Good Charlotte Releasing Mixtape, Then Taking a Break

Joel Madden and Benji Madden of Good Charlotte arrive at the 2011 MTV Video Music Awards.

Christopher Polk/Getty Images

Good Charlotte are releasing a mix tape, Before The Fame: The Madden Brothers, on October 1st. "It's all new artists – Machine Gun Kelly, Rockie Fresh," Benji Madden tells Rolling Stone. 

The mixtape will be the only music that fans hear from the Maddens for awhile, though. "We're stepping away from the grind of making records and touring for a minute, just to have fun and be creative like we were when we were 15," Benji says.

Good Charlotte released their last album, Cardiology, in November 2010, their fifth album since their debut in 2000. Since then they've also kept up a very active touring schedule, but both have full liveswith his twin and bandmate Joel having two kids and the brothers now both 32, they have full lives outside of music to concentrate on. However, for acts like Incubus, Red Hot Chili Peppers and Evanescence, all of whom released or are releasing new albums in 2011 five years after their last project the break has been great for them artistically and personally. Could the same hold true for the Maddens?

"Absolutely, that's what every artist that's our senior has told us and we're already having a blast in our studio with all these new artists making music just for fun," Joel says. "And the mix tape's free, they're gonna get it for free, there's no quota we're trying to fill, there's no machine we're trying to fuel, we just want to make music with new artists and god bless EMI, they let us do what we want."

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Song Stories

“Push It”

Salt-N-Pepa | 1987

Originating as a B side to their cover of the Stax classic “Tramp,” Cheryl “Salt” James, Sandi “Pepa” Denton and Dee Dee “DJ Spinderella” Roper came up with the goods on this career-making, Grammy-nominated platinum single about working it on the dancefloor. “Push It” has been sampled and spliced to death since it debuted in 1987, yet the original track is as fresh and fly as when SNP — among the few original women of hip-hop — debuted it. “Most men will never believe ‘Push It’ was never about sex,” said James. “And that’s why the record went to Number One,” said Denton. “Everybody thought it was about sex.”

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