I didn't think about having kids until like I was 48, 49 years old.
— John Rzeznik
John Shanks is probably the biggest workaholic I've ever met in my life.
One of the things about live music that's so incredibly important and can't be replaced and automated is the common focus of a room full of people having that human contact and being immersed in the sensory overload of a rock concert.
When I write a song, I want to write something that is really catchy and says something that might actually touch somebody.
Never in my life have I met bigger rockstars than Sugar Ray.
I'm one of these guys who always feel like the outsider, you know? I'm always longing to be part of something, you know?
We had always put ballads on all of our albums.
I'm a songwriter.
A live show is something that can never ever be duplicated on a computer.
Yeah, I really like that band Deerhunter a lot.
I wouldn't start writing songs like 'Name' all the time just because I thought that's what people wanted to hear. I'll write a song in the same vein because it's what I want to write.
A little renovation and reinvention is a positive thing.
There's a certain vibe in my hometown; Buffalo is a city that has no illusions.
I went to a vocational high school, which is where they basically train you to go out and dig ditches. You gotta learn a trade. Well, why do you gotta learn a trade? Because you're not smart enough to go to college. That was the underlying gist of it.
Everyone goes To L.A. to be noticed. I went there to be completely invisible.
I got really sick of playing just, like, 'Bop-bop-bop-bada-bop-bop-bada-rapa-pah.' Just playing that 190-beats-per-minute punk-rock songs, I didn't feel it anymore. And I always loved melody - when you looked back on those early records, there's always a hook buried in there somewhere.
If you go back and listen to the album 'Name' was on, there were a lot of garage songs on it.
I mean my mother always wanted us to be individuals. She always instilled that into our brains which was incredibly painful for an adolescent to deal with.
Don't be afraid to play what you feel and what you think no matter what it is. If you play long enough, you start to move past your influences and find your own music.
I have a very powerful form of alcoholism. I finally gave up and accepted the fact that if I even smell too much booze, I'm going to start drinking again. That's just how I am.
I'm lucky I actually make a living making music.
I wasn't present for my own life for a long time. I wasn't there; I wasn't in my relationships; I wasn't in my band; I wasn't in my soul - I was disconnected from all of it. I would let myself live in a miserable situation forever, mostly of my own making. I made my own misery and made the people around me miserable.
The only way you fail is if you quit. That has always sort of been pounded into my head.
I love playing the songs that people love because it makes them happy.
I never underestimate luck and working hard.
I really love Death Cab.
Having a collection of regrets when you hit your 40s is part of the deal.
Usually albums are frontloaded with singles.
I'm not trying to chase a radio hit, but at a certain time, you can't make the same album over and over.
I feel a whole lot of gratitude for having hits.
I hated high school.
I have this dreadful image of me driving down Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles, with the windows rolled down, and our song comes on... and I'm sitting there listening to it and some guy pulls up next to me and thinks, 'Hey, it's that guy from the Goo Goo Dolls... he's listening to his own music. What a jerk!'
I've taken a lot of crap. That's just the way life is. There are going to be writers who like you and writers who despise you.
We started the band when I was about 19 or 20. At that age, it would have been kind of hard to imagine a lot of the stuff that I've written. We were playing garage rock. I wanted to dash out three chords and scream. But if you do that for 20 years, what's the point?
The good part about being a pessimist is, when something bad happens, you're never really devastated by it. And when something good happens, it's such a bonus.
The business of making music is changing so radically because of the Internet. It's become a lot more democratic in one respect, but in another respect there's no one left to guide and mentor young bands.
We were so heavily influenced by The Replacements and by a lot of hard core bands like Bad Brains, not that we sounded like them but we were trying to play as hard and fast as we could.
Whether you are happy or miserable is completely a choice.
If you're really gonna live, you have to be vulnerable.
So what if America loses its empire? We never should have had one in the first place.
You know what the most amazing luxury problem in the world is? When you've got a bunch of hits you have to play. That means the show's going to have to be a little longer.
As soon as we finish a tour, I think, 'Oh my god, I'm unemployed.' I swear to God, every time I'm not touring, I hear my father yelling, 'You're unemployed if you're not working every day.'
I really love Tegan and Sara.
At its best, MTV puts a face to the names, if you know what I mean. I think if you can take the expression of a song much farther, that's great. And it's one of the only outlets there is for artistic filmmaking. But it's a double-edged sword. At it's worst, MTV is just a lot of TV commercials for songs.
I was a bartender, a hot-dog vendor, a cook, sold magazine subscriptions.
I've written songs everywhere, and I think the place does matter.
If people are spending money to hear us, they better go home happy.
I don't write a lot of fiction.
Every day somebody comes up to me and says, 'That song really helped me through a difficult time,' or 'That's me and my wife's song' or 'This song means something to me because of... ' It's humbling to hear that. You're something special in someone's life, even if it is for three minutes.
I just feel really lucky to have had some hits because we had a lot of time where we didn't have them. It's better to have a hit. You can ask anyone - U2, Green Day - and they'll tell you the same thing.
