By Kathy McCabe

Copyright news

The band was asked to reunite to play at the wedding of Joel’s treasured sister-in-law Sofia Richie to his weekly Fortnite video game buddy and now record label boss Elliot Grainge in 2023.

That joyous gig planted the seed for the pop punk heroes to get back into the game with their first record in seven years and an Australian tour next year.

“The gig mattered to me, because it was the wedding of (wife) Nicole’s sister, who I raised since she was seven, and she’s just so important to me,” Joel said.

“She’d come to our shows when she was little, she grew up around us … when she asked me if we would play, it was quite emotional and it meant a lot to her.

“And then the band showing up the way they did, and the night happening and going off the way it did and it being so special, to me it was very personal and yeah, it did something when we played on that stage.”

Despite the glam surrounds of the wedding reception, the gig transported Benji back to Good Charlotte’s high school beginnings in the 1990s.

“It reminded me of our first couple of gigs in a friend’s basement, and then in a friend’s backyard, where it’s just all your friends and everybody rooting for you.”

The title of the record, Motel du Cap, is a cheeky nod to the Richie-Grainge wedding venue, the luxury celebrity haunt Hotel du Cap-Eden-Roc in Antibes in the south of France.

Good Charlotte’s comeback is perfectly timed. The revival of the pop punk and emo bands of their era continues to gather momentum with Blink 182, My Chemical Romance, The Offspring, Yellowcard and many old Vans Warped tour headliners staging sold-out tours around the world.

To help fashion what Good Charlotte should sound like in 2025, Joel and Benji harnessed the creative community of artists and producers they have built with MDDN, their management and digital media company.

One co-writer was Mitchel Cave from Aussie alternative pop band Chase Atlantic, who was MDDN’s first signing 11 years ago.

Cave, who worked on the track “Bodies” with the Maddens, knows how to write a hit; Chase Atlantic is one of our biggest musical exports of the streaming era with more than eight billion plays of their songs.

“There was no master plan. We didn’t even know what it meant to make record in 2025 as Good Charlotte. And so we just started and everyone was invited,” Joel said.

“People would pop by and they’re like, ‘Oh, you guys are working on the record? Let me hear some stuff’ and it just became this like big communal project.”

Benji added that the writing session with Cave was like working with a “tornado.”

“In like 15 minutes, we have enough outtakes of ideas from him we probably could go in and do like half a record with them because they’re so good.”

As the collective tinkered on hooks and beats and melody ideas, Joel and Benji wrestled with what they wanted to say at the age of 46.

Family naturally loomed large as they penned their lyrics. Joel and Nicole Richie have been together since 2006 and share daughter Harlow, 17 and son Sparrow, 15. Benji and wife Cameron Diaz also have two children, daughter Raddix, 5 and one-year-old son Cardinal.

Their perspectives from being at different stages of raising their families are shared on the record, while Joel also cites his almost two-decade relationship with Nicole as the inspiration behind the tracks “Castle in the Sand” and “Deserve You.”

“So I’ve been with Nicole for about 19 years from when we met. With that kind of time, you start to get some understanding about what it takes to build a family,” Joel said.

“I think Castle in the Sand is kind of a real introspective relationship song about going the distance with someone, or wanting to, and what it takes.

“It feels like it’s an interesting generation … all the guys I know who are having families, it a different time than our dads, right, and we’re going to therapy if we can, or doing stuff to try and figure it out.”

As Atlantic Records pushes Good Charlotte back out into the world as rock music makes its stealthy comeback, Joel and Benji are still hustling as hard for their acts on MDDN as they did when they sold phone cards in dodgy neighbourhoods to help provide for their family.

They also launched a successful concert and content live-streaming platform called Veeps, which entertainment behemoth Live Nation bought into in 2021.

And there’s a world tour to plan but they’re keeping the dates and venues for the Australian leg secret for now.

“We’re never gonna be the guys who are just gonna get to a certain point and go, ‘Okay, I’m done, I’m just gonna go and sit on the beach,’” Benji said “I can sit on the beach for one day and then I’m fidgety, and my wife’s come to accept this about me.”

Motel du Cap is out now.