| American pop punkers Good Charlotte were here a few weeks ago for a short promo visit. They were taking time off from the conclusion of their appearance on the Warped Tour in the States to further increase their already strong popularity in Australia and support their new single �Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous� from the album �The Young and the Hopeless.� We were speaking with Benji�s twin brother Joel.
You�re the conservative one I understand? �That�s what I hear. That�s one way of looking at it.� Your brother always has a different look. At one stage he looked like Mogwai from �Gremlins?� �Man he always has a different look. I can�t keep up with him. I�m pretty particular though. I keep the same look all the time. Since we have been in Australia, we have been staying in some really nice hotels. He showers regularly here.� How was The Warped Tour? �We have been on tour in the States for so long now. It just seems like non stop for the last three years. It just gets better. Every time we come back to Australia it just gets better and better.� Joel and his brother Benji both have apartments overlooking The Potomac River in one of the nicer areas of Washington, did he get much time to stay there? �It only takes a second to get down to the water from my appartment. It�s nice there,� he says. �But to be honest with you, I have only been home there a couple of times in the past three years, for a couple of days each. I don�t think I have a home. I have always been on the road touring and I have a car that I have driven twice. But if I didn�t tour I wouldn�t have that house or that car. I am thankful that I can tour and I am thankful for all my fans who come to the shows. This opportunity that we have is a very rare opportunity and a lot of kids dream about it. So we are not going to slack off about it. We have to work. There are days you wish you can go home and there are days when you pick each other up. You have each other to back.� Recently their home town of La Plata in Washington was devastated by a tornado. Joel was happy to point out that the school and his old house were undamaged. �The grocery store and the church got knocked down. And a couple of buildings were blown away and three or four people died. A big path had been torn through the town. When we get some time we want to go back there and do a free show for all the kids.� Their album �The Young and The Hopeless� has been doing well here, but recalling that old TV series �The Young and the Restless,� was it a pisstake of the whole soapie genre? � We didn�t even think about that till someone said something. �The Young and The Hopeless� is just another name for Good Charlotte and all the fans that can relate to us. It�s about a celebration of being looked down on you know. The way we get treated in public, sometimes by people who couldn�t get used to us. Like if you are travelling first class or if you go to a nice restaurant. The way they treat you.� Surely you guys wouldn�t get treated like that anymoree we insisted. ��You would be surprised man. In the fist class sections of planes. In the nice restaurants or nice hotels. You would be really surprised man. There are a lot of people who are straight up rude to us. A lot of people with money who don�t understand where we come from. We definitely come from a different class to many people. We have the tattoos and the piercings. We have our lifestyles. People can treat us as if we�re less than those with the proper clothes or whatever. The Young and The Hopeless. That�s how we feel at times.� Songs on �The Young and the Hopeless� deal with a variety of personal issues. �Some of them deal with my dad, just being on the road, the burden of having so many fans and the need to lead them in the right direction. A lot of kids come up to me and say �Your music is the only reason I am alive because of this and because of that. And I think about suicide, but your record helps me.� I think a lot about that. When I was writing the records and thinking about my fans and death and the responsibility and my family and a lot of crazy life stuff. It�s a record of my life really.� You mentioned your father. I know that he walked out Christmas Eve many years ago. Are you reconciled with him at this stage? Have you contacted each other in those eight years? �No.� Your mother has supported you and your brother through all these times I believe? �Yes, she is absolutely amazing. I love her very much.� Is she ever going to come out to Australia so we can meet her? �I would love to bring her out man. Hopefully some day when I get the money.I would love to do that. Maybe we can have a family vacation and bring my mum, my brother and my sister over here. I love it here man. I love it. Every time I come here I never want to leave. It sucks that we come for maybe a week. It�s never enough. I wish I had a week off to just really hang out here.� You�ve told me how you get treated poorly in the States because of your looks etc. How do you get treated here? �People here treat you so nice. Really nice and really respectful. Everyone here treats you great. People don�t even notice and if they do they ask you questions. They think the tattoos are cool. I found out that Australians are not caught up on vanity. It�s really refreshing to come somewhere where clothes don�t matter. It�s like everyone lets everyone else live and everyone respects everyone. That�s one of the reasons I really like coming here. It�s not a fashion show. It�s just laid back and relaxed. People don�t trip man.� Has the music of �Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous� and �The Young and The Hopeless� changed musical directions? ��Definitely �Yes.� It has changed. Our capabilities are bigger now. We can play more. I write better lyrics now. I sing better. We�ve toured and got better on each instrument. Just through practice and touring. We were limited last record because we were so young. This record has so much more depth. To me it is so much more interesting.� With fourteen tracks on �The Young and The Hopeless� were there many tracks that had to be cut? �I had written some fifteen or twenty tracks before we went into the studio and I actually threw them all away and rewrote them when we got into the studio. Most of the songs on the record were written in the studio. Benj and I would write them together. We had some songs that we wanted on the record. But we decided that they weren�t good enough. There was actually a song called �Here We Go,� that was cut because we didn�t finish it.� Will there be any B-sides? �For the new single we released some B sides. We did an acoustic live version of �Lifestyles,� a demo version of the song called �The Anthem,� and we did a silverchair cover �Cemetary�. I understand that you have a very strong fan base here in Australia? �It is. Right there with the United States. If you work out the numbers per head of population, our fan base in Australia is almost the same as America.� Will they be coming back to play? �We�re waiting to hear if we�re coming back to play Big Day Out. That�s our dream to play Big Day Out. That�s our big dream here. If it�s not, we�re going to come here and do our own shows. |