Goo Goo Dolls - Iris

0:00You'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 Rishikesh Hirway. This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Insurance isn't one size fits all. That's why drivers have enjoyed Progressive's Name Your Price tool for years now. With the Name Your Price tool, you tell them what you want to pay and they'll show you options that fit your budget. So whether you're picking out your first policy or just looking for something that works better for you and your family, they make it easy to see your options.

0:32Visit progressive.com. Find a rate that works for you with the Name Your Price tool. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and Affiliates. Price and coverage match limited by state law. Song Exploder is sponsored by Quince, which is a great place to find clothes for the fall. Let me tell you about my new favorite thing from Quince. It's called the Organic Comfort Stretch Chore Jacket. And for me, it's the perfect thing to layer over a t-shirt as the evenings start to cool off. I usually just wear black, but I got this in a sort of ochre color that they call tobacco. And I think it's really nice.

1:07The organic cotton is soft and it's easy to pack when I wanna travel with it. And that's just one of the many, many things they have on their site. They have all kinds of wardrobe staples, the kind of things that you're gonna reach for over and over again. So find your next fall favorites at Quince. Download the Quince app for app-exclusive offers, or go to quince.com slash songexploder. Get free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. It's now available in Canada and the UK, too. That's quince.com slash songexploder. 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.

1:56They'd released five albums, and one of their songs, Name, from 1995, had become a top-ten 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 in over four and a half billion streams. So for this episode, John Resnick of Goo Goo Dolls came over to my place, and he told me about how he wrote the song.

2:31He 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.

2:46Cause I don't think that they'd understand When everything's made to be broken I just want you to know who I am

3:03My name is John Resnick. And who else is in the band with you? Robbie Takak. 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 it'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.

3:40Why do you play in a band? 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 of a sudden, you know, my little love bubble started showing up in my music. You know, you're in love. And it 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.

4:23I 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 big hit song do it again and it's like uh you know i stopped writing i felt like i couldn't write and then i got a phone call from my manager and he said danny bramson this guy danny bramson who's a music supervisor at Warner Brothers.

5:09And he invited me over because he wanted me to write a song for a film called City of Angels. What did 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 then he winds up 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.

5:53Yeah. So he's like, I'm gonna 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.

6:36So I had four strings on this guitar left. And I detuned the low E to a B. The other three strings to Ds. Yeah. And I'm just playing.

6:49And I'm just running this, like, basically the shape of a power chord. But very simple.

7:05So 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 do okay if I grab that guitar? Yeah, yeah. This is a cool guitar. Thank you. But I do this when I write songs. I'll be like...

7:30You know what I mean? I'll do like the, you know when people do their impersonation of Bob Dylan? It's like,

7:43You know, 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 and I don't want to be like you I don't want to be like you I don't want the world and I don't want the world to see me because I don't think that they'd understand when everything's made to be broken I just want you to know who I am 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 it was, you know, I'm this otherworldly being who wants to be a human.

8:37You 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 LA called Swing House, which is like a very, very classic old rehearsal spot.

9:30And one of the guys that worked there set up the drum machine, a microphone, and we recorded it. Can we listen to the demo? Sure, sure, sure.

9:45That 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.

10:14You can see the tuning isn't completely there yet. So I had to add the top two strings. And I tuned those to D. So they got five Ds and one B. I really appreciate how committed you were to that D string. Oh, yeah. Very committed.

10:54And I took that demo to a producer named Rob Cavallo. And then we went in the studio. He did some tweaking. And Rob Cavallo fixed the drum pattern and came up with the proper beat.

11:12and it has that sort of 6-8 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 no they're definitely in the final version of the song they're on there I hate this song now

11:33and 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. And I got, it was the first time in my life I got to play like five guitars and go, oh, I like that one.

12:17So he tripled it.

12:26And the bass.

12:37Who's playing that mandolin? That's Tim Pierce's player. One of the greatest session players in the history of recorded music.

12:50Do you know whose idea it was to bring him in? Rob's. This is where Rob turned us on to some crazy stuff.

13:01Jamie Hobrak is a crazy talented keyboard player. Another amazing, interesting guy that Rob Cavallo introduced us to.

13:16And can we listen to your vocals? Oh, God, yeah, sure. And you can't fight the tears that ain't coming Oh, the moment of truth in your lies When everything feels like the movies yeah you bleed just to know you're alive was it a hard song to record 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 la and did all the warm-up with me and i'm like 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.

14:04I 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 Cause I don't think they'd understand When everything's made to be broken I just want you to know who I am My conversation with John Resnick continues after this.

14:35This episode is sponsored by Ethos, who make getting life insurance easy. When my wife and I first got married, we were trying to figure out how to plan for the future, especially financially. We were starting from scratch. But we got the very wise advice that the most important thing we could do was get life insurance, because it would be a safety net that provided more protection than any kind of savings we'd be able to accumulate in the short term. You can help protect your family by getting fast and easy life insurance coverage through Ethos, 100 % online. On their website, you can get a quote in seconds, apply in minutes, and get same-day coverage.

15:09There's no medical exam. All you have to do is answer a few simple health questions, and you can get up to$3 million in coverage, with some policies as low as$30 a month. Take 10 minutes and get covered today with life insurance through Ethos. Get your free quote at ethos.com slash song exploder. That's E-T-H-O-S dot com slash song exploder. Application times may vary and rates may vary.

15:56You can save money without missing out on the features you need. Check out Odoo at O-D-O-O dot com. That's O-D-O-O dot com. Support comes from Wise, the smart way to manage the currencies you need around the globe. Fed up with losing out to hidden fees when you send your money abroad with your everyday bank? Choose the smart way. Wise. You can count on the exchange rate you'd usually find on Google. No unwelcome surprises. Plus, ditch that where's my money feeling. Most transfers arrive in under 20 seconds. Join millions saving billions on hidden fees. Be smart, get wise. Download the Wise app today.

16:34T's and C's apply.

16:39One 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.

17:11Whatever feels right, you know, bring in Tim Pierce again. Tim also played that crazy guitar solo, too.

17:45Then Rob was like, we're going to put strings on this. And Robbie and I were like, what, what? You know, we were 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

18:32Robbie and I were like uh oh, uh oh it's kind of cool

18:46and 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.

19:05And I don't want the world to see me Cause I don't think they'd understand When everything's made to be broken