There's a certain vibe in my hometown; Buffalo is a city that has no illusions.
John Rzeznik
One of the things about live music that's so incredibly important and can't be replaced and automated is the common focus of a room full of people having that human contact and being immersed in the sensory overload of a rock concert.
I have this dreadful image of me driving down Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles, with the windows rolled down, and our song comes on... and I'm sitting there listening to it and some guy pulls up next to me and thinks, 'Hey, it's that guy from the Goo Goo Dolls... he's listening to his own music. What a jerk!'
I have a very powerful form of alcoholism. I finally gave up and accepted the fact that if I even smell too much booze, I'm going to start drinking again. That's just how I am.
At its best, MTV puts a face to the names, if you know what I mean. I think if you can take the expression of a song much farther, that's great. And it's one of the only outlets there is for artistic filmmaking. But it's a double-edged sword. At it's worst, MTV is just a lot of TV commercials for songs.
We were so heavily influenced by The Replacements and by a lot of hard core bands like Bad Brains, not that we sounded like them but we were trying to play as hard and fast as we could.
Sometimes it doesn't feel like I'm in control but that I'm going along for the ride. And I'm a lousy passenger; I love to drive.
I went to a vocational high school, which is where they basically train you to go out and dig ditches. You gotta learn a trade. Well, why do you gotta learn a trade? Because you're not smart enough to go to college. That was the underlying gist of it.
If you're really gonna live, you have to be vulnerable.
When I write a song, I want to write something that is really catchy and says something that might actually touch somebody.
If you go back and listen to the album 'Name' was on, there were a lot of garage songs on it.
I never underestimate luck and working hard.
The scary part of alcoholism and addiction and that is until a person is ready to stop, they're not gonna, and there's nothing anyone can do. There's nothing anyone can say or do. And the unfortunate part is sometimes people die because of that.
There's a lot of shiny, pretty objects out there that when you actually touch them, they just fall apart. And it's like, you need to be authentic, you need to be yourself.
I'm ashamed to say, but as a teen, there were times when I had to go to the church and get help.
I made a deadline for myself that if I wasn't earning a living being a musician by 'A Boy Named Goo,' I was going to get back to school, get a degree, and go on with my life - and enjoy the memories I had.
Our society's sort of turning into a two-class system, where... most of the wealth and privileges are being concentrated into the hands of fewer and fewer people. And there's the rest of us... that have to go out and work and struggle and live and die and try to find some happiness and contentment and security.
I wasn't present for my own life for a long time. I wasn't there; I wasn't in my relationships; I wasn't in my band; I wasn't in my soul - I was disconnected from all of it. I would let myself live in a miserable situation forever, mostly of my own making. I made my own misery and made the people around me miserable.
Performing with a hologram in a three-dimensional world feels somewhat strange. But you know, the experience of playing live in a room full of people is most exciting, it's something that the social media has not been able to recreate. There's some kind of intensity about it, something that the social media doesn't capture.
I refuse to listen to Rush Limbaugh. I listen to a lot of conservative radio when I drive around in my car. I refuse to listen to him because he's just ridiculous, just a clown. I love Rachel Maddow obviously.
It's really weird how the rock world is quickly becoming like the jazz world. How if you do OK, or get a tiny bit of success, that's considered a sellout, whether you did anything different or not.
I've taken a lot of crap. That's just the way life is. There are going to be writers who like you and writers who despise you.
For me, social media is a one-way deal. It's like all the traffic goes one direction and I don't care how many people follow me, I don't care how many people like what I do, give me a thumbs up or whatever it is. I am here to share a piece of information that I've decided is relevant to our relationship as musician and audience member.
I was a bartender, a hot-dog vendor, a cook, sold magazine subscriptions.
A little renovation and reinvention is a positive thing.
I just want my daughter to be respectful and nice to people. I want her to understand the importance of being humble.
I like Valentine's Day. It's fun.
I got into alternative rock in the early 80s, bands like Husker Du and The Replacements. Bob Mould's playing was a huge influence. It was very heavy with a lot of open tunings, which was great because I played in trios, so I used open tunings to get a fuller sound.
As soon as we finish a tour, I think, 'Oh my god, I'm unemployed.' I swear to God, every time I'm not touring, I hear my father yelling, 'You're unemployed if you're not working every day.'
I wouldn't start writing songs like 'Name' all the time just because I thought that's what people wanted to hear. I'll write a song in the same vein because it's what I want to write.
I've met very lonely people who have 10,000 friends on Facebook. And it's just not real. We've set up this artificial society in cyberspace. And that's supposed to be a community, like a real community. It's supposed to be where people go to get solace or friendship or have fun.
Everybody was a democrat where we grew up. It was a blue-collar town and the democrats represented the working class and the unions. But very, very super-conservative Catholic, very proud immigrant community, very stoic.
The first guitar I ever owned was a Kay SG copy. That cost like $35. Man, that was a terrible guitar.
We were never hip, which is fine with me. We aren't that interested in that whole situation. But all the times how we tried and failed to get across in our music, we actually succeeded on 'Superstar Car Wash.'
The good part about being a pessimist is, when something bad happens, you're never really devastated by it. And when something good happens, it's such a bonus.
So what if America loses its empire? We never should have had one in the first place.
You know what the most amazing luxury problem in the world is? When you've got a bunch of hits you have to play. That means the show's going to have to be a little longer.
Whether you are happy or miserable is completely a choice.
The only way you fail is if you quit. That has always sort of been pounded into my head.
It's a crazy world!
I need a long, cold winter.
John Shanks is probably the biggest workaholic I've ever met in my life.
There's always those few people that are like, 'Why don't you play any of the material off your first two records?' And I'm like, 'For the same reason that I don't play with G.I. Joe dolls anymore.' It's like, 'I'm a grown-up.' I wrote that music when I was a kid.
I love the Smithsonian. I'm a real dork for that kind of stuff.
I want to cultivate my own sound in my own atmosphere, where the clock is not running.
I have this morbid fascination with being completely alienated from everybody, and a lot of the time I really do feel that way.
I enjoy watching Chris Matthews a lot. He reminds me of a throwback to the older school kind of pundits like Tim Russert.
The business of making music is changing so radically because of the Internet. It's become a lot more democratic in one respect, but in another respect there's no one left to guide and mentor young bands.
I was brought up by four older sisters, so there's trouble right there. We are Catholic, very religious, and that sort of colors my world and my music.
We're doing everything we can to help bands from Buffalo.
