A Loser Fairy Tale

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A Loser Fairy Tale
Joel and Benji Madden blasted from a tumultuous childhood to rock-and-roll stardom. But can they still inspire the angst-ridden teens who made them rich and famous?

It just so happens that the twins exist in an industry in which it's possible to measure the level and volume of love they're receiving by using various metrics. How many album sales has SoundScan tracked? Where does the new single rank at iTunes? How many radio plays is Nielsen Broadcast Data Systems reporting? What of their MySpace friends? And ticket sales? And fan mail volume? The data line up like so many columns in a box score.

How will the results look once Good Charlotte's new album is released? Will the singers of self-described loser anthems be winners?

IT'S CROWDED AND CACOPHONOUS IN GOOD CHARLOTTE'S DRESSING ROOM AT THE 9:30 CLUB. Because this is a homecoming show, there's a long list of people with access to the band's inner sanctum, with friends and relatives and friends of friends and relatives powering through booze and popcorn. Somebody is smoking pot, and there's beer spilled all over the floor. It's a Henry Diltz still come to life.

Joel Madden stands against a wall, taking long, deliberate drags from a Camel Light as he soaks in the scene. His sister, Sarah, 1 1/2 years his junior, wants to talk about her new tattoo.

"I got broccoli on my foot," she says. "Look." She removes her shoe and shoves her foot in her brother's face.

He's nodding like a bobblehead doll. "That's awesome," he says.

Sarah lives in Washington and works at the Rock & Roll Hotel, a nightclub. She's close to her rock-star brothers -- "much closer than most people are with their siblings," she says. Benji and Joel's fame hasn't changed the relationship, she says, but for the fact that she can keep up with them now by leafing through the celebrity glossies.

Sarah and Joel are joined by another sibling, Josh, who is 1 1/2 years older than the twins but could pass for their triplet, especially when he purses his lips. He's wearing a hooded sweat shirt under a sleeveless denim jacket with a giant Ramones patch on the back. He lives in New York, where he works as a stylist on fashion shoots and owns a clothing line with his brothers, DCMA Collective.

Josh marvels at the thought of his little brothers playing in front of 60,000 people at a festival and having dinner with the guys from Green Day; but at heart, he says, "Benji and Joel are just regular dudes."

Benji has ducked into the bathroom to change, and he's brought some help in the form of a lithe, leggy blonde in a short denim skirt. It's his newish girlfriend, Sophie Monk, an Australian actress, pop singer and model with bee-stung lips. (In a few months, they'll be engaged, a development reported by the tabloids in breaking-news e-mail bulletins.) Benji emerges from the bathroom wearing a sleeveless collared shirt that shows off a mural of Technicolor tattoos and some slightly bulging biceps.

"You're all muscle-bound," Josh says, throwing a green, leopard-print hoodie at him. Benji blushes and bites down on his pierced lower lip as his siblings laugh.

All 1,200 tickets to the 9:30 club show in October sold shortly after going on sale, suggesting that Good Charlotte's fans haven't abandoned the band en masse. The group, which has sold 9 million albums worldwide, is playing clubs on this 22-city tour instead of arenas because it needs to reintroduce itself to its core devotees after the long layoff.