Goo Goo Dolls lead singer Johnny Rzeznik swears he’s never put “Iris” on a playlist and had sex to it.
“No, never!” he exclaimed at the 2026 Songwriters Hall of Fame gala last week. “I can’t, oh my God, can you imagine that?”
Rzeznik, 60, then mimed calling over to a woman, “Hey, baby, listen to this? Yeah, here it comes!”
He then joked that he suspected there were musicians attending the same event “who have done that.”
Rzeznik married Melina Gallo in 2005, and they share a daughter, Liliana.
In 1985, Rzeznik formed the Goo Goo Dolls with bassist Robby Takac, and the band hit it big in the 1990s with a string of hits, including “Slide,” “Name” and their biggest song, “Iris.”
However, Rzeznik is philosophical about the situation.
“What are you going to do?” he shrugged. “I’m just really lucky we get to play live and earn a living.”
The Grammy nominee said he remembered when he first heard a Goo Goo Dolls song on the radio.
“I was in the supermarket at like three in the morning,” he recalled, “and it came out of the speaker at the ceiling, and I was like, ‘Well, I always wanted people to hear my music, but in the supermarket, I don’t know.’ You know, I felt like I had jumped the shark at that point.”
Rzeznik was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame along with Walter Afanasieff, who co-wrote “All I Want for Christmas Is You” with Mariah Carey, Terry Britten and Graham Lyle; Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley of KISS; Kenny Loggins; Alanis Morissette; Christopher “Tricky” Stewart; and Taylor Swift.
The “Bad Blood” singer, 36, made history as the youngest woman ever inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame.
In her acceptance speech, she tearfully thanked her family — including her parents, Scott and Andrea Swift, and brother, Austin Swift — for “uprooting their entire lives” to move from Pennsylvania to Nashville, which she called “the songwriting capital of the world,” in support of her music career.
