It’s been seven years since 2018’s ‘Generation Rx’, but Good Charlotte have finally returned. A rejuvenated sight, their time behind the scenes – raising families and new bands alike – has resulted in a band ready to return to their place in the pop-punk and emo lineage where they belong.
Leading this charge comes ‘Rejects’. The first taste of their upcoming eighth studio album, ‘Motel Du Cap’, harks back to their golden years with its iconic-feeling riff, a call to arms chorus, and heaps of bounding fun. It’s a reminder of the band Good Charlotte have always been: a voice for the disenfranchised through ludicrously catchy hooks. Getting back to that point, though, required some reflection.
After forming in the late 90s in Waldorf, Maryland, brothers Joel and Benji Madden, with founding bassist Paul Thomas, and longtime guitarist Billy Martin, sought to take on the world. When their second album, 2002’s ‘The Young and the Hopeless’, sent the band into the stratosphere, Good Charlotte’s dreams were certainly coming true. Of the pop-punk names that capitalised on the boom in the early-mid-00s, Good Charlotte were always outliers. With their hip-hop influences blending effortlessly into their instantly recognisable tracks, they stood out amongst the crowd while feverishly seizing every opportunity that came their way. “When you’re young, it’s all encompassing. It’s everything,” Joel explains. “One of the greatest experiences you could ever have is success in a band, being with guys you love, and going on that ride. It’s a roller coaster of all these things when your dreams are coming true, and especially when you come from nothing, and you feel worthless to people.”
Reflecting on this time now, with twenty years of distance and a heap of maturing, Joel acknowledges that it was a double-edged sword. “It’s magical, it’s amazing, but it’s also all-encompassing. It all hinges on this thing,” he admits. “It’s not healthy. But when you’re in it, you can’t be any other way. You’re just all in. And then you get older and realise there’s more to life.”
“Good Charlotte had a 10-year run… and then culture shifts”
Which is what this new era of Good Charlotte is set to reinforce. They’re on sturdier ground now. They’ve embraced and accepted all that’s come before, and from here on it’s simply about having fun. “You can’t plan, and you never know how it’s going to be when you get your first big song or big hit or your band breaks through and becomes everything you hoped it would be,” Joel explains. “No one can tell you how to go through that the first time, no one can tell you how to go through the first time your band’s cold, and when no one’s that fucking into it, you know?”
Being a band for a long time inevitably means that the tides turn, which happened for Good Charlotte and their ilk of the early-mid 00s when skate culture was king and the world felt unstoppable. As generations moved forward and new cultures took hold, they were left in a no-man’s land.
“Good Charlotte had a 10-year run… and then culture shifts, and people go around a corner and there’s this new thing… and you’re fucking cold – there’s no shame in that. It is what it is, it’s just real,” he says. “You have to go through it and then realise it doesn’t kill you. On the other side of it, you’re still a person, and you still have a life, and the success of your band isn’t everything.”
A large part of this time away has been the Madden brothers’ building of their MDDN brand. Starting 12 years ago, they’ve gone on to manage names and release albums currently riding high in the alt-sphere. Speaking to Joel, he’s quick to iterate just how busy they’ve been in their time away. “We haven’t been out of the fucking game. We haven’t been out of the mix,” he states defiantly. “We’ve been in the backstages with some incredible bands and incredible artists and I think it affects us. We see artists like Architects or Poppy, or I think about Bad Omens or Chase Atlantic… I watch all of them move, and I respect it.”
It’s part of the reason this new iteration of Good Charlotte is striving to feel vital. Their time in the limbo between releases, while fruitful for their outside endeavours, also offered them a chance to take stock of the Good Charlotte essence. Pinpointing it now, Joel proclaims it to them being a “Simple, old-fashioned bunch, we’re all kids that come from nowhere, that had nothing, that didn’t matter to anyone, got together, they shared a goal. We were just being ourselves, just trying to make it with a dream, writing songs that we care about. About that we wanted people to hear, that we wanted people to like.”
“It took us seven years or something to make this record, it’s like a lifetime”
‘Motel Du Cap’ stems from a private gig the band played at a friend’s wedding in France. Their youthful spark reignited, ‘Rejects’ was the first track to emerge. As for the rest of the album, it’s a testament to Good Charlotte’s vibrant, and often darkly-tinted, pop-punk – and proves their long gestation period paid off.
“It took us seven years or something to make this record, it’s like a lifetime,” Joel explains. “Which is kind of like your first record. You start the band, and then you have from wherever you started to whenever that first record comes out. For us, it was 96 to 2000, so that was four years, but it felt like a long four years because you’re trying to make it and you’re hungry, and it’s hard. This one has been seven years. It felt like a lifetime to make this record. But when you listen to the record, it feels right.”
An unexpected, but welcome part of returning is how carefree they are with the whole thing now. Where once they were indeed hungry for world domination, now they’re ready to roll with the punches. “There’s not a lot of pressure for us to achieve anything other than add another record we believe in,” Joel beams. “And we think it has a place in the catalogue, and is this a moment we’ll be proud of? The rest is up to everybody else.”
Which brings us to touring. Not having completed a substantial world tour in a hot minute, Good Charlotte have plans to take their circus on the road once more. They want it to cover the spectrum of their career, guns blazing, leaving no stone unturned. “We want to go around the world. We’re trying to figure out what that looks like…we want it to be an experience that includes this album’s vibe, but also the whole catalogue. So how do you build that show so that people can enjoy it? And so the fun challenge is building that show, and we’re excited to do it.”
Which leaves the question of the future. It could be next year, or 10 years for another Good Charlotte album, according to Joel. It’s just about solidifying the group’s legacy for whatever’s to come. “Almost 30 years in, what does the band stand for?” Joel ponders. “We’re not chasing the biggest record in the world. We’re chasing special, and we’re chasing this. Can I just be me? Is that good enough? Can I just be me and show up at 46 years old and play the Good Charlotte show and do my best?
“It’s still the same old Good Charlotte. The songs are still quirky, they’ve got their personalities and they’re songs that I think only Good Charlotte could play,” he adds. To wrap up, Joel hits the nail on the head of what Good Charlotte have always been since day dot: “We don’t feel like we need to do anything other than be ourselves, whatever that means. “I don’t need to be in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. I don’t need a Grammy,” he ends, “I don’t need to be on another magazine cover… whatever’s supposed to happen will.”
Taken from the September 2025 issue of Dork. Good Charlotte’s album ‘Motel Du Cap’ is out now.
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