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THE FREE LANCE-STAR
Not long after Good Charlotte played the Warped Tour last year, something surprising happened.
Radio suddenly started paying attention to the Waldorf, Md., punk band's stuff.
Then Good Charlotte became something of an MTV darling--not only getting lots of airtime first for its poppy "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous" video, then for the harder-edged "Anthem," but actually hosting shows.
Did the band sell out?
Not at all, says Billy, Good Charlotte's guitarist.
"I don't think we did anything differently," he said. "Pretty much more or less, we were seeing things happen on their own.
"It just hit so hard," Billy said. "We had gone slow and slow and than all at one time, exploded."
He attributed that big bang to the wild enthusiasm of young fans who had seen the band on the Warped Tour, then began calling radio stations and MTV.
He said he still can't believe what's transpired.
"It's really surprising that a bunch of kids from a little town in Maryland with music that's usually pretty much the opposite of what MTV plays could be embraced by MTV," Billy said.
"We got it on [MTV's] TRL and it had a lot to do with fans helping us out," he said.
But, he said, there's been a backlash over that because Good Charlotte is a punk band.
"People at first gave us a lot of [expletive] for it, like 'What are you doing? You were on the Warped Tour! Why would a punk band go on MTV?'"
Billy said the band pays no attention to that.
"Ever since I first picked up a guitar in my room, I wanted to be in the biggest band in the world," he said.
MTV helps Good Charlotte reach people, he said, and that's the band's primary goal.
"So many people who don't really know anything try to make up the rules. If a band says something in an interview, they're not cool any more. You can't please anybody. So we just do what we want to do.
"It's really silly for people to give us [deleted]," he said. "It's music television and I think it's really cool to be a part of it.
"All my friends think it's great," Billy said. "And I think it's awesome to go to the mall and see tons of kids wearing Good Charlotte T-shirts."
That doesn't mean Good Charlotte is overly commercial.
The truth is that Good Charlotte has brought punk back some of its legitimacy after bands like Blink 182 and Sum 41 basically parodied punk.
Good Charlotte's second album, "The Young & the Hopeless," opened at No. 7 on Billboard's Top 200 Album Chart and remains in the Top 20. It snarls with songs about superficial friends, untrustworthy lovers and abandoning fathers.
Twin front men Benji and Joel were dumped by their dad when they were 16, and there's legitimate anger there, as evidenced by the song "Story of My Old Man":
"Monday he woke up and hated life/drank until Wednesday and left his wife/Thursday through Saturday we lost everything."
Benji has said the band is as much about therapy to deal with his family history as about music.
And Joel has battled depression his whole life, saying the darkness helps him in writing songs.
The question may be whether success breeds happiness and thus takes edge away from Good Charlotte.
The twins and Billy have both used profits to start their own clothing lines, and Billy is starting a line of action-figure toys.
Billy has collected toys since he was a toddler, and his passions have always included comic books, drawing and video games.
His clothing line, called Level 27, will feature his own artwork.
"I've been drawing cartoons and comic books since I was really little," he said.
Billy said success hasn't changed him.
"I think of myself as more of a nerd now even than back in the day," he said.
"Because now, I'm a lot more comfortable with those things that weren't cool in high school, like wearing a Spiderman shirt and talking about comic books all day."
