FREAKING GUESS WHAT GUYS? A NEW BILLY INTERVIEW!
They’ve been called one of the most sincere bands out there. They come out to meet the fans after their gigs, they create music with their hearts, and they are surely not one of those ‘Young and Hopeless’ anymore. On the new album, ‘The Chronicles of Life and Death’, Guitarist Billy Martin contributed on the more than just the guitar, as he tested his skills in the keyboard and the illustrations. How did he come up with those wicked drawings? Being the youngest member of the group, does he prefer girl-next-door or playgirl? We even asked him how Hilary Duff and Joel Good Charlotte got together. Check out the interview with Billy Martin from Good Charlotte right here.


A: Alyson
B: Billy Martin from Good Charlotte






A: Hi there, how you doing?


B: Good, Thank you!


A: Where exactly are you at the moment?


B: Right now, I’m in my hotel room in London.


A: Uh huh! Whacha doing in London?


B: Just been over here for a couple days, just doing some TV shows and some interviews and stuff… just a bunch of good press.


A: How has London been to you?


B: Uh pretty good, a little cold right now, but I love London, it’s one of my favorite places in the world. I love it.


A: Now I know that you’re gonna be in Thailand pretty soon.


B: Yeah, it’s awesome, can’t wait for that.


A: First time in Asia?


B: Yeah, first time in Asia, and it’s really nice. Obviously we’ve been watching the news, and trying to think of what we could do to help, and this (show) came out and asked us to be a part of it, and we just got really lucky, good timing for us to be able to actually to have our time in our tour to go over and try to do it, and try to help out, so we’re quite excited.


A: Now your last album, ‘Young and the Hopeless’, has sold over 3 million records so far, what do ya think of that?


B: Definitely a surprise for us, you know we were happy with our record before, that sold like 300,000, and we couldn’t believe THAT, we thought that was such a big deal. To come out and to do… you know it’s nice to do better each record, who knows what this newest record could do, you know it was awesome, it’s a huge milestone for us.






A: From the way your band looks, it seems like you’re all dark and grungy… are you really like that?


B: Uh… I guess so, strangely… you know we don’t have really heavy music and this and that… it’s sort of strange that each one of us listens to such different music, and is into such different stuff, that the 5 of us when we come together, definitely it takes probably something totally different from the kinda music that we make, but everybody really likes dark movies, dark artwork and music… not that that’s the only thing we like, but there’s definitely like, a very happy, melodic side of Good Charlotte, where we’re all like making music you can sing along to, but at the same time, we all like a lot of dark music too. So we really have 2 sides of the band, for sure.


A: Are the dark eyes inspired by the Cure?


B: I love the Cure, for sure. I guess for me it’s more of Marilyn Manson, coz I’m a little younger. The Cure was the 80s, and I was born in the 80s, bands like the Cure, or Depeche Mode, are some of my absolute favorite bands, just took me a little older in my life to go back and re-visit the 80s, but for me I guess, I really like Marilyn Manson when I was growing up, I thought that was so cool to have him go up there, dress up and put on a whole show… I know all of us love Marilyn Manson, he's a pretty big influence for us, for sure.


A: Yeah, Well he’s got a ‘Best Of’ out!
B: Yeah, it’s great, we listen to that every night before we go on stage, that’s sort of our ‘Get-us-excited-in-the-dressing-room’ music. We always put on the ‘Best Of’ Marilyn Manson!
A: I’ve got some fun questions now. Which member of the band gets the most chicks?
B: Ummm… I don’t know, I probably have to say Joel, coz he’s like Mr. Romance, he loves that kinda stuff, so… I’ll pick him….
A: Well, who spends the most time in front of the mirror?
B: I probably have to… I mean, I don’t wanna admit it, but probably me, because I take the most time putting the make-up on before photo shoots and stuff… I used to say Joel, but I think I might have topped him in that. I don’t know if it’s such a good thing, but it’s probably true!
A: Have you ever confused Joel with Benji, I mean Honestly!
B: On the phone, sure, it’s only their voice, but in person, No! It’s funny, since the first time I met them, I definitely can always tell them apart. But sometimes one of them will call me, and be like, “Hey Billy… blah blah blah…” and I’ll think it’s the other one… I’ll be like, “Cool, I’ll ask Benji about that!” And he’s like, “This IS Benj!” And I’ll be like, “… Oh Yeah!!” That's kinda… they can trick me on the phone, but not in person!
A: So how did Joel and Hilary Duff get together?
B: Well they just… I mean, they’ve just known each other from just doing a lot of award shows, they just kinda went to hang out one time, and people took pictures and made such a big deal out of it. But really they’ve just been friends for a while, but I don’t really know if they’re together… I wouldn’t quite say they’re together, but I know that they kinda hang out… I met her a couple time, she’s pretty nice, but this is funny how people love to make such a big deal out of nothing. It’s pretty funny to me.
A: Do you prefer the ‘Girl-next-door’ or ‘Playgirl’?
B: Uh… hmmm… what’s ‘Playgirl’? ‘Playgirl’ in America is like you know, a naked guy magazine…
A: Exactly!
B: (Quicker than ever!) Not ‘Playgirl’ then!
A: LOL! I know that you did all the illustrations in ‘The Chronicles of Life and Death’. How did you come up with all those drawings?
B: Well, strangely, there’s suppose to be so much more, at sort of the last minute, we kinda have to cut everything down, we sort of just had the idea of making it look like a book, with a front cover look like a really old fairy tale book, with a gold emblem on it, and each song is like a chapter of a story, and there’ll be illustrations to go with everything… We sort of came up with that idea before we even started recording the record, like the first day we got to the studio, we came up with the whole idea behind it, so I just started doing the drawings right away from the first day we started. We kinda work all day in the studio, and I’ll stay up all night drawing. It’s pretty cool, coz it’s the first time I’ve taken on a project like that. I’ve been drawing my whole life, but it’s all been just fun, drawing here and there. But that was the first time I took on a project. So it’s cool, it made me really really get back into artwork a lot, and now I look at that, it probably was a year ago I started doing those drawings, and I feel like I’m already so much better, so I look at that, it’s like, “God, that’s embarrassing! All these people are gonna see that! I think I’m already better now!” But it’s cool to get it out there, coz I really would like to do something that’s art, in the future. I’m not sure whether it’s animation, or comics or something, but I’d definitely like to keep going, so it’s a nice first opportunity to get to work on it.
A: More on the new album. It starts off with ‘Once Upon A Time: The Battle Of Life And Death’. I’ve been wanting to ask you this: What does those Japanese mean?
B: (Giggles) Some of the stuff they’re saying was just silly, some of it, I don’t even really know. Benji’s been learning Japanese, he knows how to speak pretty good Japanese, he’s been studying for a couple of years actually. And he’s got a lot of Japanese friends, and got some people to help translate some stuff… it’s just saying something like, “First comes Life, then comes Death”, then there’s some stuff about vampires, and they’re saying like “Vampires are real”… something… all kinds of stuff that makes no sense at all! None of it makes sense, it’s just funny things, made them up and got them translated into Japanese…
A: And sounded good!
B: Yeah! And sounded good!
A: When are we gonna see you in Hong Kong?
B: I’ll tell you, coming over to Thailand for the first time, I’m sure we’re gonna fall in love with Asia, and wanna come back as soon as possible, but I know that there’s a lot of kids who like us over there that we’re been hearing from, and we really really appreciate the people who listen to us over there, and we make a promise that we’ll go over there soon!
A: Please!
B: Cool. Thank you so much!