The Rolling Stone Blog

Good Charlotte Releasing Mixtape, Then Taking a Break

By | The Rolling Stone Blog – Wed, Aug 31, 2011 1:50 PM EDT

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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Photo by Christopher Polk/Getty Images

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