חלק 2
“Keep Your Hands Off My Girl”: When I DJ, I get attitude thrown at me all the time. It’s mirroring that. Like, some guy gets pissed because his girlfriend said hi to me, Like, I’m in Good Charlotte and they suck. And hes mad because his girlfriend came over. Meanwhile I’m like, “I don’t even remember who she was,” And theres the other guy, who’s like “Why are you playing N.W.A? Play some fucking Daft Punk!” And its all this attitude from people you don’t even know. But they already seem to know so much about you already. It’s just annoying. I’m not complaining about [fame] but I had to do something to get it off my chest, so I wrote that song (Joel) It’s almost a rap song. Honestly the first time I heard it I was like “Are you fucking kidding me? People will never know that’s a Good Charlotte song.” And then Joels like, “Well that’s the point.” (Billy) “Victim of Love”: At Don’s insistence, we got ourselves out of L.A and out DJing every night. After the first day in Vancouver, “Victim of Love” came and we knew we were onto something. Being in L.A can make it hard to focus just on songs. We’d definitely leave town to write again. In fact, I think we should do anything Don says. If Don tells me to do something, I’m doing it. This record is proof that Don knows what he’s talking about. (Joel) “Where Would We Be”: Look, I’m sure people are going to say it’s about this or that. But for me it’s a big part of who I am and I just accept that. I love ‘love’, you know what I mean? I love falling in love, I love being in love. I just got out of my relationship recently as many people will know. (Joel) “Break Her Heart”: We’ve grown up and we’re just kind of figuring things out as evolve with relationships. With our father we didn’t exactly have the best role model of how things should work, so we kind of stumble through it the best we can. And if you examine the lyrics on this record, there are definite revelations and deeply personal feelings. (Benji) “All Black”: We wanted to give the intro to that song a gothic feel. But to me the song itself is just an old school rock and roll tune. The lyrics employ a gothic sensibility, but for me it’s a rock tune. (Benji) Its kind of saying who I am. It’s a self assessment put to music. And it’s saying what you kinda of already know about me. People think it, but maybe they wouldn’t say it to me. So I’m saying to them. Like, “No shit!” They shake their heads, like, “Oh. Okay, I get it now” Its kind of like affirming something. (Joel) “A Beautiful Place”: I wrote that song down in Mexico. I was down there during Hurricane season and when I was down there I was in this beautiful, beach environment. I had a night off and I was just thinking about how lucky I was. I was feeling really hopeful and I was wishing everyone could feel that way I felt at that moment. (Benji) It was a real Dean [Butterworth] moment. It was different when we wrote it, but then Dean started playing that real pronounced drum part. The drums are part of the hook. And it changed the whole sound (Joel) “Something Else”: There’s the good and the bad in love and relationships. It drives me in everything that I do. Love is a big part of me and I’ve accepted that and its in my music. And I’m not afraid to just show it. Like, okay, this is me. I’m writing these songs for real. (Joel) “Broken Hearts Parade”: For some reason I just heard these 80’s horns on it. And I was trying to explain it to Don. Im like “I want fucking horns on it. And hes like, ‘Horns?’ And I’m like ‘Yeah dude,’ so anyway I started playing this horn part with my mouth of how I wanted it, and they brought real horns onto it later” (Joel) That song has keyboards on it and xylophones. But it’s still sort of for the old school punk kids who have been with us since the first record. I think fans of the punk/pop sound we used to really embrace will appreciate that one quite a bit. (Billy) “March On”: We definitely knew that we’d want to wrap up the album with ‘March On’. We thought it was super important to our fans and for the overall vibe of the record to close it with an upbeat number. (Benji) If ‘Misery’ starts the record in a sort of brooding way, ‘March On’ is the optimistic ending. It’s the perfect way to end what I think is the best album we’ve ever done. (Paul)