Stats
Members: Benji Madden (guitar), Billy Martin (guitar), Joel Madden (lead vocals), and Paul Thomas (bass).
Home Base: Waldorf and Annapolis, Maryland.
Band Name: "The band name is from a children's book that Joel found called Good Charlotte. If you've never seen us, you'd probably think we're all girls."
Biggest Influence: "Silverchair's Frogstomp came out when they were like 15 or 16. I think I was 14 at the time. I was like, 'If they could do it, I can do it.' I got a guitar and learned all the Silverchair songs. Ever since then, I've followed the band religiously."
In Billy's CD Player: The Used, Silverchair, Muse, Glassjaw, and Blindside.
Status: Taken! "I try to not talk about relationships 'cause it complicates everything, but I do have a girlfriend right now."
Girl Talk: "The best thing in the world for a relationship is good communication. I need a girl who can listen to me and hold a conversation."
Fave Video Game: "I just got Tony Hawk 4, and it kills the rest of the Tony Hawk games. I haven't gotten tired of it yet."
Sk8er Boi: "Before I got a guitar, my whole life was skateboarding. Once I got a guitar, my skateboard got dusty in the closet. I bring a skateboard on the tour bus, but I won't like go on the half pipes and try crazy tricks 'cause I know I'll hurt [my guitar hand]."
Fave Movie: "The Nightmare Before Christmas. I have life-sized dolls of all the characters. I have to rent a storage space just to keep all the [movie paraphernalia] because I can't fit it in my apartment."
Pre-show Rituals: "We usually clear our dressing room out about 15 minutes to a half an hour before to clear our thoughts, and then we pound fists together before every single show."
Web Sites: For more information on the band, check out goodcharlotte.com or goodcharlotterocks.com.

Why did you guys call your album The Young and the Hopeless? The theme of the whole record. A lot of the songs are about us when we were in high school, dealing with family problems, self issues, and depression. You get stressed out, and you feel like the whole world is falling apart. When you're in high school, if some kid makes fun of your shorts, you think it's the biggest thing in the world, and it drives you crazy. But for the most part, as soon as you get out of high school, you realize it's not that big of a deal. There are so many more important things in this world. The CD is supposed to just be a record to prove to you that we felt the same way you did in high school, and look where we are now! You just gotta hold on and make it through.

It sounds like every song on the album is an anthem for today's youth. Do you think that's been a big part of your popularity?
If we got popular because people can relate to our songs, then that's a pretty cool thing. It's good to complain about what sucks and really call people out on things that are going wrong in the world, but it's also really good to have someone look at things in a positive way and give kids something to hope for. We didn't purposefully do that, but little by little, we've been receiving fan letters. Kids will come up to us and say stuff like, "I was going through a really tough time when my mom died last week, and one of my friends gave me your record, and I totally wouldn't have made it without it." That's a pretty heavy thing to hear from a 14- or 15-year-old kid. We were like, "Maybe that's our place in what we do." We're helping a lot of kids, and we might as well stick with that 'cause it's a good thing.

That must feel rewarding. What song on the new album do you find fans respond to the most?
There's a song on the new record called "Hold On," which was written about all the letters we've received. It's sort of a summary of a whole bunch of different stories that kids have told us. It's a big message to "hold on". I think the best reaction we've ever had is to "Anthem", the first song on the record. It's my favorite song to play live because the kids sing louder to that one than anything else. It's gonna be the next single.

Cool! It seems like you guys tour a lot. What do you miss most when you're on the road?
We probably tour too much, but we like it so it's OK. The thing I miss most is just the feeling of being home. If I want to go out and eat, I can't just get in my car and drive to a restaurant. That's kind of weird. If I'm hungry I have to go ask somebody where I can get food. It never feels like home until you can wake up and know exactly where to go! My cell phone is my savior -- I try to call people every once in a while and ask them what's going on at home. Nine times out of 10, they're like, "It's boring".

If we randomly walked on to the tour bus, what would we find you doing? Playing video games. If I could surgically have a video game controller attached to my hand and still be able to play guitar, I probably would.

How did you first meet the GC twins? I actually didn't meet Benji and Joel until I was 16 or 17. They grew up in Waldorf (Maryland) but later moved to my town Annapolis, where the music scene was bigger. I just happened to walk into a coffee shop one night and they were playing these acoustic love songs in the back corner. Everybody was telling them they should be on the radio. We became best friends and hung out every single day. My band started to fall apart, and they asked me to join theirs. I thought it would be weird because I was used to playing heavy music, but I just plugged in my guitar and played with them one day. It felt so perfect, and now I've been in the band for three or four years. It just seemed like fate. Everything seemed to follow this perfect path.

Did you have a similar childhood to Joel and Benji's strict Christian upbringing? I was never really religious. I'm not anti-religion, but I never really went to church. My parents divorced when I was in second grade. Joel and Benji's dad left them when they were little, and it was just them and their mom. Though me and my dad are still cool, it was hard bouncing between two different families and step parents, but I love both my parents to death. They're always supportive and have taken care of me as best as they possibly could. None of us (in Good Charlotte) had these cookie-cutter, perfect neighborhood families, we all had a lot of struggles. I think that's why I feel so good to be where we are now. We went from nothing and actually made it. That's a pretty crazy success story.

What's the most surreal thing that's happened to you in the past year? I'd say about 10 minutes before this interview my manager said our record went platinum today. I can't even believe that! Our last record never even went gold. It's not like record sales mean the biggest thing; I would much rather have a huge fan base so I could tour for the next 10 years than sell a lot of records.
These milestones of having a platinum record, having a No. 1 video on TRL and then getting it retired -- things like that just blow my mind. I guess it's good that things are so surreal 'cause I think it keeps us all grounded. I think we all just sit back and can't believe that it's happening, and we just take it for what it is and enjoy every minute.

So you're not turning into the people you sing about in "Lifestyles of the Rich and the Famous"? Yeah, exactly. I mean people come to us all the time and are like, "Well, do you guys feel stupid playing this song now because you're rich and famous?" And I'm like, "If I'm rich and famous, then someone's holding out because I definitely don't have a new car and a new house." People just assume because our video's doing well. Obviously it takes a lot of work to really get that rich and famous. I would like to be well off to the point where I could buy myself a house and a car and play guitar for a living. I'd like to think of it like that, rather than "rich and famous."

Do you think over the years the term punk has lost its meaning? I think people overuse the word "punk". We spent two years on the Warped Tour, and I heard the word "punk" more than I heard the word "the". People say it so much.
I've actually never been that much of a punk fan. If you look at Benji, you can tell he's quite the punk fan. That's what he grew up on. I think a lot of people call us a punk band, and if you listen to our music, it's not really all that punk. But I think the lyrics, the attitude, the way we come across live, and the whole atmosphere around Good Charlotte is sort of punk. I'm not even really sure what the word means anymore. Punk music was just about revolting and being anti whatever. You can pretty much apply that to anything. Our music is about revolting against the norm and speaking up for things.

What's next for Good Charlotte? We're actually gonna get like an hour off for Christmas! Just kidding. We're gonna play in Times Square on New Year's Eve on MTV. That's pretty exciting. We're only one of three acts that's playing that night. Then next year we're gonna go to Japan for the first time with Newfound Glory. Later in the Spring (like starting late March), we're gonna do a co-headline tour with Newfound Glory all across America, and hopefully that will be a big tour.
The very first tour we ever did was with Newfound Glory, and both of our first major label albums came out the same day. We've kind of grown up in all of this together. We've been trying to do a tour. It just seems like right now both of our bands are doing really well and we're both on MTV. We said, "Imagine if we did something together right now. It would be awesome." We've been working on it forever. About three days ago, our booking agent called and said that everything worked out and the Newfound Glory and Good Charlotte tour is gonna happen.

Amongst the entire band, how many tattoos are there? Me and Benji both have one arm each pretty much fully covered at this point. Joel's got one whole leg from his ankle to all the way past his knee covered. They turned from little tattoos to one giant tattoo covering all our bodies now. We probably have about 100 or so!
I never thought I would get a tattoo ever. I was like, "I'll get pierced because you could always take a piercing out, but I'll never get a tattoo". And then the day we found out we were getting a record deal, we all went to the tattoo shop and got "GC" tattooed on the back of our arm. That was my first tattoo. I didn't even really think about it. And within a month, I had half of my arm covered with tattoos!