Early Life
Rzeznik was born in Buffalo, New York, the youngest of five children of Edith (née Pomeroy) and Joseph Rzeznik, a bar proprietor and postal clerk. His name is pronounced (r)ZHEZ-nik and means 'butcher' in Polish. Both of Rzeznik's parents were musicians, playing the clarinet and flute. Rzeznik had a strict Catholic upbringing on Buffalo's working-class East Side and attended Corpus Christi Grammar School. Rzeznik's father died from diabetic coma at the age of fifty-five when Rzeznik was fifteen years old. Six months later his mother died from a sudden heart attack. Having lost both of his parents, he was brought up by his four older sisters. It was during this period and while attending McKinley Vocational High School that Rzeznik began playing the guitar. Rzeznik briefly attended Buffalo State College, dropping out after freshman year. Both sides of Rzeznik's grandparents were born in Poland.
Read more about this topic: John Rzeznik
Famous quotes containing the words early and/or life:
“We do not preach great things but we live them.”
—Marcus Minucius Felix (late 2nd or early 3rd ce, Roman Christian apologist. Octavius, 38. 6, trans. by G.H. Rendell.
“War is more like a novel than it is like real life and that is its eternal fascination. It is a thing based on reality but invented, it is a dream made real, all the things that make a novel but not really life.”
—Gertrude Stein (1874–1946)