Hear Good Charlotte Preview New LP ‘Generation Rx’ With Dark Song ‘Actual Pain’

Good Charlotte go back to their emo roots with the dark, heavy “Actual Pain.” The song will appear on Generation Rx, their upcoming LP set for release on September 14th.

The song takes an inward look at the “darkness” within. “Tell me why I hurt this way/Should I even love you anymore?” singer Joel Madden says at the beginning of the song. “All this pain I feel is tearing me apart,” he belts on the chorus.

In a statement, the band reveals that the song formed after they performed at the memorial service for Lil Peep, the 21-year-old emo-rap star and Good Charlotte superfan who died last November. The rapper overdosed on fentanyl and Xanax.

“Throughout this century we’ve seen the whole opioid crisis get worse,” Joel and Benji Madden wrote. “We wondered if we were really doing our part. We wanted to get back out there on the battlefield and spread insight, share experience and give anything we could to improve lives.”

Both Prince and Tom Petty died from opioid overdoses as well, while Meek Mill and Kanye West have recently admitted that they have struggled with opioid addiction. The epidemic inspired the name of the band’s new album and is a major theme of the material.

“Good Charlotte was at our best when we were unconscious and naive kids, who didn’t know it wasn’t cool to try hard or make new friends,” the band adds to Rolling Stone. “There was an honesty and vulnerability we were able to share with the world back then, that makes us extremely proud of the young guys that we were. The wisdom that time gives you also comes with baggage and we’ve been searching for the door back in to that vulnerability, honesty and hopeful outlook that seems to only exist in innocence for a good 15 years. Generation Rx feels to us like we finally found our way back to that place.”