Young, Hopeless, Rich and Famous

By the time Good Charlotte enter the lobby of La Plata High School, outside of Waldorf, Maryland, one snowy afternoon, most of the school's 1,500 students have left for the day. The band members aren't too old to pass for high schoolers, but with their dyed hair and copious tattoos, they stand out from the wrestlers, runners and assorted stragglers roaming the halls. Slowly, the students start to recognize the band, then rush the foursome like fans let loose backstage. Benji and Joel Madden, the twin brothers who front Good Charlotte, writing all of the group's songs and hosting a daily video show on MTV, attract most of the attention, but all four members are hounded for autographs and photos.

The irony of this scene is not lost on Good Charlotte: This is a band that sang about how much it hated this place on its debut single, "Little Things" (which recalled, among other injustices, "The time in school when we got free lunch/And the cool kids beat us up"). Now here they are getting mobbed by the same kind of jocks and overachievers who made their lives miserable. But sitting in a nearby diner, from which you can see a sign advertising the La Plata High School Mulch Sale, the band seems more amused than bitter about the bad shit that happened back then. It's not just the minor high school stuff, like when bass player Paul Thomas got expelled for threatening to punch the principal in the face, or when kids would leave messages with Benji and Joel's mom saying they were label executives offering a record deal, but also the seriously traumatic stuff, like when Benji and Joel's dad walked out one day without even saying goodbye or when the family was evicted from its suburban house and left temporarily homeless.