you're alive And I don't want the world to see me Cause I don't think that they'd understand When everything's made to be broken I just want you to know who I am

• 29:56Speaker 02

  And I don't want the world to see me 'Cause I don't think that they'd understand When everything's made to be broken I just want you to know who I am

• 30:16Speaker 02

  And I don't want the world to see me 'Cause I don't think that they'd understand When everything's made to be broken I just want you to know who I am I just want you to know who I am I just want you to know who I am I just want you to know who I am

• 31:14Hrishikesh Hirway?

  To learn more, visit songexploder.net You'll find links to buy or stream Iris And you can watch the music video And also the scene in the movie That uses the acoustic version This episode was produced by me, Mary Dolan, Craig Ely, and Kathleen Smith, with production assistance from Tiger Biscuit. The episode artwork is by Carlos Lerma, and I made the show's theme music and logo. Song Exploder is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX, a network of independent, listener-supported, artist-owned podcasts. You can learn more about our shows at radiotopia.fm. And if you'd like to hear more from me, you can sign up for my newsletter, which you can find on the Song Exploder website. And if you want to support the show another way,

• 31:56Hrishikesh Hirway?

  you can get a Song Exploder t-shirt at songexploder.net/shirt. I'm Rishi K. Shirway. Thanks for listening.

• 32:10Speaker 02

  Radiotopia.

• 32:13Speaker 02

  From PRX.