Are the goo goo dolls gay

They were guys in black suits with fins on their backs.

This unlikely set up was the video shoot for Only One, the first single from the Buffalo, New York trio’s fifth album, A Boy Named Goo. It wasn’t even the second single – the breezy Flat Top had that honour.

Instead, Name was the album’s third single, but it was the important one.

That was Only One, the track with the video on the fake desert island that finally got the band played on MTV’s influential alternative rock show 120 Minutes. That record was home to Iris, an inarguably perfect alt.rock ballad that would go on to soundtrack births, marriages, divorces and deaths and every event in between.

Since moving to LA three years ago, they have produced two stunning solo albums independently in their bedroom, and found their voice trending on Spotify after collaborating with DJ and producer Hamster on "City Limits," a catchy pop track that has racked up nearly 500,000 streams.

All 10 tracks on "Songs in Dark Blue," however, offer a significantly different sound.

We were just doing our own thing.”

Rzeznik was sitting on his couch with his acoustic guitar when he came up with the bones of the song that would transform the Goo Goo Dolls’ fortunes.

“It was pretty much a drunken brawl.”

Over the next few years they began to smooth out their ragged, drunken punk-rock edge, and released a string of albums that were increasingly less ragged and marginally less drunken.

We get to experience some audio issues throughout the entire thing (clicking noises, sync errors), and video resolution is a mere 384p (whereby the standard should be 480p). Name was a bittersweet semi-ballad positioned midway through the album. This was 1995 and the Goo Goo Dolls had been around for nearly 10 years at this point, having evolved from a scrappy punk band into something more grown-up and anthemic.

I might wear jeans and a T-shirt and do sort of traditionally masculine things," Lee said. He’s probably known best for founding and being the frontman of the rock ‘n’ roll band Goo Goo Dolls, with whom he’s released 14 albums.

Education and early life

John was raised alongside four older sisters Kate, Gladys, Fran and Phyllis in Buffalo, by their father Joe Rzeznik who was a postal clerk and bar proprietor, and mother Edith (nee Pomeroy) who was a housewife; both Edith and Joe were musicians, who both played the flute and clarinet.

All four of John’s grandparents were originally from Poland, and his last name translates to ‘butcher’.

Rzeznik’s Long Way Down, Flat Top and Only One were perfectly crafted 90s rock anthems shot through with blue-collar authenticity. "My favorite song is 'Iris' by the Goo Goo Dolls, and when that song came out, I heard it on the radio, it was like 20 years ago, and I just remember thinking that chorus -- 'And I don't want the world to see me / 'Cause I don't think that they'd understand / When everything's meant to be broken / I just want you to know who I am' -- I knew something about me resonated with that chorus.

They booked themselves into the cheapest motels, and Rzeznik remembers buying recording tape himself because it was half the price of the tape the studio provided. Today both he and Takac have the clarity to appreciate A Boy Named Goo for what it is: a great record, for sure, but a turning point for the band that made it.

“When Dizzy Up The Girl happened we had a clue what was happening,” says Takac.

Takac brought a little of the old raucousness to Burnin’ Up, Impersonality and Somethin’ Bad. We were trying to be responsible, but it usually degenerated into a drunken brawl by the end of the night.”

The finished record sounded great: still recognisable as the Goo Goo Dolls, but more confident than anything they’d done before and gleaming with just the right amount of polish.

Back then Takac, Rzeznik and drummer George Tutuska were a bunch of unruly street rats who’d graduated from Kiss and Cheap Trick to Hüsker Dü and The Replacements.

“We were just a bunch of kids having fun,” says Takac, who was the band’s main vocalist on their first three albums. In fact, they all sound blue -- to Lee at least.

“But when we were doing the demos, we could feel something special about Name. It's something that we do rather than what we are. This was an overnight success story a decade in the making.

Things would get even crazier a couple of years later. Lee isn't letting rejection get them down, though. On the other, Rzeznik in particular struggled with some of the issues that had been brewing before the album and were brought to a head by its success.

“At that point I was in the early phases of my substance-abuse problem,” says Rzeznik.

Their sixth album “Dizzy Up the Girl” followed on 22 September 1998, and was certified platinum four times, remaining their most successful album to date, some of its most popular singles being “Dizzy”, Broadway” and “Black Balloon”.

They released their seventh album “Gutterflower” in 2002, and celebrated their 20th anniversary in 2006 by releasing their eighth album “Let Love In”.

Goo Goo Dolls were invited to perform on “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno” on 8 June 2007, and two weeks later on “The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson”.

Their compilation album “Greatest Hits Volume One: The Singles” was released on 13 November 2007, and was followed by their ninth studio album “Something for the Rest of Us” on 31 August 2010.