“At that point in our life the party never stopped. It usually degenerated into a drunken brawl by the end of the night”: The wild story of Goo Goo Dolls’ A Boy Named Goo, the album that turned three punk kids into A-list stars

Goo Goo Dolls posing for a photograph in the mid-1990s.

Goo Goo Dolls were on a deserted island in the middle of a shark-infested sea when they got the call that changed their lives. Granted, it wasn’t a real island. This was a pile of sand with a chintzy fake palm tree planted in it, located in the middle of a studio. And the sharks? They were guys in black suits with fins on their backs.

This unlikely set up was the video shoot for Only One, the first single from the Buffalo, New York trio’s fifth album, A Boy Named Goo. This was 1995 and the Goo Goo Dolls had been around for nearly 10 years at this point, having evolved from a scrappy punk band into something more grown-up and anthemic. But they were still chasing the crossover song that would introduce them to a mainstream audience and kick things to the next level. The scuffed but sparkling Only One stood as good a chance as anything of doing it. And then something unexpected happened.