“Because it gave me some confidence in myself at a time when that was lacking. In April 2022, the song bothered the Billboard compilers for the first time in decades, entering the digital song sales chart at #15. And, as so often happens, social media has given the song a second life, after Iris became popular on video platform TikTok. It remains the centrepiece of the Goo Goo Dolls’ set-list, the ultimate alt.rock ballad and the singer’s best chance of immortality. Ultimately Rzeznik chose to embrace his masterpiece and is meaning. The number of choices you have grows exponentially, like, I can have this, I can have that, I can date her, I can snort this – and I can afford it’.” It never made me wish I hadn’t written it, because now I’ll be able to send my kids to college, but obviously there are by-products of that kind of success that you have to avoid. We started getting more attention, made a bit of money… and it was actually really, really uncomfortable. “It didn’t change us,” Rzeznik says, “but people around us changed. Commercially, the Goo Goo Dolls had arrived. It was undoubtedly Rzeznik’s ballad that pushed the City Of Angels soundtrack to the top of the US chart in June 1998 and bolstered the band’s own Dizzy Up The Girl album, while the song itself began a five-week run at No.9 in the US. So I guess Iris is partly the sound of me growing up.” But as you grow up you change, you want different things, and your art has to stay in step with where you are emotionally. “When I was 18 I played three power chords and wanted to be Paul Westerberg. “But it’s part of your personal evolution,” he continues. “I remember kneeling in front of the control room window, looking out at this 15-piece string ensemble, then looking at Robby and saying: ‘I really think we’re turning a corner here, and I don’t know if I want to’. “That was the first time we’d ever been in the studio with strings,” he recalls. But it wasn’t until he was recording it that he realised how far the song had taken the band from their punk roots. Rzeznik recognised Iris as one of his greatest achievements to date, despite the title lack of personal meaning. I was, like: ‘Wow! What a beautiful name.’ I was looking through a magazine called LA Weekly and saw that a great singer-songwriter called Iris DeMent was playing in town. “I’m horrible at naming songs,” he says, “so it’s the last thing I do. Simpson’s appearance alongside Lovato is her first time on stage since January 2019, which in turn followed a decade-long hiatus from performing live.By the time Rzeznik had ironed out some of the “ugly chord sequences”, he had a swooning future classic on his hands. In Sept., Lovato also managed to lure Ashlee Simpson onstage for a rare live appearance to cover the singer’s “La La,” which Lovato has also been performing throughout her North American tour. Nearly 25 years after the release of “Iris,” the track remains a favorite of a younger generation of artists, with everyone from Taylor Swift to Phoebe Bridgers and Maggie Rogers covering the song in 2021, Rzeznik was also called upon to perform “Iris” onstage at a Billy Joel concert in the Goo Goo Dolls’ native Buffalo, New York. Throughout Demi Lovato’s Holy Fvck Tour, the singer has been performing her own “4 EVER 4 Me” mashed up with a cover of Goo Goo Dolls’ hit “Iris.” And Tuesday night at Lovato’s New York concert, she decided to take the cover to the next level by welcoming Goo Goo Dolls frontman John Rzeznik onstage for a surprise duet of the 1998 single. If you purchase an independently reviewed product or service through a link on our website, Rolling Stone may receive an affiliate commission.
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