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Paul, Good Charlotte - Warped Tour 2002, Asbury Park, NJ - By Kristen

Kristen: First of all, what can you tell us about the new album?
Paul:It comes out October 1st.

Kristen:Anything else? I�ve heard some inside scoop
Paul:Hmm, what have you heard?

Kristen:I�ve heard that �Day That I Die� is not acoustic
Paul:No, it is not acoustic on the album. This album, to put it in a word, is �eclectic.� On our first album, every song had a different style to it. Have you heard our first album at all?

Kristen:Yeah, of course.
Paul:Ok, well you know we had some punk songs on it, and some hip-hop rock songs. This album is just like that, in the way that every song is different, but on this album, every songs sounds different. On the last album, every song was different, but the whole album sounded the same. This album, we took time and mixed it, and every song sounds different. Every song has a different feel, the drums sound different, and we used different guitars and basses, whereas the last album, we just used one guitar through the whole album.

Kristen:The first single, Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous, sounds very different. Is the whole album going in a new direction, or are you still hanging onto your old sound?
Paul:We definitely have some tracks on there that are good old-fashioned Good Charlotte songs, like �Oh, that could�ve been on the first album,� but the majority of the album, we�ve definitely gone to another level.

Kristen:Can you tell us anything about the Lifestyles video?
Paul:Yeah, there are a few cameos in it. We got KG [Kyle Gass] of Tenacious D-
Kristen:Oh man, Tenacious D?!
Paul:Yeah! Not Jack Black, the other guy.
Kristen:Thank god. Jack Black is so annoying.
Paul:Are you serious?!
Kristen:Yeah. You think he�s funny?
Paul:He is one of the funniest men I have ever seen in my life!
Kristen:He is so not funny!
Paul:He�s hilarious! Did you see Orange County?
Kristen:No, but unfortunately, I saw Shallow Hal.
Paul:Well, but Shallow Hal�s not really a comedy, it�s like--
Kristen:It�s more of an introspective kind of comedy.
Paul:Yeah, exactly.
Kristen:Did you see the MTV Movie Awards? He was so annoying!
Paul:He was brilliant! (laughter)
Kristen:No way!
Paul:Yeah, cause everybody knows Jack Black either as a comedian or the Tenacious D guy. He�s really a theatre arts guy and like a Broadway, dance, and song guy, and that�s why I thought that the Music Awards were great, cause he was showing that he could do all that shit. He�s a really multi-talented thespian, & me growing up & doing theatre, I really respect him. I think he�s awesome.
Kristen:Ok, but he�s not in the video?
Paul:Oh yeah, I�m sorry, I totally got off base there! (Laughs) Yeah, so we got KG from Tenacious D, & he�s hilarious in our video. We got Chris Kirkpatrick from NSync, and we got Mike Watt from the Minutemen.
Kristen:Oh, that�s awesome!
Paul:Yeah, that was really awesome-one of the best bass players ever! I got to sit there and talk to him for an hour about bass.
Kristen:Was that cool?
Paul:It was really cool. It was mind-blowing. The video is we�re kind of being put on trial for robbing rich people, for breaking into rich peoples� houses and robbing them. KG�s the attorney, and Chris Kirkpatrick is testifying against us. It�s a storyline, and they actually play characters. At the end, they show the jury, and Mike Watt, the real punk Mike Watt, stands up and says they find us not guilty. It�s really cool. We�d say it�s the best one we�ve shot so far.
Kristen:Many rumours are circulating about your personal lives. Is it weird to constantly have people prying into your private lives?
Paul:No, it takes a lot of effort to ignore that kind of stuff. Because it�s still just a job, as much as it is a way of life. It�s really hard when you�re at home and you go to the mall & there are a bunch of haters there & they start yelling at you, �Good Charlotte sucks!�
Kristen:Does that ever happen?
Paul:Yeah, all the time.
Kristen:What do you do, just ignore it?
Paul:I usually go over and try to talk to them, and say, 'Do you know me?' And when I confront them and talk to them for a second, they�ll just be like complete idiots and apologize. Most of the time, I just ignore it. But Benji never ignores it, and he gets it the most because he�s the punk rocker out of us. I think it�s very ironic how he�s the punk rocker out of us, but all the punk rockers hate him because he�s not real punk, even though they have no fucking clue what they�re talking about.

Kristen:Can we talk about your new tattoo?
Paul:Oh, this one? [points to new elephant tattoo on forearm] Sure!
Kristen:It�s from the Salvador Dali paintings, right?
Paul:Yeah, he�s in a few of them. I actually changed the head and gave him claws to make him a little unique instead of just a straight copy out of a book.
Kristen:You�re really inspired by his art, right?
Paul:Yeah, I was going to get a whole sleeve of just his art, but now I don�t know if I�m going to get just his art. But he�s by far my favorite artist.
Kristen:Did you know he got his images through his moustache? He thought he could transmit images from outer space through his moustache.
Paul:Really? Yeah, I�ve been reading some really, really interesting things about him in this book I just bought. Did you know he was a chronic masturbator?
Kristen:Really?
Paul:Yeah, he�d have girls come in and pose and he�d be sitting behind the canvas, masturbating. The guy was insane. He would sit in his classroom, when he went to class, and count the spots on the ceiling, and the spots would start talking to him. He was�he was a nutball.

Kristen:Right now, Billy has Level 27, and Joel and Benji have Made. Are you planning on doing any side projects? Paul:A clothing line? I plan on doing side projects, but not clothing companies. I don�t know anything about fashion, so I wouldn�t know where to start with that. But I�m definitely going to do a bunch more music projects�I want to keep making music.

Kristen:What kind of music projects are you interested in starting?
Paul:I really want to do some hip-hop. I would just like to produce a lot of hip-hop. I�ve got another band with my brother,there�s a whole bunch of guys I love jamming with that I just want to make music with. I really want to get into scoring movie soundtracks and stuff like that. I would love to be Danny Elfman. But I think the very first side project I�m going to do is open a restaurant with my sister, cause she�s a culinary school graduate and I want to help her out.

Kristen:Would you do that down in the Maryland/D.C. area?
Paul:She likes Philly, so we might go there.

Kristen:What can you tell us about your new drummer?
Paul:His name is Chris Wilson, and we met him through the band The Used. Have you heard of them?
Kristen:Yes, they�re very good.
Paul:It�s a shame that they didn�t play today because they�re the best band on this tour; that band is so amazing. Through them, we met Chris, and he flew out here on his own dime in the middle of the [Warped] tour when we didn�t have a drummer at all. He already knew our songs because he was a fan, so we went and did a little quick practice with him, and we were like, �Wow, this guy already knows all of our songs.� And then we played a show, and we were like, �Alright.�
Kristen:Is he in another band?
Paul:He just quit his band right before coming out here. Well, he didn�t quit it, the band broke up before coming out here.
Kristen:Are you guys planning on keeping him around for awhile?
Paul:Well, we�ll see. I mean, we have bad luck with drummers, but we really like this guy. He�s good-he�s really good. He�s a good drummer, and a nice guy. He�s really nice, really passive�softspoken guy.

Kristen:Any embarrassing stories from Warped this year?
Paul:Yeah, sure[laughs] One day, I forgot which city it was in-I think it was somewhere in Ohio-maybe Columbus? Anyway, I had a bit much to drink the night before, and I was throwing up all day, and we had a signing. We did the signing for an hour, and I toughed it out, just sitting there, like [makes face like he�s holding in vomit], just holding it back so hard, and about three-quarters of the way through, I just starting throwing up.
Kristen:On the table?
Paul:On the table in front of the kids.
Kristen:Were they taking pictures of it?
Paul:No, see, I lucked out. Two really big guys walked in to get their stuff signed, and we were in this really small tent, and I did it right when they were there, so none of the little kids really saw, so I lucked out. But it was very unprofessional of me.

Kristen:Do you have any weird habits on tour?
Mmmm no. I wouldn�t say weird I chew sunflower seeds, and when we�re on the bus, I spit them into a cup, and I always end up leaving that cup somewhere, and it always ends up getting spilled somewhere, and everyone always ends up yelling at me, so that�s probably not a good habit.

Kristen:Right now Joel & Benji are on All Things Rock. Will we ever see you & Billy on the show?
Paul:We�ve been on the show once. I don�t know, that�s kind of their thing so I can�t really say if we�re going to be on there or not. Just like the videos they play are not Benji and Joel�s picks. Which kids don�t seem to realize that, cause every city, somebody goes, �Why do you guys play those stupid videos? You guys like Creed?� Everybody hates Creed, yet they�re one of the biggest bands in the world-it makes no sense!

Kristen:The band has three upcoming dates lined up with No Doubt this fall. What�s your reaction to that?
Paul:We tried to get the whole tour, but those are the only three shows we could get. I think it�s awesome, I think we really need to do a tour like that. You know how Newfound Glory went out with Blink? We need a tour like that. It�s always good to get exposed to people that haven�t heard you, and when you go on a headlining tour, it�s a ton of people that have heard you and know you and know they want to come see you. You can�t really expand your audience when you�re playing by yourself. No Doubt plays arenas, so there should be a lot of people there, and we hope it goes well.

Kristen:Any information you can give about your fall headlining tour? Any bands you�re considering as openers?
Paul:We�re so torn between who�s coming out with us, I don�t know who to say, what to say at all.
Kristen:There�ll be more than one band, right?
Paul:Yeah, it�ll be at least a three-, if not a four-band tour. But we�re only doing secondary markets-we�re not doing big cities. Like, instead of doing L.A., we�ll play Pomona, and instead of playing New York, we�ll play Long Island.
Kristen:Is it going to be a club tour?
Paul:Yeah, it�s going to be-we�re not going to hit major cities. In the spring, we�re doing a really long tour and going everywhere. We�re hoping to get The Used on that tour.
Kristen:That�d be really cool.
Paul:Yeah, that would be awesome.

Kristen:After playing such big shows as you did this summer, like the HFStival and Warped, do you think it�s going to be hard to get back to the intimacy of the club shows this fall?
Paul:I hope not. I mean, I don�t know. We haven�t really done anything besides the club tours. Doing these three No Doubt shows is going to be a whole new world for us. I would love to get to that level to where we could headline arenas�so I would like to get used to it, but club shows are always the best. They�re always the best. Everybody knows that who goes to shows. They�re smaller, they�re more intimate, & no matter where you are in the club, you see the band, you�re right there. I don�t know, did I answer your question at all?
Kristen:Yeah, sort of.
Paul:What was the question? I kind of answered it a little bit. I think it�ll be natural.

Kristen:Will there be a DVD release with the album?
Paul:I think the DVD�s coming out before the album.
Kristen:What kind of footage will be included on it?
Paul:Live footage from different shows, the Asbury Park Surf and Skate has some footage on their new video, old videos.a bunch of shots of us hanging out and being stupid and not funny.

Kristen:Do you still feel that Good Charlotte is a locally-rooted band?
Paul:No, it hasn�t been like that on this tour at all. We only have really big crowds where we�ve been touring for five years, like Jersey and New York and D.C. and Philly, but not this tour. This tour has definitely let us know that we have a lot of support all throughout the country, which is really mind-blowing. The crowd today was amazing, but to see the crowd we had today in somewhere like Indiana is mind-boggling.
Kristen:A lot of your fans are really young girls
Paul:You want to know what�s weird? It�s like the same thing every time. At first, in cities, it�s always the little girls-I don�t think that�s weird at all, we�re all young guys, whatever. Girls think that the twins are really hot or whatever�
Kristen:But they�re so young!
Paul:Yeah, well, they�re kids. Kids are what make the market. How many 20-year-olds do you know that go out and buy one of every shirt at the merch stand? The kids are the ones who spend all the money. It�s not even theirs, it�s their parents. But in the major markets, in the big cities, the ones that we�ve been playing for so long�like today, yesterday at Randall�s Island and D.C. and Philly, there�s always the girls, but there have been so many guys. The past four or five days have just been moshpits in front of us, and it�s usually never like that. It�s really cool to see how many guys are getting into our band, and how many guys are coming to the signing, that�s meant a lot to me. But hopefully we�re going to break that down with this new album, cause this album�s nowhere near as poppy�it�s definitely much harder and rawer, so hopefully we�ll get a lot of guys that like us, too�and not just cause we�re cute.

Kristen: What�s the hardest part of being on tour?
Paul: On this tour? Hmmm, I would have to say dealing with the port-a-potties everyday and not being able to shower. The lack of bathrooms sucks on tour.
Kristen:What bands are you listening to now?
Paul: The Used, of course. Coheed and Cambria I just got into they�re from around here, aren�t they? The first time I ever saw them play was when we played the Skate and Surf Fest here, and they blew me away. I had to go out and buy the CD, and it�s so good. And I�ve been listening to some Sunny Day Real Estate. And�anything new? I�d have to say that The Used has really been taking up most of the time in my CD player. It�s so good.
Kristen:Are they your favorite band?
Paul: At the moment? Yeah, they�re my infatuation at the moment, but they�re definitely not my favorite band.

Kristen: Who�s your favorite band?
Paul: My favorite band? Hmmm, The Pixies. I�m into the artsy, indie stuff.