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The past two years have been a turbo-charged merry-go-round for Maryland punk-pop
group Good Charlotte.
The band's debut single, "Little Things," from its eponymous 2000 album, drove the group to the
top of the "TRL" heap, and Warped Tour and outing with Blink 182 helped spread the Good vibes far and wide. The group's
new single, "Lifestyles of the Rich & Famous," is currently heating up airwaves, and a video for the song, which features
cameos by 'NSYNC's Chris Kirkpatrick, Tenacious D sideman Kyle Gass and former Minutemen and Firehose member Mike Watt, is
getting lots of love as well (see "Good Charlotte Shoot Vid With 'NSYNC, Tenacious D Members").
But as Good Charlotte have discovered, where there is love, there is also hate.
"There are all these people
that hate us and don't get what we're doing," singer and guitarist Benji said. "They think that we're only going to be here
for this one record. And they could be right. I can't tell the future."
The way Good Charlotte have been critically
assailed and venomously insulted inspired them to call their new album The Young and the Hopeless.
"We've been
a band for eight years," vocalist Joel explained. "But since we've gotten popular, we feel like we've been carefully watched
and scrutinized for things that we don't really think about because we just do what we want to do. We make our own rules and
live the way we want to live."
Added Benji: "The way we live, there's gonna be things people really love about us.
Like we're really into charities. But there's also gonna be things people hate and make them go, 'Well man, I thought they
were good guys.' We're just people and we think about our actions and consequences, but at the same time, I don't think you
should over-analyze things. We don't think about credibility." The new album should give everyone less to hate. Unlike Good
Charlotte, which swam with glossy melodies and pristine production, The Young and the Hopeless is more raw and
immediate. It's not hardcore, but it's punchy and propulsive, capturing the band's good time, hard rockin' onstage vibe more
accurately than before.
Good Charlotte credit producer Eric Valentine (Queens of the Stone Age, Smash Mouth, Third
Eye Blind) for the more dynamic sound on The Young and the Hopeless. To pinpoint their aesthetic, Valentine didn't
just meet with them, he entered their world.
"He came down to D.C. and went around to all the pubs that we hang out
at," Benji said. "He went to the tattoo shop that we're always at. Basically, he wanted to see where we grew up, what we do
when we're home, who we hang out with and just get our vibe. We owe him a lot because he really understood what we wanted
to do so we were definitely on the same page."
Of all the songs on the record, "My Bloody Valentine" is the one that
most accurately captures the band's current mind frame, Benji said. In addition to aggressively melding melody and volume,
the lyrics take Good Charlotte a step beyond their usual wordplay.
"The song is more of a poem," Benji said. "It's
a story about a love triangle, but it's got a real Edgar Allan Poe vibe to it. Basically there's a guy that knows a girl and
wants to be with her so he kills her boyfriend. It's definitely different than anything we've ever done and that's one reason
we like it so much. It's something we couldn't have written four years ago."
This report is from MTV News | |
 'NSYNC
singer Chris Kirkpatrick, Jack Black cohort Kyle Gass and punk-rock icon Mike Watt walk into a bar ...
It sounds like
the setup for a joke, but it could have actually happened following the video shoot for Good Charlotte's "Lifestyles of the
Rich and Famous" which features all three.In the clip the band is performing in a mansion when police arrive and surround
the home. After their arrest, Good Charlotte wind up in an interrogation room, in jail and finally in the courtroom, where
Kirkpatrick plays a member of the prosecution and Watt is the head jurist who reads the not guilty verdict.
Since Good
Charlotte have played on festival bills with Tenacious D, it's easy to see how the band hooked up with Gass. And because they're
a poppy punk band it's not too hard to fathom what they might have in common with former Minutemen and Firehose bassist Mike
Watt. But Chris Kirkpatrick?"We met him on tour about a year ago," Good Charlotte singer/guitarist Benji said. "One of my
really good friends was working for them, and apparently they had seen us and thought we were pretty good. So we ended up
hanging out together and it was cool. We became good friends with those guys especially Chris."
Such good friends that
Kirkpatrick asked if he could be in the band's video. As close as they might be now, however, Good Charlotte weren't so open-minded
when they first met the dirty pop icons.
"I went in with a bad attitude," Benji admitted. "I figured, 'Awww, these
guys are d---s. I'm just gonna glom them.' And they just turned out to be the coolest, nicest guys. It really made me think
twice about people in general."
The video for "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous" was directed by Bill Fishman, who
lensed classic punk videos including Suicidal Tendencies' "Institutionalized" and the Ramones' "I Wanna Be Sedated" but who
left the industry years ago to work on Hollywood films.
"He decided he wanted to start doing videos again," Benji said.
"So we said, 'We'll give it a shot. Write the treatment.' And of all the treatments, we liked his the best."
The song
is a commentary on rock-star celebrity. While Benji doesn't begrudge stars' extravagant lifestyles, he's irked when the famous
bemoan the fame.
"The whole song is just a social commentary on how celebrities can do whatever they want," he said.
"When we first started our band we'd see these bands complaining and throwing away opportunities and ruining their careers
with drugs and stuff. And we were like, 'Man, we would give anything for a shot, and we wouldn't blow it like that.' "
Good
Charlotte's second record, The Young and the Hopeless, comes out October 1. Unlike their 2000 debut, Good Charlotte,
which sometimes watered down the band's intensity with sugary hooks and slick recording style, the new disc, produced by Eric
Valentine, is tougher and less pristine.
"I liked the songs on our last album, but everyone who's heard it and all
the bands we've toured with say, 'I like your record, but I like you live better,' " Benji said. "So what we wanted to do
this time was find that medium between the stage [and our first album]."
This report is from MTV News |
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