Song Exploder - Goo Goo Dolls - Iris

Episode Date: July 9, 2025

Goo Goo Dolls formed in 1986 in Buffalo, New York, and by the time 1998 rolled around, they’d already had a pretty successful career. They’d released five albums, and one of their songs, “Name,” from 1995, had become a Top 10 hit. But things really changed for them when they made the song “Iris.” It originally came out on the soundtrack for the movie City of Angels, which came out in 1998 and starred Nicolas Cage and Meg Ryan. “Iris” spent a record-breaking 18 weeks at number one on the radio, and became one of the best selling songs of all time, with over 14 million copies sold, and over 4.5 billion streams. So for this episode, John Rzeznik of Goo Goo Dolls came over to my place, and he told me about how he wrote the song. He told me how the Grammy-winning producer Rob Cavallo helped them expand their vision, and how the version of the song in the movie isn’t actually the version that everybody knows.For more info, visit songexploder.net/goo-goo-dolls.

You're listening to Song Exploder, where musicians take apart their songs, and piece by piece, tell the story of how they were made. I'm Rishi Kesh Hirwe. This episode contains explicit language. Goo Goo Dolls formed in 1986 in Buffalo, New York, and by the time 1998 rolled around, they'd already had a pretty successful career. They'd released five albums, and one of their songs, Name, from 1995, had become a top 10 hit. But things really changed for them when they made the song Iris. It originally came out on the soundtrack for the movie City of Angels, which came out in 1998 and starred Nicholas Cage and Meg Ryan. Iris spent a record-breaking 18 weeks at number one on the radio

and became one of the best-selling songs of all time, with over 14 million copies sold in over 4.5 billion streams. So for this episode, John Resnick of Gougu Dolls came over to my place, and he told me about how he wrote the song. He told me how the Grammy-winning producer Rob Cavallo helped them expand their vision and how the version of the song in the movie isn't actually the version that everybody knows. My name is John Resnick. And who else is in the band with you? Robbie Takeak. It's just me and him. We are the band and Robbie and I make the records. And how did you two first meet? Oh, I met him in

college when I was 19 and we were playing hardcore music. And how did it go from you guys playing hardcore to the sound that it became because that's a pretty big shift? Yeah, I think a lot of it had to do with being exposed to a lot of different music that I'd never really heard before. And also, you know, when you play in a hardcore band, there's no girls there. And, you know, we forgot, rule number one, why do you play in a band? You know, well, you know, to meet girls. Why? Because I suck at sports. Okay.

You know, and I had met a girl who eventually became my first wife. And it was bizarre because I was truly so. smitten. It was like all the sudden, you know, my little love bubble started showing up in my music. You know, you're in love and changes you chemically. Okay, let me fast forward a little bit to right before you started working on Iris. What was happening in your life at that time? Well, that girl and I were getting divorced. I know. It's like it always ends the same way. You know, and I'm like going through a divorce, I moved out here and I moved into a hotel called the Le Park over in West Hollywood.

and I was just so frustrated with everything that was going on. There was so much change going on in my life, my personal life, my professional life. What was happening on the professional side? Well, I wrote this big hit song with name, song name. Yeah. And everybody went, yeah, John, you wrote a big hit song. Dude again. And it's like, uh, you know, I stopped writing.

I felt like I couldn't. right. And then I got a phone call from my manager, and he said Danny Bramson, this just got Danny Bramson, who's a music supervisor at Warner Brothers. And he invited me over because he wanted me to write a song for a film called City of Angels. What do they tell you about the film? So it's the story about this angel who has immortality, but he's lonely. And he sees this woman, And he just wants to know what it feels like to feel what all these humans are feeling because he's just going around watching them. And so he makes this leap and he gives up his immortality for her, for love.

And, you know, and then he winds of, you know, getting spanked by it. And at that point in time, I could really relate to that story. And basically, it's a remake of Wings of Desire, which is a great, great, great movie. Yeah. So he's like, I'm going to show you the scene of this movie. and I want you to see if you can come up with something for it. Did he happen to tell you why he wanted you specifically to write a song for the film? I don't know why he wanted me.

But it was an opportunity that however it came about, I was lucky enough to get it. So I saw it and I went back to my hotel and I went to some video shop and I got Wings of Desire and I put it in the thing and I'm watching it. And I thought, where am I going to write this from? And then I said, well, what would I say? what would I say to that woman? I had a guitar and because I detune and use alternate tunings I'd gone a little too far

and I popped two strings off the guitar so I had four strings on this guitar left and I detuned the low E to a B the other three strings to D's and I'm just playing and I'm just running basically the shape of a power core but very simple

so you're in your hotel room and you're thinking about this scene. Do you remember what the first lyrics were that you came up with? What was the first jumping off point? Can I is okay if I grabbed that guitar? Yeah, yeah. This is a cool guitar. Thank you.

But I do this when I read songs, I'll be like, you know, I don't know. You know what I mean? I'll do like the, you know, when people do their, impersonation of Bob Dylan. It's like, this is like, this is long as you're going to live

or a down again. So that's how I get melodies. And I always find melody first. What sits on top of the chords? And what does it make you feel? And then sometimes a word will come out. You're sitting there going, yeah, da, yeah,

and I don't want to be like you. I don't be like you. I don't want to... And I don't want to... because I don't think, I just want you to know who. I don't want the world to see me because I don't think that they'll understand. When everything's made to be broken, I just want you to know who I am. So I was, you know, I'm this otherworldly being who wants to be a human.

You know, I don't think he planned for all the pain that came along with being human, really being human. But I just love that concept of like, yeah, I'm so in love with you. I will give up everything for you. you want to feel so bad, even if it feels bad. And this helped snap me out of the writer's block. To have the script and a film, instead of just trying to pull stuff out of thin air, it was like, oh, okay, yeah.

I found my subject matter. So I took it back to Danny, and I played it for him on the four-string guitar. Yeah. And then Danny was like, yeah, let's go. do this. So then I went over, there was a place here in L.A. called Swinghouse, which is like a very, very classic old rehearsal spot. And one of the guys that worked there set up the drum machine

and microphone and we recorded it. Can we listen to the demo? Sure, sure, sure. That beat is not what I would have expected. Yeah, we couldn't figure out the math on the drum machine. That's why it's so disjointed. You can see the tuning isn't completely there yet. So I had to add top two strings and I tuned those to D. So they got five D's and one B. I really appreciate how committed you were to that D string. Oh yeah, very committed. And I took that demo to a producer named Rob Cavallo and then we went in the studio. You know, he did some tweaking and Rob Cavallo fixed the drum pattern and came up with the proper beat and it has that sort of six eight feel to it.

But I don't think those side sticks made it to the final. Oh, my God, I lose it. Every time I hear a side stick, I think. No, they're definitely in the final version of the song. They're on there. Yeah. I hate this song now. And were you thinking about a specific drum sound that you wanted?

I looked at it as an opportunity to, like, take the next step. So it should feel epic. It should feel a little bit bigger and a little more muscular than what we had done before, you know, because we'd mostly worked in Buffalo. And, you know, we were a punk rock band when we started. But then you come to a city like Los Angeles where your resources are unlimited. So they rented this beautiful set of drums and all the gear. It was the first time in my life I got to play like five guitars and go, oh, I like that one.

So we tripled it. And the bass, who's playing that mandolin? That's Tim Pierce player. one of the greatest session players in history of recorded music. Do you know whose idea it was to bring him in? Rob's. This is where Rob turned us on to some crazy stuff. Jamie Mojobrack is a crazy talented keyboard player.

Another amazing, interesting guy that Rob Caballo introduced us to. And can we listen to your vocals? Oh, God, yeah, sure. And you can't fight the tears that ain't. coming all the moment of truth in your lies when everything

feels like the movies yeah you bleed just to know your... Was it a hard song to record? Oh yeah, that note is crazy high. Yeah, the high note in the chorus. Yeah.

But I remember taking a singing lesson before I went in. I'd never taken a singing lesson. And I went to some guy here in L.A. and did all the warm up with me. And I'm like, oh, okay, cool. And then I just went back to the studio with all this, like, confidence.

I'm like, now I know how to sing now. It took a singing lesson. There we go. And, you know, they just went in and did it. And I don't want the world to see me because I don't think they'd understand. When everything's made to be broken, I just want you to know.

know who I am. My conversation with John Resnick continues after this. I have a new album of my own coming out on April 24th. It's been about 15 years since I last put out a full length, and this is the first one that'll be out under my own name, Rishi Keisher Way. I started making Song Exploder when I was feeling lost in my own music career. And then for over a decade, I've gotten to have these incredible conversations about the process of making music, talking to other artists,

and it made me completely rethink my relationship to music. and my way of writing songs. And this album is the product of all of that. It features contributions from some of my favorite artists, including some folks that you may have heard on this podcast, like Iron and Wine, Kevin Morby, Vagabon, Fenlily, and the producer Phil Wine Rope. I'm going to be on tour playing in cities across the U.S. starting in April,

and I'm trying to bring the spirit of the podcast with me. So every show that I'm playing will begin with a conversation about the album with a different amazing guest moderator in each city. Like Adam Scott, Samin Nasrat, Jason Manzukas, Josh Molina, Minjin Lee, Ken Jennings, John Roderick, Austin Cleon, and more. They're all going to be my conversation partners on stage, and then I'll play with my band. The album is called In the Last Hour of Light, and the first couple songs are out now. You can listen to the music and get tickets for the shows on my website, rishikash.co.

Or just go to songexploder.net slash live. That's songexploder.com. net slash live. Thanks. One of the things that I think is interesting about the song, just structurally, is that you have a really long instrumental section. Yeah. What inspired that? I tend to get a little dramatic in my music, and I like a lot of dynamics.

Whatever feels right, you know, bring in Tim Pierce again. Tim also played that crazy guitar solo, too. Then Rob was like, we're going to put strings on this. And Robbie and I were like, what, what? You know, we're very reluctant to do it. So Rob's like, no, no, don't worry about it. We're going to try it. It's going to be cool.

And then we were like, well, okay, but if it freaks us out too much, we reserve the right to say no. Okay, fine. And then we met the king, David Campbell, one of the greatest composers, string arrangers, And Beck's dad. Yeah. So they got an eight-piece ensemble.

And Robbie and I were in the control room, and we were kneeling in front of the glass watching the players. And when they came out and started playing, Robbie and I were like, uh-oh, uh-oh. It's kind of cool. And then I'm like, you know, if we do this, there's no going back to what we were doing. And he's like, yeah.

And then we were both like, fuck it, let's do it. So in the spirit of moving forward, you know, we did it. And it worked. And we took a lot of shit for it. But it worked. I guess I'm surprised to hear that you took shit for it because at that point, on your previous album, you had a ballad that was like a big hit. Yeah, name. Yeah.

Name. Yeah. But that was more ragged and worked in that sort of world that we were living in of like soul asylum and the replacements and REM. And this was more produced. Yeah. Yeah. And it was a little scary. It was a little scary because it was a very, very fine recording, a very fine recording engineer.

And it was also like, oh, my God, are we sellouts? Because that was a big deal back then. Now everyone is trying to sell out as hard as they can. You know, there's no such thing as selling out anymore, which is interesting. I wanted to ask you about the title because the name Iris is not in the song. No. And it's not in the movie either. No.

Where did the title for the song come from? I was seeing a girl when I was living out here when we were having coffee, looking at the LA Weekly, and Iris Dement was playing. The singer. Yeah. And I just said, Iris.

That's a beautiful name. You know, Iris. And they were like, yo, you got to name this song. And I was just like, it's called Iris. They're like, what do you mean?

It's called Iris. Just leave it. Because I was listening to Melancholy and the Infinite Sadness. Yeah. And it was like the Billy Corrigan thing. you know, bullet with butterfly wings or whatever. And you're like, huh, yeah, man, I got to have one of those cool names for my song.

It's not in the song, but you just call it that, yeah? I mean, that was a thing for a while. Yeah. But I just love that name. So after you finished the recording, how is it received when you handed it in? Because you were writing this for the soundtrack, but also for the scene in the movie, right? It had to play in the actual film. Yeah, right.

I was definitely writing the song for the film. but the director got the song. Yeah, and he didn't like it. He didn't like it, and he was like, this is too big, it's too dramatic, it's not working. Can you record a completely stripped down just you and an acoustic guitar playing it? And I bitched and moaned about it because I was, you know, full of my own shit. You know, so I was in the studio with a guy named Jack Joseph Pug. You know, and he set up this beautiful microphone and gave me the...

this beautiful guitar and we just like started playing. And I don't want the world to see me because I don't think that everything's made to be broken. I just want you to know who I. It flowed and I softened my position on the whole thing because I was told and this was great advice. I was told, listen, you were hired to do this to support. the vision. And that humbled me. And I was like, okay, if this is more closely related to his vision,

of course, okay, fine. And nobody remembers that version, I don't think. Because you only hear it in the movie. You only hear in the film, yeah. But then the full band version that you did, that came out on the soundtrack. Were you surprised that that ended up being like such a big hit? So Danny Bramson was talking about the soundtrack And I was like, who's going to be on this? And he was like, well, you two, Peter Gabriel, Alanis. And I was like, oh, I just want to be on a record with those guys, you know?

Yeah, and that song was very, very much the dark horse. I mean, you know, come on. You're going up against you two and Alanis and Peter Gabriel. But the soundtrack came out on Reprease Records. And that radio team decided. they were going to work it. And was there a specific moment where you realized that the song had become a huge hit? Yeah.

You know when it dawned on me? Okay, I remember this. A guy, a guy came up to me. I don't know where I was. I was just doing something. A guy just walks right up to me and he's like, hey, man, you're that guy from that band. That's always how people approach me. Excuse me, you're that guy from that band.

And then he says, man, I got to tell you, I love that song, Iris, man, but they got to stop playing that shit on the radio, man. It's just on there so much. Every time I turn it on any radio station, I got to hear that song. I'm getting sick of it. Then I was like, all right, it worked. Cool, man. And now here's Iris by Goo Goo Goo Dolls in its entirety.

Heaven that I'll ever be could taste I don't want Because I don't The moment in the truth Everything feels like the movies Yeah you please Visit SongExploder.net You'll find links to buy or stream Iris

And you can watch the music video And also the scene in the movie That uses the acoustic version. This episode was produced by me, Mary Dolan, Craig Ely, and Kathleen Smith With production assistance from Tiger Biscope. The episode are is by Carlos Lerma, and I made the show's theme music and logo.

Song Exploder is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX, a network of independent, listener-supported, artist-owned podcasts. You can learn more about our shows at Radiotopia.fm. And if you'd like to hear more from me, you can sign up for my newsletter, which you can find on the Song Exploder website. And if you want to support the show another way, you can get a SongExploder t-shirt at songexploder.net slash shirt. I'm Rishi-Kesh, your way.

Thanks for listening.