Benji and Joel Madden are coming home. The founders and frontmen of Good Charlotte and their band mates may have been raised in and around La Plata, but they claim the region as their home. Perhaps there’s no better time than now — after they’ve healed from the burns inflicted by media spotlights — for them to start over, in a way, in the area where they first made their name.
| ONSTAGE |
| Good Charlotte |
| When: 6:30 p.m. doors; Friday |
| Where: 9:30 Club, 815 V ST. NW |
| Details: $27; 9:30.com; 800-955-5566 |
“The last couple years have been a roller coaster ride,” said Benji Madden of the tabloid attention surrounding the band. “We started this band because we just love music, and all anybody wants to talk about is our girlfriends. We just had to take a step back.”
Of course, Madden is referring to sister-in-law Nicole Richie and the children she has with his twin brother, Joel. Benji’s own romances — including one with Richie’s friend Paris Hilton — have also been carefully chronicled in tabloids. Perhaps what most frustrates Madden and his band mates about that level of attention is that they’ve always considered themselves musicians. Celebrity was thrust upon them through association.
The media glare not only affected the band members personally but also deadened them to the excitement that originally brought them to music. The solution, they decided, was to distance themselves from the professional music scene and Hollywood.
“We took nine months off and everyone had babies, got married and just put their time back into their loved ones that have stuck by them year after year after year,” Benji Madden said. “We didn’t start the band to become millionaires. We started it because we love music and we can’t get enough of it. That is where this new album had led us.”
Madden wrote the majority of the new album, “Cardiology,” during the hiatus, after he’d lost 25 pounds and began participating in boxing and other sports.
“Once I got healthy, I began to write,” he said, noting his band mates followed similar paths. “We made the choice and, regardless of what anyone else thinks, I think this is the best album we’ve ever made. I’m really proud of my band.”
