HEAD TO HEAD w/ Joel Madden of
GOOD CHARLOTTE

Music Head met up with Joel Madden, lead vocals for Good Charlotte, before the sound check on December 29th, 2000 at the Theatre of Living Arts in Philadelphia.

So, how’s it going?

Madden: Good, man. Alright, we played last night.

Where did you guys play?

Madden: Hoboken, New Jersey.

Hoboken, alright cool.

Madden: Sure. It’s all good though, we go home tonight.

So how were the holidays for you guys and what did you guys do?

Madden: The holidays were very short. We got home on Christmas Eve and spent it with our families and then we had to leave the next day. So we had to leave the day after Christmas. But it’s good because we hadn’t been home in a long time so we got to see our families and stuff so it was cool.

Did you get any good presents?

Madden: Christmas for our family isn’t a lot about presents. I got some cool books and some clothes, but we just like to be with our family and eat some home cooked food. It was nice.

Are you excited for your New Years Eve show with Jimmies Chicken Shack?

Madden: Yeah, it’s going to be fun. They’re really good friends of ours so it will be nice to hang out with them and spend it with them, so we’re excited.

Do you have any special plans for that show?

Madden: We’ll probably be on the stage with the Shack a lot and they will probably be on stage with us a lot. Jepetto is playing with us and they’re friends of ours too. All three bands are really good friends so we’ll probably all be on stage with each other. And at twelve o’clock, I’m probably going to be kissing a lot of girls. You know, good excuse.

Any New Years resolutions?

Madden: Let’s see, New Years resolutions… I haven’t really thought about that. I think our New Years resolution as a band is just to um…. I don’t know. We don’t really have any. We’re just going to tour our asses off. We want to tour the country all next year as much as possible. People will probably get sick of us.

How is life on the road? Is it a different kind of lifestyle?

Madden: Yeah, it’s different. We’ve been away from home now probably like seven or eight months. You get really used to living out of the bag and to meeting new people everyday and being in new situations, new surroundings. I don’t think any band has the right to complain because I think we’re so lucky to be able to do this and be on the road and play everyday and meet people. I mean when I hear a lot of rock and pop stars complaining it makes me sick because I’m like 'This is a dream come true. It’s amazing.' I mean it is hard sometimes with the little things, but that’s just so minute. We love it. We enjoy it so much. Other days, because we’re in the van, we’ll be like 'Get your leg off me' and we’ll be fighting about little dumb things. But that’s normal. We love it, everyday.

Yeah, I saw your van out there. Do you have a Play Station in there?

Madden: Yeah, we got Play Station. We got it hooked up. You know, we gotta do it.

What’s your favorite game for Play Station?

Madden: I would have to say Tony Hawk.

Did you get Tony Hawk 2 yet?

Madden: Yeah, we have Tony Hawk 2. I like Tony Hawk. Man, it’s awesome. You can’t beat that game. It’s a solid game. It never gets olds; never gets tiring.

Yeah, I agree. How is it touring with your twin brother? Do you guys ever have any conflicts?

Madden: No. Really, I mean me and my bro, Benj, we’re like best friends. We fight about little things, but I fight with Aaron, Paul, and Billy just as much, as we’re all brothers. So, we all love each other and we have a really good relationship, our band. We’re really honest with each other and we talk a lot about things. We all fight about small things sometimes but nothing major. We love touring together. I wouldn't rather be touring with anyone else. I wouldn’t change it at all; I like the way things are.

How are you two different?

Madden: I think Benj is a little bit more outgoing and in your face. I’m a little bit more reserved and quiet and conservative in some ways. Benj is wild, you never know what to except out of him. He’s out of control sometimes and that’s the way he is and I love him for it. I wouldn’t change one thing about him. We’re just like Ying and Yang, me and him. Like night and day sometimes. He’s really outspoken and he says what he thinks right away. He's got strong opinions and he’s very hard core about being... he’s not straight-edged, like he doesn’t call himself straight-edged but he is just very extreme. Whatever he does is extreme and I’m not quite as much like that.

Any reason why you guys are playing two shows today?

Madden: Well, we put the first one up and it sold out in two days and there were so many fans that wanted to go to the show and they couldn’t get tickets. So, we were like well let’s add another show so that our other fans could come too. Also, we feel really lucky because every time we play here kids come and they stand outside and they want to come in. It’s hard for us because we can’t get everyone in. But we usually sneak probably up to... I’m not even going to say how many kids because the club will probably get pissed. But we sneak kids into shows all the time because we see them outside and we don’t want to not let them in. But we just added another show, they promoted it, and it worked out well. And there’s still kids outside right now that don’t have tickets. It’s crazy man.

Do you play any cover songs during your set?

Madden: Ah, tonight we are; we’re going to play “A Hard Day’s Night” by the Beatles.

How about any acoustic songs?

Madden: Not during the set. All of our songs are written on a acoustic guitar so all our acoustic songs are first. So, all of our songs we could play acoustically, like Benj and I. But not during the set, it’s a rock show.

What is your favorite song on the album? Why?

Madden: My favorite song on the album changes all the time. Any given day it could be a different song. I really enjoy “Change.” I like listening to that. I think that’s another side to our music that people don’t really know about yet. And eventually one day they’ll hear it and they’ll hear that side of us because on the next record we might do even more of that. “Change” I guess because it’s a personal song to me so I enjoy that song. I also like “Waldorf Worldwide" and “Motivate.” I like “Festival Song” a lot too.

When things were at the worst in your life, where did you get the strength to pick the high road?

Madden: We went right from light to deep. We went from the shallow end to the deep end. That’s good dude, I love abnormal questions like that. Well, at the lowest point in my life, I mean the last seven years I guess have been like a roller coaster ride for me. As far as family life and personal life and everything with growing up. And the lowest point in my life I think there was a couple times I liked to remember. Two years ago was really low. It was like at the bottom of the barrel for me. I was dead broke. Me and Benj were really struggling because we had the band going and we were barely keeping our heads above water. I can say that if I didn’t have him that I wouldn’t have made it here. Like if I didn’t have my band. Because my band has seen me through the craziest times. They know me inside and out. They know me the best. They’ve seen me through it all. And if I didn’t have my band and my brother and my family and even their families, it’s like one big family, I wouldn’t be sitting here. But through family and through God and through a lot of other things, some friends that I’ve had, definitely not myself being a strong person. I mean I’m somewhat of a strong person but, the people around me are strong and that gives me strength. When you’re broke and you don’t have anything but you have good family and good friends and you have God, you don’t need anything.

What advice can you give to young people to help get them through rough times?

Madden: When times are hard, it’s like the 2Pac song “Keep Your Head Up.” That song is one of my favorite songs because it’s true, you know, you just have to keep your head up and you got to realize that there’s going to be a better day. When you get down to your lowest point you got to realize that there’s only one way up and it’s up. If you keep your head up and know that things are going to get better and don’t give up on yourself and just stay true to yourself and true to what you believe. It might not happen tomorrow but it’s going to get better and it’s going to be a lot better.

Do you think that bands should be role models?

Madden: Oh yeah, definitely. I think that anyone in the public eye has a responsibility to that and some people just don’t want to accept it. I mean I’m not judging them either but, I think that whether you realize it or whether you want to accept it or not, you’re a role model and it’s your responsibility to make a difference with whatever you can.

Benji mentions, “We daydreamed all this stuff and now it’s happening.” What is the first thing you think about when you wake up everyday?

Madden: First thing I think about when I wake up everyday is probably what am I going to eat. No, but seriously I wake up everyday and it feels very real but, it does feel like a dream. Our band everyday has the discussion of how lucky we are. None of us complain because we’re always thinking how lucky we are and if it all ended today I would still be happy with everything that happened. It’s been amazing. We just hope that we can continue to give people good things to listen to and good shows to come to. That’s all we want to do. We just feel so lucky. I mean I can’t say anything besides that we just feel so blessed and lucky.

Any reason why you guys only go by your first names?

Madden: Yeah, the story with that is, well Benj and I, we are actually changing our last names legally. But professionally all of us go by our first names. There are a lot of different reasons, but one of the main reasons that we’re changing our last names is so we’re losing our father’s last name and picking up our mother’s last name. And our band is so tight and they support us so much that they’re like if you guys don’t want to use your last names then none of us will. It’s really cool of them to do that so we did that and it kind of stuck so now it’s kind of a thing. It will probably be like that, but you never know one of these days we might come out and give everyone our last names.

When you decided not to go to college and start working while playing gigs at night, did you ever have any doubts that things were not going to work for the band or you wouldn’t make it big?

Madden: Well, you always have that fear whenever anyone is working anything. Whether you’re trying to get a degree in college or trying to do anything. There’s that fear behind you that you’re running and you don’t want to fall; you want to make it happen. So, there’s always that fear and there are doubts. And there was a couple times when it was so hard. I mean I was so broke. I think I was 19 and I was like 'Man I could go get a job where I made like $30,000 a year and I could live comfortably and not be doing this.' But you just believe that it will happen. But there were some points where I was this close to just being like 'It’s over and I’m done with it.' But something inside of all five of us makes us do this; like we could never stop.

So, the dedication and perseverance paid off then?

Madden: Yeah, just stick to it.

You mention, “We've probably got four albums worth of material.” When do you see the next record coming?

Madden: We’ll probably do the next record this time next year. We’ll probably tour for the rest of the year, all next year, and then around the winter, November, December, we’ll probably start working on the next record. And then depending on how this record goes or maybe a little later this time next year we’ll start maybe thinking of the next record. We’re already writing for it, so we’re excited.

Do you have a lot of material already?

Madden: Yeah, we have a lot of new songs. But who knows maybe we will play them out at the concert when they're ready. Not tonight, but sometime during the future. Just trying to promote the new album right now. This one has only been out for 3 months so this one has a lot of life in it. So, we’ll see what happens with this one first. So far so good.

How do you think your music will change as you grow older?

Madden: It’s definitely going to change because you can only play the same songs for so long and you don’t want to write a lot of songs that sound exactly alike. I mean it will probably mature as our life situations change and we deal with different things. I mean I’m not dealing with poverty anymore, so I’m not going to write about it because it’s not real. I only want to write about things that are real. The songs, what they are about and the way we write them, will probably change. We’ll probably try new things. We don’t know. We don’t have any limitations to what we can do with our music so whatever comes out will just come out.

Where do you see Good Charlotte in the future, 5-10 years from now?

Madden: Five, ten years from now… Ten years, we’ll be together and we’ll be making records. Hopefully by then we will have a lot of records out. We’ll just be hanging out. All five of us talk about in ten years where we want to be and we all have our own places and are going over each other’s houses for barbeques. We’ll just be hanging out. We’ll still be together, making records. I’ll be acting.

The members of Good Charlotte went on to play two sold out shows to the crowd in Philly. -Todd Wojtowicz