The Goo Goo Dolls turned up on NPR’s Tiny Desk concert series this week, and the nostalgia is real. Among the songs they performed was “Iris”, from the City of Angels soundtrack (1998), and I swear it took me all the way back to eighth grade.
John Rzeznik, Robby Takac, and the GGD boys pulled up to the National Public Radio offices and delivered a collection of their most recognizable hits to resounding applause from the unseen audience.
The Goo Goo Dolls’ trajectory has been kind of wild, and the way “Iris” fits in is fascinating. It’s a lot to go into, but the short story is that the band was more punk rock for the first several years. They were signed to Metal Blade Records alongside bands like Gwar and Cannibal Corpse, and had a very dedicated underground following.
In 1995, however, everything changed. The band released their fifth studio album, A Boy Named Goo, with a much mellower sound and the acoustic-led alt-rock hit “Name”.
“We took some serious abuse from a chunk of our original fanbase,” singer/guitarist John Rzeznik recalled while speaking to Guitar Player in 2024, “but we made a lot more new fans. I guess if people don’t want to stick with you once you break through, then what can you do?”
‘Name’ marked a new beginning for the Goo Goo Dolls
The success of the album and its third single opened up a whole new world for the Goo Goo Dolls, and they built the rest of their career on that cornerstone. This led to “Iris” just a few years later, marking the biggest song of their career. I remember when it came out. I was in eighth grade at the time, and the song was absolutely everywhere. You could not escape it.
As of right now, “Iris” is approaching three billion plays on Spotify, making it one of the streamer’s most-played tracks in the world.
“I never expected that to happen,” Rzeznik said while reflecting on the songs’ Spotify success. “It’s interesting to me that a song I wrote for a film should have such a big life of its own. I guess a lot of people will know the song and yet never even know who Goo Goo Dolls are.”
The BAND WAS NOT INITIALLY CONFIDENT THAT ‘IRIS’ WAS THE RIGHT DIRECTION FOR THEM
“The scale of the success of this marked a major career shift for us as a band,” he added. “This was the one that really took everything up another level in terms of recognition and success, and it definitely shut the door on the portion of our career before that. I remember Robby [Takac, bassist] and I looked at each other when the strings were being recorded, and we asked ourselves, ‘Should we really be doing this?’”
While they may have had their reservations about putting “Iris” out, it seems they know they made the right decision in the long run.
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