@~>~John Rzeznik~<~@

John was born on December 5th, 1965.  He was orphaned at age 15 when his mother died of a heart attack.  His father had passed away the year before.  He has 4 older sisters.  He never quite fit in with the kids in the 'hood.  While they were playing baseball, he was taking accordion lessons.    He soon took up guitar and began playing fun, irrelevant, punk rock.  When he met his partner in music, Robby Takac, it was an unlikely pairing.  John was into the punk scene and dressed the part. Robby was a darling of heavy metal with long hair hanging in his eyes.  They became best friends.  They formed the group Sex Maggots, but soon changed it to The Goo Goo Dolls after they decided their original name might be offensive to some.. G guys.. ya think?!! Their latest release, 'Dizzy Up the Girl', is their most successful record to date.  It was propelled to the top of the charts by the haunting ballad ,'Iris', which is also on the City of Angels soundtrack.  Iris was the catalyst that ended Johnny's writers block after the first big commercial success they had with the ballad 'Name'  from the album 'A Boy named Goo'.  When the band began, only Robby sang, but he soon pushed John into excercising his vocals.  And in John's own words, 'he created a monster'.  And, boy am I glad he did!  Johnny has become the main focus of the group, a fact that doesn't seem to faze the other members of the band.  He has taken over vocal duties on better than half the latest release.