John Rzeznik
The Goo Goo Dolls's guitarist and co-lead singer is John Rzeznik, known to fans as Johnny. John was born on December 5, 1965. By the age of 15 he was an orphan. Before then he had navigated a life like so many others in what he describes as a "tightly knit ethic community" on Buffalo's working-class East Side. He grew up on the corner of Clark and Kent Strets; as kids he and his four older sisters called it "Superman Corner." When John's mailman father and school teacher mother died within a year of each other (his father of alcoholism; his mother, according to him, of lonliness), John's life took a dramatic turn. He got an apartment on his own and started hanging out with "shady people." Rzeznik was the only "punk" (his quotes) at Buffalo's McKinley Vocational High School, where he studied to be a plumber. He made himself a target with a mohawk and a penchant for everything from the Cure to Depeche Mode to the Damned and the Replacements. In a quote by Rzeznik from Request magazine:
"I was little skinny kid with no athletic prowess. I got beat up for listening to an Echo and the Bunnymen record. I brought it to lend to a friend. And, you know, the usual idiots in high school: 'Ah, what kind of f--in' fag!' Fag-the teenage-boy definition of fag is anything I don't understand or anyone I don't understand. From my background, if you become a plumber or a carpenter, then you've done a lot for yourself. Not that it's something to aspire to, that's real work 'cause it takes your back and your brains. But you just followed along, did what everybody else did. I just decided it was a bunch of bullsh*t."
John was married (now divorced) to an ex-model named Laurie, whom which he wrote some of his songs about. John met Robby because his cousin was in a band with him, they became friends and eventually formed the Sex Maggots, which would eventually change to the Goo Goo Dolls.
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Information on this page from various sources including Request magazine.