That Time I Ended Up at Good Charlotte Band Practice

By Robb Laffoon

Hey, so uhh, I’m Robb and I’m going to be occasionally writing words on this site, which could honestly prove to be a major mistake for both myself, NAPNET, and you, the reader. So, in advance, I apologize if I say anything stupid. Please just assume I mean well, because I probably do. Probably. Anyways, you may have seen me sharing bad opinions over lip-syncing videos, pretending to home-school my kids, or yapping on the critically acclaimed, Scott’s Records-approved* podcast Emo Kids Anonymous. I’m pretty obnoxious, I’m sorry about that.

That being said, the obnoxiousness has benefits! That’s what leads us here now. Or whatever.

So, about a month ago I got an email from Atlantic Records being like, “Hey Robb, do you live in LA?” I told them, “Chyeah.” Then they sent me over an invite to some sort of super-secret Good Charlotte event later that week. Was it a show? Was it a meet and greet? Would Cameron Diaz be there? Everything was a mystery, but an exciting one.

So, in the midst of my excitement over the mystery I mentioned earlier, I accidentally brought this up to my son’s mom, Yoshi, and ohhh man.

Here’s the deal: I like the Good Charlottes. Legitimately enjoy quite a bit of their material. But they’re not in my top 20 bands or anything. Yoshi though? My god. Loves them so much she named our son Benji. So naturally, she wants to tag along, and I figured, “Hey, what better way to repay an old pal for bearing and raising your child than taking them to meet their second or third favorite band in the industrial part of North Hollywood?”

So anyways, fast forward to the day of. She picks me up and immediately I start thinking about In-N-Out. I’m talking three-by-two, maybe two of them things. I dunno. Possibilities were endless for this burger boy. Ok, um, back to the Madden Bros. We get to the location and there’s a nice lil line of like 15–20 people. Apparently they signed up for something through an email list. I honestly still just had burger on the brain while we waited and made small talk with the nice Inland Empire people next to us.

Next thing ya know, two blacked-out BMWs drive by. The Madden brothers pull in, a 7 series and an X7, respectively. You can tell them boys got a lil Glendale in them if you know what I mean (allow me to take this opportunity to just slip in that the U.S. government should acknowledge the Armenian genocide). They get out, say hi, head inside, and say they’ll see us soon.

About 10 minutes later, someone comes and brings us all in and voila, our questions are answered! We were at band practice! How fun, right? Thanks, Good Charlotte and Atlantic Records!

The fellas introduce themselves and tell the room they’re gonna play a few songs and answer a few questions before jumping into “Rejects,” the first single off their new record Motel Du Cap. Lemme just say, Joel can sing like a motherfucker. Like, dude has pipes. He hits his notes. Musically, this was my number one takeaway.

After they finished the song, they answered a few questions. Somehow the topic of breakfast came up, so naturally I had to ask Benji Madden how his wife, Cameron Diaz, star of the films Charlie’s Angels, The Mask, There’s Something About Mary, etc., likes her eggs. The answer is scrambled, by the way.

I also asked the twins why their critically acclaimed solo/duo album Greetings From California was not on streaming services, and they didn’t really seem to know. But they did mention how they’d like to redo it as a Good Charlotte album maybe. Someone else asked for a favorite lyric off the new album. Joel immediately laughed and quipped, “Bitch, I’m a big stepper,” from the track Stepper, which they played after a few more fan questions (can’t remember them, sorry, burger brain was calling the shots).

After Stepper they played a then-unreleased song, I Don’t Work Here Anymore. Solid ballad. Was cool getting a sneak peek of the song early. I think the brothers do a really good job of crafting a song, almost in a country sense. Just solid songwriting in a fundamental sense, in my opinion, and this song is evidence of that, whether or not you or I personally enjoy the track. There’s a reason this band had multiple radio and MTV hits. They know how to write a bop. If this was the 2000s and they still played new guitar music on major music outlets, then any one of these three songs would have been legitimate hits.

After a few more questions, they took some photos. Benji’s mom got a pic with the brothers, and I told them she made us name our kid Benji. Later on, when we were leaving, Benji (Madden, not Laffoon) hit us with the, “Take care of little Benji! There’s only so many of us!” I thought this was really sweet, especially considering our first interaction was me asking him how his wife likes her eggs. Top shelf guy, that really won me over.

Anyways, yeah, that was pretty cool. But here’s what you all were waiting for… In-N-Out. I walked up to that window like a boss and looked that mf in the eye and ordered my burgees and a couple France fries. Can I be honest? I don’t understand why people wait 15 mins in the drive-thru line when they can wait 5 if they just park and walk up. It’s always a shorter line. But I digress.

She handed me that bag of burgesas and it was like a passing of the torch, but less in a metaphor way and more in a literal way. Except the torch was burger avec fries. Before leaving the window I made sure to ask her for salt, pepper, and them lil pepper sluts they got that make the burger pop (I don’t know what they’re called, I’m not incredibly cultured, as you’ve probably gathered from this article).

So for the fries, here’s what I do: double fries dumped in the bag, 1–1.5 salt packets, 3–6 pepper packets. I be drivin’ that shit into them hard fr sometimes, bro. Once you’ve dispersed your dusts onto your France fries, you’re going to shake the bag and then tear the top half of the bag off for easier access. You gotta go pretty quick with these fries, so put ’em into ya hard and fast.

For the burger I go with three patties, two slices of cheese, In-N-Out spread, grilled onions. There’s a sweetness to the simplicity with this burgee. I wanna savor every second without some leaf getting in the way and churching it up. Don’t get it twisted though, In-N-Out is the best fast-food burger in the world and I’ll die on that hill. It’s always smackin’!

On this day though, that shit was smackin’ extra hard. I don’t know if it was good luck, Good Charlotte, or the good Lorde, but on this day those burgers were #blessed. We all were #blessed, really. Thank you, Good Charlotte.

After this, Benji’s mom dropped me off at my place, where I proceeded to drink Mountain Dew in a weird state of post-burger bliss.

Go check out Good Charlotte’s new album Motel Du Cap, available now courtesy of Atlantic Records! And go to In-N-Out, but not the one near me, the line is always too long already.