Ashley: So you’re happy with All Things Rock?
Benji: Uh huh. Yeah I love it. Well actually we’re gonna start our third season in about two weeks. Its really fun.

Morgen: Do you guys get to travel the world at all?
Benji: Yeah, we’ve been to Australia, New Zealand, and after the tour we’re going to Europe. We’re starting to be able to travel the world.

Morgen: So how was New Zealand? That was where they shot ‘Lord of the Rings".
Ashley: Shush hobbit!
Benji: Its really pretty but its really small.

Ashley: Some of your fans are a little obsessive and sometimes creepy. Does it scare you at all?
Benji: It doesn’t scare me it just makes me go "Why are you like that?" That’s just weird, you know? I appreciate it ‘cause its really nice that they’re so into us at times, but sometimes...they try to invade our personal lives like getting our phone numbers or getting my address and stuff. Its like if I wanted to give that out I would. I definitely would if I wanted to but there’s a reason why I don’t. I like to be able to go home and like be off, you know? Not that I...I love this, like I love it and I wouldn’t change it, but it is nice to be off sometimes, you know, and not be Benji from Good Charlotte. You know what I mean? Just be like whatever, hanging out and uh stuff. Its just inconsiderate sometimes. But I’ll tell em though. Like some people are just like they complain. If I don’t like what a fan’s doing, I’ll tell em ‘cause I don’t feel like its rude. We’re as appreciative as a band can get I think. So when someone oversteps their rights as a fan I’ll just be like "Man, that’s rude." Like the other night some girl licked my face. Without asking me. And I was just really rude to her. I was like "That was stupid."

Morgen: Has anyone ever told you they want to have your baby?
Benji: Yeah. Yeah, that’s happened a couple times.

Ashley: Are there any other weird experiences that stand out?
Benji: Hmmm.....there’s a lot. People cry and shake at times. And I always feel bad for someone like that. The worst is just people like calling me or coming to my house. That’s like "What, we don’t give you enough by hanging out after the shows?"

Ashley: So tell us about the new album. What can the fans expect?
Benji: Much better than the first one. I like our first record but...(tape messed up)....I really do.
Morgen: Is it harder?
Benji: Its like both. The rock stuff and the like punk stuff is harder but like the ballads are like prettier and we’ve got like a new wave song on there. Its very eclectic. Its like a big mix, even more than the first one.

Morgen: Do you guys write all your songs?
Benji: Me and Joel write all the songs.

Morgen: How does it feel to know that kids at home are looking up tablature on the internet and playing and singing your songs?
Benji: Cool. Its really cool. That’s one of those things where once in awhile a kid will come up and you can tell he or she is being really sincere and says "You’re my favorite band. You are my favorite band and I love you guys." And you can tell they really mean it. Its another one of those things like people learning your songs and stuff it just makes you feel like "Wow, that’s so weird." You never think anyone would do that.

Ashley: So tell us about your new video for "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous".
Benji: We’re gonna premiere it next week. We did it with the guy who did the Ramones’ "I Wanna Be Sedated" video and the Suicidal Tendencies’ "Institutionalized" ‘cause we really like those videos. This is the first video he’s done in a really long time, he hasn’t done any current videos. It came out really cool. Its just like a mix of like the late ‘70s and now. Its like a take on like a celebrity court case. Some of its shot in a jail, some of its shot in a court, some of its performance stuff shot in a mansion. Its really cool. And KG from Tenacious D is in it, and Chris Kirkpatrick from Nsync, he’s a friend of ours.

Morgen: Do you listen to Nsync at all?
Benji: I don’t listen to Nsync. You know, of course I’ve heard the songs that are on like MTV but I’m not a fan of the music. A big fan of the people though, they’re really nice. I’ve met all of them, I don’t know all of them, I know a couple. They’re really nice guys, much respect as people. They work hard, they work hard. They work harder than any band I know. Definitely harder than us. So yeah.....um who else is in it? Oh, Mike Watt, from the Minutemen, Punk Rock Karaoke. He’s a punk rawka. He’s in it. Cash is in it, my dog Cashdog. Its cool, my favorite video we’ve done yet. And I hate doing videos. I hate photoshoots and videos, those two things I hate. I don't like looking at pictures, I don’t like seeing the videos. But this one is cool, I like it.
Ashley: So is that why you don’t play your own videos on All Things Rock?
Benji: Nope, that is just because we don’t have any current videos. So like this one we’ll play.

Ashley: Are there any videos that you really really hate?
Benji: Oh yeah. Definitely. I mean there’s like a good handful of videos on that show that I just don’t like. Its one thing to be in a punk band or whatever and be like, you know, punk or whatever but its another thing to be professional. So like my life with my band is completely different from my life on MTV. We definitely like promote our band, of course we’re gonna use it to get our band as much exposure as possible, but also movies and TV are something that me and Joel have always wanted to do. This is sort of like the first opportunity we’ve had as VJs, TV personalities on MTV, when you do that you have to look at it like a profession. So like we have to be professional with that. Okay...Godsmack, Nickelback, Creed, I’m sure there’s many more. Honestly, do you really see me listening to that music? Like I would never.... you know what I mean? But there’s a huge audience of kids out there that do. I don’t understand them, but I meet them everyday. I meet kids everyday like "Oh dude, I love Nickelback" and you can’t dog em for that, that’s just their taste. So like you have to look at that like these bands have this audience and then we have to play these videos for this audience or whatever. Its just that a TV show all around has to have something for everybody. I mean, if it were up to me the show would probably already be canceled ‘cause I would play nothing but punk and hardcore. And I mean, how big is the audience really for that stuff? Besides the Blink audience, and like even our audience, like we share an audience with Blink, you know what I mean, the same kind of kids. But those kids also like Godsmack. They do. So, if it was up to me, if we played what I wanted to play the show would have only lasted a month. They would have been like "Who’s watching this?!" Like 90% of the kids that turn on the TV would be like (turns the channel with the magical, imaginary remote) You have to find a balance though. That’s all just the profession, we have to be professional on that show. And its wrong to diss bands, ‘cause they’re just working hard like everybody else. And we write a different kind of music and its good ‘cause if we wrote the same kind of music, it would suck. That’s the way I feel about all of that.

Ashley: You guys went a long time between singles and yet your fans seem to have multiplied. Why do you think that happened?
Benji: Well I would say...The first song we put out really was ‘Little Things’ and it didn’t really do that well. It did okay, but compared to really successful songs on the radio, it was like a minor hit. It got a little radio play, it got MTV play. And then the other two songs that we put out, ‘Motivation’ and ‘Festival Song’ didn’t do anything. It didn’t get played on any radio stations, maybe like a couple of radio stations here or there but it didn’t even make a dent. It didn’t even chart. They were basically, by the industry standards, failures. By my standards, the video got played on MTV2 a lot so I was like "Oh, that’s awesome". But I don’t work for a record label so... I think it was because all the radio and MTV and all that stuff. Honestly, its nice. We accept it if it comes. We’re like "Oh great!" "Oh cool" you know. Its not something like "Oh the radio...." ‘cause I listen to the radio now, I listened to it when I was younger. So, whatever, but we just didn’t worry about it. We sort of feel like that is out of our hands, we can’t control the videos they play, the only thing we can control, the only thing you can control is how good we are as a band, how good our live show is, how much we tour. So basically we’ve spent the last two years on the road. Like we went home, out of the last two years we were home a month of each year. So that’s why, that’s really why. We got on tours like the MxPx tour....
Ashley & Morgen: We saw you guys on that. (oh the memories....)
Benji: .....the Warped Tour you know what I mean? Anytime you get in front of an audience that isn’t yours, if you play it right, if you really work hard, you can make some of them fans of yours. And that’s the only reason. But now we’re starting to feel the benefits of that. Its frustrating to see these bands that, you know, haven’t worked half as hard. There’s probably a lot of bands that feel that way about us, like older bands, all those guys. For us, we'll see a band come out with a radio song and do like this tour that's sold out or whatever, then three months later they don't have a hit single and try to go out and tour and they can't sell any tickets. With us, we always have good turnouts and it just comes from touring. That's the way we'll always be too, like no matter how many concerts we have, no matter if we have a hit or we don't or whatever, we're always just gonna tour. Our goal, is to tour like we did the last two years until we're all around the age of like thirty and then we'll start taking like three or four months off. Now for the next like eight years we're gonna like just tour really hard 'cause we want to be known as a touring band, not like a radio band. Even if we had a hit on the radio, that would be great.

Ashley: I don't know if you can answer this question, but what's that? (referring to original self-titled album cover, where Joel's face appears to be deformed or something) I'm breaking out the stupid questions now.
Benji: That would be just a....an error? Sure, like a computer error or something. Its definitely not what Joel's face looks like. But its the worst album cover ever.
Ashley: I've seen much worse.
Benji: The new album cover's much better.

Ashley: What is the new album cover like?
Benji: The new album cover it kind of looks the same, like blacked out along the corners. Its like you're looking into a living room, it looks like fifties style. You see like a father sitting like this, like with his legs crossed and you see him from behind so you see the back of his head. Then you see like kids sitting around him and they're sitting around the tv. And on the tv is a mushroom cloud, like a nuclear explosion.
Morgen: Is there any significance to it?
Benji: A little bit, but not really. We kinda wanted it to look like it has more significance than it really does, 'cause of everything going on in the world right now, the wars. Its pretty coherent with what's going on. The album title's "The Young and the Hopeless" It sometimes feels like that, like there's not a lot of hope. Like we haven't even got to live our lives yet, like the young kids haven't got to live their lives yet, and the world's going to ruin itself or whatever. But it means something different to everybody. We all agreed that its a cool album cover, much better than our first one. If there's one thing we don't know how to do, its album covers. We're not good at album covers.

Morgen: Is there like a process to it (deciding on an album cover)?
Benji: Just brainstorming and then like trying to see how the ideas work.

Morgen: How'd you come up with the name of the band?
Benji: We were fifteen, its the name of a children's book. We were like "Good Charlotte, that sounds like a cool band name!" I wish wish we would have picked something tougher, you know like "Death to...uhh whatever"....
Ashley: Death and Destruction!
Benji: Yeah, like Death and Destruction, but whatever, we're Good Charlotte.

Morgen: Do you ever think a name change will occur?
Benji: Oh yeah, definitely. Actually "The Young and the Hopeless" is an aka and on the next album, we'll be The Young and the Hopeless.
*awkward pause, he's trying to be funny but failing*
Benji: So on the next album Good Charlotte's gonna be The Young and the Hopeless.
*another pause*
Benji: But Good Charlotte will still be known as Good Charlotte, its the band name.

Ashley: Umm...Who's your touring drummer right now?
Benji: Chris
Ashley: Is he from another band?
Benji: No, he's from Salt Lake City......He was in like a bunch of bands, he's like best friends with the guys from The Used and we're really good friends with those guys too. They're some really close friends of ours and it wasn't working out with the guy that we hired for this tour and I was just like "Man, see ya later dude" and The Used was like "We know this guy, he's awesome and he'll play and finish the tour with you guys". So he came, and he'll finish the tour and we'll take it from there.

Ashley: Sometimes twins have like this special connection where they know what the other one's thinking or what they're gonna say, does that happen with you and Joel?
Benji: Yes. Its so normal to us that we don't even think about it. We communicate all the time without even talking. It helps onstage because we can communicate without even saying anything. We have a lot of the same dreams sometimes.

Ashley: Alright....the inevitable question. I know its personal and all, but the fans want to know and Sound-Realm is for the children.....So uhhhh do you believe in alien lifeforms?
Benji: Yes I do. I think we all do. I believe God created all of this and the possibilities are endless. I'm a Christian and I fully believe in Creation and Salvation and everything, but I also believe that we can't even comprehend what's out there. Even movies, even the most advanced alien movies, they can't even...they're not even on the same level.

Ashley: What do you think about words like "punk" and "poser"?
Benji: I think they describe anyone who uses those terms. Who am I to say that you're not punk, who's anyone to say that you're not punk or you're not punk or I am or I'm not? Its really ridiculous. Its also human nature, its insecurities. The most respected, most iconic punks I've ever met you would never hear that come out of their mouth about anybody.

Ashley: With all these words being thrown around, do you think the fans have gotten more hostile?
Benji: Not really, we've definitely had some haters, like some people against us but as a band you have to realize that that's gonna happen. In the last year, now we never see it. Especially with the MTV show I was like "Man I know all the punks are gonna be hatin on us." And I have every day like little skate punks or little gutter punks say like "I love your show. I used to hate MTV but its pretty cool. You guys are funny you're so sarcastic or whatever." So even less now.

Good Charlotte's new album "The Young and the Hopeless" arrives in stores October 1st. Its a great album, check it out.

For More Information:
• Good Charlotte Official Site: www.goodcharlotte.com

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