VIDEO PREMIERE: RUN Give The Goo Goo Dolls' 'Iris' A HEAVY Makeover on it's 25th Anniversary
If you missed the glory years of Pop Goes Punk (or prefer something HEAVIER for your tastes), in the past few weeks alone we've seen exceptional heavy covers of radio hits from both Wildheart and Chaos Awaits - and today, an absolute belter of a ballad has been given a brootal makeover that's gonna have you bellowing along in unison!
RUN have kindly let us premiere their latest offering which is an ode to the immortal Goo Goo Dolls and their global smash hit 'Iris', which coincidentally turned the big 2-5 earlier in the month. Having debuted the song on their recent run of shows, it only seemed fitting for the post-metal/metalcore quintet to drop a studio recording - so we grabbed frontman Lochlan Watt for a chat about the cover's conception, the musical arrangement and if he'd get Nicholas Cage to play him in a bio-film about his own life...
Welcome back to WoS - You've given one of the world's most recognisable ballads a heavy makeover - what was it about this song that made you go - 'yep, that's the one we're doing this for'?
I’ve always loved the song and firmly believe it is one of the best songs of all time. I don’t recall the exact moment, but back in 2017 I was attempting to get what was basically proto-RUN off the ground with an old friend who ultimately ended up deciding to not follow through with the project. Around the same time I was really getting into The Goo Goo Dolls impressive back catalog and had become somewhat obsessed with the band. I guess somewhere along the way I had the thought that ‘Iris’ was a perfect cover song for what I was trying to achieve. It just felt like it was begging for some of that post-rock triumph, double kicks and general heavy metal drama - it even already had a little breakdown. The lyrics are also incredibly powerful and resonate with me on several levels.
I then tried the idea on with my collaborator in RUN before it became a real band - Mike Deslandes - and he was 100% not into it. To be fair, I’d never before properly recorded a cover song myself either, and also felt they have a tendency to be cheap, tacky, and pointless - but I remained convinced this could be done with enough evolution and class to be justified.
Fast forward to early 2022, RUN was on tour with Antagonist A.D, and one night on the Gold Coast we were drinking and smoking on a porch after the show and I passionately pitched my idea, chucked ‘Iris’ on the Bluetooth speaker and before long the whole band was air drumming/guitaring along with me. I had finally convinced a team to tackle it. We started playing it live some months later and the response felt so epic that a recording was the obvious next step.
Given all you've been through in recent years, following your cancer diagnosis and battle, was it something to encapsulate that or am I way off with that perception?
It has nothing to do with my brain cancer journey. Our previous single ‘Everyone’s Cancelled, Everything’s Cancer’, was written to (hopefully) be a full-stop on that part of my life. Given how profoundly that whole experience has changed me, I think it’s impossible for it to not have a significant influence on my writing and perspective going forward, but I don’t want my creative output to be defined by illness.
As the song says: “we’re leaving it all behind”. We’ve got a few more shirts with my brain scans on it to sell first though.
It's relatively hard/heavy from the start, but that climax is brutal AF! When heavy bands cover radio rock, it's usually upbeat tracks. This offering is emotionally draining because of the changes in sound and your delivery. Tell us about the decision to do this and not just release a pure 100% black metal cover from start to finish.
I think originally I thought it would be more of a straight-forward shrieking and blast-beating affair, but after jamming it out the song just didn’t feel right without the vocal melody and space for the song to breathe. Apart from a couple of minor elements on the EP, I hadn’t really utilized that side of my voice since Nuclear Summer and while intimidating at first it just felt great to sing again. The melody really sits nicely in my comfort zone.
Moving forward with RUN we plan to try and incorporate more of that voice into the music, so this was a good testing ground to get back in that style and show my band how it might work.
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Catch RUN playing their 'Iris' cover throughout April - tix here[/caption]
You initially gave this song a spin at your recent shows. What do you recall about the reactions from fans and concertgoers once it clicked what song it was?
We first played it at a local show and it felt kind of clunky and lacked some vocal confidence from me initially, but when we next played it at Dark Mofo it all came together. Hundreds of people in the audience all pulled their phone lights/cigarette lighters out to wave side to side and it went down very well. Even Mike, who was in the crowd that night, said I’d proven him wrong and that he thought it was killer and sounded like RUN. It’s always cool to look out and see everyone’s faces change into smiles and start singing along as it gradually dawns on them what the song is.
"We played a show in Brisbane in October and there were a couple of guys in deathcore shirts push-pitting and headbanging to the whole set, and it was actually quite funny to watch them calm down and start singing along at the top of their lungs while embracing each other when we pulled it out for the finale."
We’ve experienced similar responses at every show since, [so] it’s in the setlist until we have more original material ready to go.
The original, which just celebrated it's 25th Anniversary, was released as the soundtrack to the 1998 film City of Angels starring Nicholas Cage and Meg Ryan; and went on to make The Goo Goo Dolls a two-hit-wonder (alongside 'Slide'). If they happen to come across this rendition - what's something you want them to know about the process?
I’d like them to know that I appreciate their contribution to music, and that I hope that they enjoy what we’ve done with it. I’d also like to acknowledge that the song is far more complex than initially thought, which was something we slowly worked out when trying to piece it together in the room - it was written in a very unusual tuning (there’s an interesting story to it about singer/guitarist John Rzeznik being stuck in a hotel room writing it without the right strings to replace his broken ones) and has lots of subtle complexities - I guess not every radio rock song is as simple as you’d expect.
I would also encourage people to dive deeper into their catalog - they used to be a punk rock band with a sound not too dissimilar to that Hot Water Music/Gainesville punk kind of stuff! Check out ‘A Boy Named Goo’, released on Metal Blade Records in 1995, it’s loaded with bangers.
https://twitter.com/googoodolls/status/1642218207451963392
Lochlan, you've had a pretty epic life, that in my opinion, would be worthy of a bio-film. Would you pick Nicholas Cage for the lead role, or who would you have in mind?
It has been an insane ride, and sometimes I have thought it would at least make for a good autobiography. When I was growing up people always used to tell me that I looked like Leonardo DiCaprio, but I think Nic Cage would also work (perhaps with some deep-fake anti-ageing). His son Weston Cage is a metalhead who has actually sung in a number of black metal bands over the years and is a small-time actor too, so maybe he’d be the guy.
With two tracks released so far in 2023 - is there anything else on the horizon we should be running towards with open arms?
These singles are stand-alone releases, but our new guitarist Arron Parker-Richards (previously of Death In Bloom) has been writing like mad, and we have about a dozen demos and ideas to start fleshing out and piecing together. Things are getting moshier, but it remains firmly anchored to the original approach. I have the concept and title of the next record all laid out and ready to go, and we plan to get stuck in after the shows this month to hopefully have another record out in the world in early 2024. I’m very excited for the future output of RUN.
Nice. Sounds like the machine is oiled and is working cohesively. Any final thoughts?
Thanks to my bandmates past and present for believing in me and coming along for the ride, appreciation to everyone who has ever taken an interest in what we’re doing, props to Patrick Galvin for the killer artwork, thanks to Mike Deslandes for producing and engineering, Forrester Savell for mixing and mastering, and extra special thanks to our drummer Adrian Horsman for putting in the time to edit the video clip all on his own (we shot/directed/produced it all ourselves for $0!), and thanks to Wall of Sound for always getting behind us.
Interview by Paul ‘Browny’ Brown @brownypaul
Watch the video below and stream the track here
