Release the serious brats

Good Charlotte say they are now comfortable being themselves.

Just when you think you know someone, eh? It feels like only yesterday that Good Charlotte were snarling about high-school angst, gold-digging girls and the lifestyles of the rich and famous.

Then, boom - they're millionaires themselves, singing ballads about relationship breakups and opening their ostentatiously named third album The Chronicles of Life and Death with an orchestral arrangement that could have come from the soundtrack of Edward Scissorhands. What the hell?

"We're just trying to grow," Good Charlotte frontman Joel Madden says down the line from New Jersey, where they have stopped off on tour.

"It's painful sometimes because people don't want to hear new things. But we have to do that to survive as a band and exist at a time where things come and go so fast."

Perhaps it's not so hard to fathom. Both Blink 182 and Green Day gained kudos when they toned down the brattish demeanour on their latest releases. What's to stop Good Charlotte doing the same?

Musically, the album is the band's most ambitious, with its multi-layered instrumentals, unpredictable harmony shifts and more serious approach. We Believe has epic, U2 guitars, and In This World has traces of the Deftones, an up-yours to detractors who said the band were never "punk" enough. "I think we're finally comfortable being Good Charlotte, whereas before we felt we had to prove ourselves," Madden says. "We don't want to make pop-punk, we want to make music that speaks to the whole world."

Try telling that to their record company, which freaked about whether the new album would sell. After all, their youthful, three-chord anthems from previous albums, Good Charlotte and The Young and the Hopeless, propelled the Maryland quintet to fame.

Critics are divided about the new material too, although Good Charlotte have never really been a critics' band.

"We didn't go make some artsy drug record," Madden says. "We made a Good Charlotte album and are a little more grown up. It's just as easy to grasp for our fans. And our fans have grown up. They deserve a little bit more grown-up music."

Judging by his lyrics, Madden's coming-of-age hasn't been an easy ride. Whether it's his jaded account of the fame-game, ("an idiot's parade") or his so-called enlightenment at age 25 ("All my life's been wasted chasing shallow dreams"), this is his most honest and personal work. He says that makes it harder to stomach negative reviews.

"When people criticise your songs they're not criticising your personal life. You can't read a critique of your album and take it to heart because they're not talking about your life, they're talking about your work."

He takes comfort in the words of advice from Green Day singer Billie Joe Armstrong. "He told me, stick with it, be proud of your band and don't let anyone criticise or affect you. Just keep doing what you're doing and it will all come together one day."

But if there's a worrying theme that stands out on Life and Death, it's one of isolation, particularly on SOS when Madden repeats, "Is anybody listening?"

Come on mate, you're the lead singer of a famous rock band. Surely people are listening?

"People listen to the Joel in Good Charlotte," says Madden. "They don't know me personally and a lot of times I never get a chance to know anyone personally because they have a perception of the five songs they heard of us on the radio.

"They don't understand those songs are just a moment in my life. It doesn't define who I am and sometimes it does feel like no one's listening to how I feel or what I have to say."

The last time Good Charlotte came to New Zealand they paid for an Auckland fan who couldn't afford to see their show to take a limo to their Hamilton gig. They did it because they know what it's like to struggle.

Madden remembers growing up cold and hungry, "feeling like I was drowning" when he and his twin brother, Benji, now Good Charlotte guitarist, were teenagers.

After their dad left, the brothers were inspired to form a band after seeing the Beastie Boys on their 1995 Ill Communication Tour. So they formed Good Charlotte with high-school chums Paul Thomas (bass) and Aaron Escolopio (drums). Drummer Chris Wilson and guitarist Billy Martin joined later. After making a name for themselves in and around the DC area, they released their self-titled debut on Epic.

Good Charlotte now spend their days touring the world and Madden and his brother own homes on either side of America. "I appreciate the struggle and I appreciate where I'm at now because I can provide for my family and I can provide for myself," says Madden, who claims to be so loyal to his fans that he feels guilty taking holidays.

"I see so much wrong with the world and what it accepts as okay. Oh, it's okay, he's in a band ... it's okay, he's a celebrity. It jades me sometimes - not in a way that I'm angry at the world, but I just write about it. I want kids to see that their lives are worth just as much as mine.

"But there are kids who I wish I could shake and say, 'Hey, this is real life, listen to me'. Whether they're killing themselves or doing things to hurt themselves or disrespecting themselves ... kids I want to tell that they're worth way more than people think they're worth.

"There's so much more to this world than what we have and what people tell us we are. The past is always behind you, always chasing you. You work hard so you get security and just hope you'll never have to go back there. There are times when we're trying to save everyone."

Performance

Who: Good Charlotte

Where & When: Auckland Town Hall, Wednesday, February 9; Wellington Town Hall, Thursday