tHrOnE: ok lets begin here.....
tHrOnE: haha we suck
Good Charlotte: so do I its cool
tHrOnE: all right first of all - new cd?? Tell us about it compared to your debut Good Charlotte: Although everybody always likes to see our new album is more "grown-up", that really that best way I can explain it....
Good Charlotte: We are all really young when we made the first album we hadn't been through a lot of experiences that we have been through now
Good Charlotte: we were all really young sorry tHrOnE: so substance wise, it's deeper?
Good Charlotte: Now that we've been on the road for almost three years we've learned a lot from other bands and have just grown together musically
Good Charlotte: We spent only 1 1/2 months on the first record and we spent about 5 months on the new one
Good Charlotte: We really wanted to find our sound a little better than we did on the first album, we used so many more guitars and really tried to create a specific sound with this album that showed he we REALLY wanted the band to sound
tHrOnE: we heard a little bit of the album while hanging out with you guys at the warped tour in Boston.....it seemed a lot more "rock" to us.....
tHrOnE: ....which is cool....
Good Charlotte: Yea I think that just because of our first single everyone just assumed we were a pop punk band and compared us to a lot of pop punk bands
Good Charlotte: We've never really classified ourselves in that genre; we have a lot of mid-tempo rock songs and even a few ballads on both of our albums. We always were told that we were a lot heavier and raw sounding live, so we wanted to try Good Charlotte: and capture that on this record, and I think we did...
tHrOnE: your single "lifestyles of the rich and famous" has been blowing up like crazy....on mtv and radio....how have you seen the effects of that?
Good Charlotte: It's actually a really exciting thing for us, on our first album we kept releasing single after single and only a small handful of radio stations played and attention to them. This time around we've been getting a lot more....
Good Charlotte: attention from radio and mtv and I like it mostly because it will hopefully give people who wouldn't normally listen us a chance to hear the band....
tHrOnE: hey by the way, if these questions suck, we're sorry.......we're not professional interviewer guys or anything....haha
Good Charlotte: We've always been a touring band and pretty much if you know about Good Charlotte it's by word of mouth and just going to shows. So now people are hearing the band on the radio and on mtv for the first time, we haven't done any....
Good Charlotte: shows since the single's success, so we haven't really seen any big effects from it yet..
Good Charlotte: questions are fine...
tHrOnE: when you tour as much as you guys do, you meet a ton of up and coming bands. and you guys have always gone out of your way to help us with our career.....when you guys were smaller, were there any specific bands that helped...
tHrOnE: ...you guys out?
Good Charlotte: We come across sooo many bands on tour, kids give us demos every night and we listen to every one of them. If there is a band that we REALLY, REALLY like, such as you guys, we try to do as much as we can. It's not as easy as
Good Charlotte: everyone thinks it is to help out bands but we do all that we can. Before we were signed Lit was the first band to take us on tour, we also owe a lot to all of the bands that have taken us out like Fenix TX and MXPX.
tHrOnE: so do you guys like doing the whole festival thing (warped tour, etc.) or do you get more psyched to play your own headlining tours?
Good Charlotte: I like each kind of show for what it is. I really like radio shows and festival tours because you get to play with so many bands and usually there a lot of bands playing you wouldnt normally get to play with.
Good Charlotte: At club shows you are in a much more intimate environment where all the fans are right there is front of you and there is something really cool about a small club filled with your fans and only a limited amount of people can fit in
Good Charlotte: the club so you know the kids who actually got tickets are really fans of the band.
tHrOnE: cool! now before we go any further....we just need to ask the main question that's on all the young ladies' minds right now......
tHrOnE: ...and even guys for that matter....
tHrOnE: what are your feelings on the sea otter?
Good Charlotte: well as far as the sea otter goes...I'm not really that well educated on that specific animal, but if any of you are into Otter's I would suggest...
Good Charlotte: watching Jim Henson's Emmet Otter's Jug Band Christmas
tHrOnE: ok great..
tHrOnE: lets talk about the whole TRL thing....
Good Charlotte: ok lets
tHrOnE: now we know how a lot of people hate trl for what it is...
tHrOnE: we for one hope to be on it someday, and we think it's awesome that you guys recently got to play live on it
tHrOnE: what are your thoughts on that whole thing?
tHrOnE: have people begun to call you sell-outs and stuff?
Good Charlotte: I think that people always over use the term "sell-out", I don't think most people know what that term really means, including me so I', not going to try and explain it. As far as TRL goes, I think Good Charlotte as a band would all
Good Charlotte: agree that we want to be as successful as possible, and TRL really helps that. I don't think our fans really hate it either, I think they are just happy to see a band they like on MTV. While we were at TRL performing I leaned over to a small group of kids in the audience and sarcastically said to them, "are we still cool now that we are on TRL", and they said "yea we are happy to see you guys here" so I think its great for us.
tHrOnE: haha yea awesome! we think it's great if you can get to that stage as a band
Good Charlotte: me too
tHrOnE: now we know you love silverchair....as do we....but what else do you (and the band) listen to while on the road?
Good Charlotte: Lately we have all been listening to The Used, Glassjaw "worship and Tribute"; Silverchair "Diorama" is big with everyone actually. Then all of our friends like the new New Found Glory "Sticks and Stones", and anything we are into at
Good Charlotte: the moment.
tHrOnE: yea we love the used!!!!
Good Charlotte: cool!
tHrOnE: do your influences ever clash? like do you ever get in disputes and try to kill each other on how your songs should sound?
Good Charlotte: Not really Benj and Joel will come to us at practice's or sound checks and say hey we came up with a new song and we will just jam on it. Then I just try to think of a part I'd enjoy playing overtop of it and Paul will do the same
Good Charlotte: thing. On the first album we kid of all played the same parts. On the new album we really learned how to compliment each other's parts with the kind of styles we like to play
tHrOnE: righteous.
tHrOnE: now you have your own clothing company called "level 27" (www.level27online.com)...
Good Charlotte: I sure do
tHrOnE: which we can be seen sporting on many occasions...
tHrOnE: do you design all that stuff?
Good Charlotte: Yeah ive been drawing since I was as young as I can remember and I wanted to do something with drawing so I started putting drawings I did on t-shirts.
Good Charlotte: The stuff I like to draw is a lot different than the stuff on GC merch, I have been designing most if the GC merch for the last few tours and once I got the hang of it I started Level 27 so I could do whatever I wanted.
Good Charlotte: And don't forget about the made website www.madeclothing.com, benj and joels company
tHrOnE: yea, we were gonna mention that too
Good Charlotte: oh ok sorry jumped the gun
tHrOnE: billy.....please dont EVER jump the gun again with us
Good Charlotte: haha ok sorry ='(
tHrOnE: it's all good
tHrOnE: haha
tHrOnE: ok so I guess the final thing we really wanna know is, when you first started doing this...
Good Charlotte: doing music?
tHrOnE: yea...
tHrOnE: did you EVER imagine things getting to this level? like, is it all surreal to you? or do you get used to it gradually?
Good Charlotte: I have always loved music, I used to have every inch of my room covered in pictures of bands and I would just sit and dream about how bad I wanted to be up there with them. I got my first guitar when I was 15 and started a band the
Good Charlotte: next day. I stopped drawing, skateboarding and almost everything else I did for fun when I got my guitar. I just loved playing it and the fact that my job now is to play guitar blows my mind.
Good Charlotte: I think everything is so surreal to me right now, I always get excited when big things happen for us, but when we do things like TRL and big radio festivals in our home town I just go up and play like it's nothing and I can't really
Good Charlotte: grasp that I am actually on stage doing what I'm doing at that moment. I figure when its all over and I'm an old man I'll sit back and stop for a second and then it will all hit me...but for now I'm just going to keep taking
Good Charlotte: advantage of all the opportunities given to me and make the best of them. tHrOnE: ok, well that is just plain awesome.
Good Charlotte: cool
tHrOnE: thank you for taking the time to do this interview thing with us
Good Charlotte: no problem I am glad we got to do this too...hopefully it will help both of our bands
tHrOnE: yea! and we'll see you guys at the Webster theatre in Hartford CT on November 8th
tHrOnE: (which already sold out)
Good Charlotte: well i'm gonna go eat some dinner now. give me a call soon and let me know how things are
tHrOnE: awesome...........
tHrOnE: so you're down with the sea otter?
Good Charlotte: ill go with yes
tHrOnE: cool�. talk to ya soon!
Good Charlotte: cool bye guys!
tHrOnE: take care billy.