Joel - Lead Vocals
Benji - Vocals & Guitar
Billy - Guitar
Paul - Bass
(Yes, A direct steal from their page)
"It's not often that
a young band of Cure/Clash/Beastie Boys-loving barely-twenty-somethings
comes tumbling out of virtually nowhere, well, Annapolis, Maryland
to be exact, to drop the year's most fiercely melodic and garage-gritty
debut album. Good Charlotte is a brash young quintet whose killer
first single, a hitbound anthem of high school angst called "The
Little Things," announces the arrival of a unique, genre-jumping
rock band.
Yet until just four years ago, 21 year-old lead guitarist Benji
had never strummed a single chord and front man Joel, his identical
twin brother, had never sung a note. Toss in their equally precocious
high school buddies, drummer, Aaron, and bass player, Paul, plus
recent recruit Billy on guitar. This is Good Charlotte: a hard-driving,
fun-loving band that has rocked Washington, DC radio station WHFS'
famed HFStival for the last two years and built a devout following
in the Baltimore metro area.
Their self-titled Epic debut album is a triumphant, raucous celebration
of high school kids who found a way through music to talk back to
their tormentors and survive troubled times.
Good Charlotte, The Album, is a collection of explosive modern-rock
gems with deeply personal and often very funny lyrics. There are
powerfully crafted declarations like the kick-ass "Motivation
Proclamation" ("Motivate me/I wanna get myself out of
this bed/Captivate me/I want good thoughts inside of my head");
and songs with haunted, autobiographical overtones, like "The
Little Things."
"Me and Benji have always written from personal experiences,"
says lead singer Joel. "You've got my brother on guitar, he's
got that punk-rock aggression, and you've got me singing."
He gestures to his heart: "Everything comes from here."
Most of Good Charlotte's songs resonate with a heartfelt but humorous
sense of personal triumph over some pretty bad luck. Others, like
"WaldorfWorldwide," take a socio-political slant: "All
I wanna do is kick the welfare/All I wanna do is get my share/I
don't wanna run for President/I just want an honest way to pay my
rent."
"We want kids to come to our shows and forget about everything,"
says Joel. "Whatever their problems are, we want them to be
focused on the energy, have a good time, and then go back to their
normal life tomorrow."
The brothers, who hail from Waldorf, Maryland, were avid baseball
players throughout their early teens and had never contemplated
playing music until one extraordinary day. During what Joel calls
"a weird time" when they were 16 and dealing with some
serious family problems, the brothers attended their first rock
concert, the Beastie Boys' "Ill Communication" tour, and
felt the earth move beneath their feet.
"It changed our lives totally," says Joel. "We were
both freaked out and knew this is what we were going to do."
Benji went home and dug a cheap guitar out of the closet, one that
the brothers had never touched before. Their good friend and future
bassist Paul taught Benji a few basic chords, igniting a lifetime
obsession. Another high school buddy, Aaron, quit the football team
to play drums and supply studio space in his house.
"We had our first band practice maybe two weeks after I started
playing guitar," laughs Benji. "I knew three chords: D,
G and A! I became fascinated with all of the late-Seventies punks.
There was something about those old recordings, those seven-inch
singles...There's no music that sounds like that today because of
the raw quality."
"I love the chaotic, wild way the guitars sound on 'The Little
Things,'" he enthuses. "And some of the sound on our song
'East Coast Anthem' comes straight out of the Clash handbook."
By their senior year of high school, the brothers' musical obsession
had become all encompassing. "We totally withdrew from everything
else," says Joel. "Our whole life was this band. Every
weekend we had a show. We were totally blind, all we could see was
the big picture: We were going to make it."
In 1998, the twins along with Paul and Aaron moved to Annapolis
to join its thriving music scene. Skipping college, Joel and Benji
decided, was a risk they had to take. Economically, they barely
survived, working a series of low-paying jobs as stock boys, waiters,
and ("our best job") shampoo boys at a beauty salon.
"We made a name for ourselves in that town because we played
out everywhere," says Joel. "Every party, every bar. People
knew us as the twins that play."
Joel befriended Billy when the guitarist showed up to see the twins
play an acoustic set at a local hangout. "I thought, wow, these
are really good songs," he recalls. "There were a lot
of local bands doing their own things, but these songs...every one
of them could have been a radio hit."
Billy was playing with his band Overflow at the time. After the
twins got kicked out of their apartment, they moved into Billy's
house. One day, Good Charlotte coaxed him into joining in an impromptu
practice. A week later, Billy played his first show with the band.
Things moved fast for the young group. Unsigned Good Charlotte played
with Blink 182 and Bad Religion, and opened for Lit on a sold-out
East Coast tour. They found local champions in the dee-jays at their
beloved radio station WHFS, who began hiring Good Charlotte to play
station gigs and finally asked them to play the local stage at the
HFStival. In the spring of 2000, Good Charlotte made a bold career
leap to HFStival's second stage, sharing the bill with Eve 6 and
Nine Days. Good Charlotte played charity gigs with equal fervor,
ranging from benefits for the Annapolis Rape Center to the Leukemia
Foundation.
A demo of "The Little Things" made its way to Philadelphia
modern rock station WPLY (Y100) and broke a record on the station's
show of dueling songs. "For fifteen nights we won 'til they
had to retire us," says Joel. The buzz around Good Charlotte
was deafening. After being courted by a variety of labels, they
finally signed with Epic Records this year.
Producer Don Gilmore (Lit, Eve 6) was recruited to guide the quintet
through their debut album. "What drew me to the band the most
was their personality," says Gilmore. "There's a lot of
pop-punk rock bands that have gotten record deals, but these guys
are doing something really different."
Benji looks around the New York studio where Good Charlotte is recording.
A sheet of recorded tracks hangs on the wall with titles like "I
Want To Stop," "Complicated," and the tentatively-titled,
still-developing "Thank You Note to Mom."
"Sometimes it doesn't feel real," he says quietly, running
his hand through his shock of pink hair. "Then I realize that
it is, like when I'm walking home from the studio to the subway
at night and I realize that we're in New York making a record."
"We've been doing this for four years, and there were all those
times when we were crammed into a car, driving three hours home
from a gig and we hadn't even made enough money to pay for gas.
It's thinking of those times that it really hits you."
Benji pauses, shakes his head and smiles, "We daydreamed all
this stuff and now it's all happening." " - Good Charlotte
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