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— by James Montgomery, with additional reporting by John Norris and Joe D'Angelo
The Marlin Room in New York's Webster Hall looks like your uncle's rec room — if your uncle held an inauguration party for Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1953, anyway. There's an ancient tiki bar in one corner, buried under a stack of empty liquor boxes. A beat-up piano is shoved against the far wall. Tattered paper streamers hang from the ceiling, and miniature American flags barely flap in the air-conditioner breeze, because they're covered with grayish cobwebs.
Being pulled into this room by their black shirtsleeves are Good Charlotte, for another in a seemingly endless series of "meet-and-greets" with people who can further their career. Lead singer Joel Madden and his guitarist brother Benji shake hands and make nice with an assembled mass of Epic Records executives and their assorted kids, nieces and nephews. Lanky guitarist Billy Martin and somewhat chunky bass player Paul Thomas slouch in a corner, trying to remain invisible amid the clamor. Standing side by side, they look like a slightly Gothic number 10.
Publicists round up the four bandmembers (the fifth, drummer Chris Wilson, is home getting physical therapy for his worn-out joints; Alkaline Trio's Derek Grant is filling in for tonight's gig) and shove them in front of an honest-to-goodness shooting gallery. About 50 cameramen from dozens of news agencies and newspapers begin snapping photos. The bandmembers smile nervously and make some half-hearted hand gestures as flashbulbs POP! POP! POP! all around them. The photographers assail them:
"Look over here!"
"One this way!"
"Benji! Joel! Show us your tattoos!"
"Come on! Gimme more!"
"One more this way!"
Within five minutes, the photographers are shoved aside and Good Charlotte are hustled to another corner of the Marlin Room for yet another meet-and-greet. All slightly dazed, they shake more hands and sign posters for radio-contest winners from Georgia, Maryland and Oregon. They pose for another round of photos; the percussive ratcheting of camera motors reaches eardrum-numbing levels.
And then it's time to meet the reporters. Middle-aged women in pantsuits and leggings — who, just minutes before, were asking the band's publicists "Which one is Joel?" — now shove microphones in the bandmembers' faces to obtain answers to pressing questions like "What's your favorite book?"
Then, just as quickly as everything began, it's all over. The crowd dissipates and the Marlin Room is left cold and empty. Good Charlotte retreat to the solitude of their dressing room to grab maybe an hour's rest before they take the Webster Hall stage and perform an "exclusive" Internet concert for the assembled music-business execs, throngs of screaming fans and millions of kids watching at home on their computers.
"The past two years have been exhausting, because we never say no," Joel says. "We're never home, and everyone in the band has suffered some personal losses. Relationships get ruined, and family stuff gets all messed up. But we never say 'no' to anything. We never turn down anything."
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Photo: Sony
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