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STANDING UP FOR FREAKS, GEEKS & NERDS by ERNIE THOMAS At some point, everyone needs a champion -- especially those who exist on the outer edges of society during their teens years -- the loner rebels, the outsiders, the ones shunned by classmates for daring to be different and walk their own walk. Knowing what it felt like to be viewed by classmates as “different,” the brash young turks of Good Charlotte proudly make a stand “on behalf of freaks, geeks and punks everywhere.” That intent is clear in the opening seconds of the modern punk/pop band’s self-titled and best-selling debut CD, which hit retail late last year. Vocalist Joel opens the first track (also their first hit single), “Little Things,” with the spoken line – “This song is dedicated to every kid who ever got picked last in gym class, to every kid who never had a date to no school dance, to everyone who’s ever been called a freak. This is for you! Strong follow up singles from the Don Gilmore (Eve 6, LIT) produced album have been “Festival Song” and “The Motivation Proclaimation,” likewise anthems to indepedently-minded youth. Joel co-wrote Good Charlotte’s songs with his identical twin brother Benji, the band’s colorful guitar thrasher and the most punk member of the line-up. Benji remembers being taunted by his peers for his black nail polish, while Joel can recall more horrifying experiences like being taped down to a locker room bench and having Ben Gay applied to parts of his body where Ben Gay does not belong. Having survived the four longest years of their young lives while students at La Prima High School in the prim and proper Southern Maryland community of Waldorf, the lads obviously feel connected to others who dare to defy convention. Legions of loner teens, kindred spirits of defiance from all over the nation, have since come to look at “Little Things” as their collective anthem. To them, the members of Good Charlotte are living proof that they too can survive and thrive while not bending to peer pressure and accepting a life of “normalcy” as dictated by others. That newfound status means the world to the band, according to bassist Paul. “We get a lot of kids coming up to us all the time telling us how much they relate to our songs and how our songs inspire them to get through school,” he said. “It’s cool to know that maybe in our own small way we are helping kids cope with things in their lives.” Paul explained that no one in the band uses their last names in respect to the twins. “They don’t want to use their last name, because they are ashamed of it, because it's their father’s last name and they have a lot of issues with that. They are in the process of changing their last name, so we may use our last names on the next record. The rest of us just went along with it and did the same.” Despite what one might think given the band’s fast rise to fame, the twins held no ambition to become professional musicians while floundering through their adolescence. Most likely, because they had no musical background or training. Then four years ago, a then 17-year-old Benji picked up a guitar for the very first time and decided emulate the true punks of the 1970s (the Sex Pistols, Clash, etc.) and form a band. Recruiting his brother, who had never sung a note in his life, as the band’s frontman/vocalist, Benji set forth to follow his inspired dream by recruiting three equally precocious classmates -- Aaron, Paul and Billy -- on drums, bass and second guitar, respectively. Aaron left the group three months ago for undisclosed reasons and has been replaced on the tour by Dusty, who may or may not become a full-fledged member in the near future. “Benj called and asked if I wanted to be in a band,” remembered Paul, a self-proclaimed theater geek. “I got to his house and he couldn’t even play chords on his guitar. Our ‘rehearsals’ became more like me teaching him how to play guitar. Once he knew some basic chords, they started writing songs and all of a sudden we were a real band.” Garage jams lead to house parties, which lead to club gigs, which lead to a major record contract with Daylight Records, a division of the international behemoth Sony/Epic. They have come a long way since kids would heckle them in the hallways about when they expected to become “rock stars,” and even went as far as to call the twins’ doting and supportive mother and pretend to be A&R reps from Atlantic Records looking for her sons. Surprisingly, this quintet of fun-loving and good natured misfits hold no animosity toward those who made their lives a living hell during adolescence. “We’re not like that,” said Paul, when asked if they now take delight in thumbing their noses at old classmates now that they have become “rock stars” with a national hit record. “It’s funny though, because now when we’re home, it’s like everyone wants to be our friend. It’s like –– ‘Hey guys, how’s it going?’ –– when they see us. We get a kick out of that.” The band, which has no female members, took their oddly feminine moniker from a old school children’s book for no apparent reason. “It was an insignificant book in our lives” mused Benji, the band’s guitarist and co-writer. “It didn’t change our lives or anything. The big story with out name is that there’s no big story.” Despite their punkish attitude and image, Good Charlotte are genuinely nice and well-spoken young men. They have spiritual roots and honest ambitions as noted in their thanks to God in the liner notes and the lyrical content of songs like “Waldorf Worldwide,” where they decry being on welfare and profoundly demand “an honest way to pay their rent.” One gets the impression that the twin’s mother is to credit for this strong foundation of faith and fortitude within the band. To that end, they have included a hidden track called, “Thank You, Mom!” “We do that song live,” said Paul, “because it is a personal song for the twins. In fact we do all the songs on the CD except for ‘Screamer.’ Sometimes we even toss in a Beatles cover too.” The band is also road-testing three new songs –– “Another Loser Anthem,” “Movin’ On” and “Story Of My Life” –– all earmarked for their second album, which they will begin recording in January. Going from being heckled to being hailed sits well with the boys, but Paul is fast to admit that success and stardom is not what he expected it to be. “It’s great, but it’s a LOT more work than I thought it would be,” he concluded. “It’s not at all like I imagined.” |
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