Artist Friendly with Joel Madden - Doug Robb of Hoobastank

Episode Date: January 17, 2024

On this week's episode of Artist Friendly, Joel Madden is joined by Doug Robb of Hoobastank. Having celebrated two decades of their third studio album, The Reason, last year, Hoobastank shared a 20th anniversary version this week. The LP includes a cover of Rod Stewart’s disco hit “Da Ya Think I’m Sexy?,” which the band started recording during the making of the record but never finished. Hoobastank will also play a handful of festivals this year across the globe, and you can grab tickets here. ------- Listen to their Artist Friendly conversation on ⁠⁠⁠Spotify.⁠⁠ ------- Follow Artist Friendly! IG: @artist.friendly TikTok: @artist.friendly YouTube: youtube.com/@artist.friendly ------- Host: Joel Madden, @joelmadden Executive Producers: Joel Madden, Benji Madden, Jillian King Producers: Josh Madden, Joey Simmrin, Janice Leary Visual Producer/Editor: Ryan Schaefer Audio Producer/Composer: Nick Gray Music/Theme Composer: Nick Gray Cover Art/Design: Ryan Schaefer Additional Contributors: Anna Zanes, Neville Hardman Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey, what's up? I'm Joel Madden, and this is artist-friendly. On this episode, I'm talking to Doug Rob from the multi-platinum band, Hoobis Dank. They're celebrating the 20th anniversary of their sophomore album, The Reason. Let's go. Take tens all the time. What is that? Nicotine. Okay. Totally addicted to nicotine. You want to hear something very not rock and roll with me? Yeah.

I've never smoked a cigarette in my life. Ever? Ever. Not even had a lit one in my mouth. You know how I got addicted to nicotine? Is that? That's pretty lame, isn't it? No, that's actually...

I know in my old years, I go, I wear it kind of like a badge, you know? That's actually like really cool. But that's like not, is that like not having any tattoos? Do you have any tattoos? Do you have any tattoos? Not one. No tattoos? Zero.

Zero. I think that's cool. No, I mean... It's kind of the, the cool. It's punk now. Yeah. Because, and that's why Dan and I kind of were like, dude, we can't get tattoos now. It's too late.

It's too late. It's been too late for a while. We've had this conversation for a while saying like, no tattoos is the tattoos of when we were growing up. Yeah, it is. Because my best buddies were like, they got tattoos early on, 15 years old, 14 years old. And I'm like, oh my God, these guys are great. My parents would be like, you can't hang out with that kid. He's got a tattoo now, you know?

it meant like look out these guys are bad news back then now now it's like a I'm bad news dude no tattoos no tattoos look out watch out half guy never smoked cigarette no tattoos no I got into nicotine chewing tobacco really when I was I grew up in Maryland and like the sticks yeah and we chew tobacco it was around everything was around me everything constantly I grew up where I live now dude I live my kids go to the same schools I went to That's fucking cool. It's weird, right? It's very weird for here.

Because I feel like there's so many people in and around L.A. That aren't from L.A. Yeah, we're all transplants. Yeah. But except for me and a couple of guys in my band. That's it. We're like, we're like. Well, my wife is, Nicole's from L.A., which is weird because I never, like, where I came from, you leave.

Well, not everyone leaves, but like that's a part of the dream of a kid. You grow up in this small town. and you're like, I want to get the fuck out of here. Right. Every song that you've ever wrote was kind of about that. And then you come to L.A. But I always wonder, like, in L.A., like, where do you go from L.A.? There's like 47 of us who still exist, like, who are from here.

Every town, I feel like in high school, you bitch about, like, I need to get the fuck out of here. And, you know, it's, yeah, everybody's like, this place sucks. No matter where it is, it could be the coolest place ever. You think it sucks when you're high school. Phoenix. Yeah. But I never had that. See, I was like, I kind of dig where I live. And my child had seemed pretty good. I have good memories. And then, so there was, I always wanted to have, like, if I ever had kids, like, if I could give them the same type of thing that I had, I thought that would be awesome. Plus, I remember in, dude, it must have been like my sophomore year, high school or something like that. The teacher who was, I forget what class was like history or something like that. He was. retiring. It was like his last day. And he didn't give a shit. The kids were going nuts in the class, like last period of his last day. And everything was loud and chaotic. And he got everybody to shut up for a second. And he said in the most like matter-of-fact way, like, hey, I don't know,

you know, who needs to hear this or something like that. And I'm not trying to be mean. I'm not trying to to whatever, I'm just trying to tell you guys some facts here. He's like 95, 97% of you guys won't make enough money to live what your parents do right now. And that stuck with me. That stuck with me. Think about how funny that is. A teacher just says one thing at the end of his career and it hit hard. I was like, oh shit, I really like it here. Like I like my life out here. And I would love for my kids to have something else. I don't remember thinking of that at like 16.

So when I was lucky enough to go, I can still live here, I made it like a priority to have my kids go to the same fucking elementary school I went to. And I feel like that's like a more of an East Coast thing. That's awesome. Like when there's multi-generational like houses

where families stay in house. Yeah, there's people with last names that you grow up with, that's families have been in the area for generations. Right. And on the East Coast, in Maryland, it was like, there's a lot of history. So it's like revolutionary war, civil war.

Right. A lot of like historic places. Right. And you have families that have been there since then. That the areas are named after their relatives, right? And the streets and stuff are named after their relatives, which is super cool. but if you're not one of those families, I think you can feel weirdly.

I know it sounds weird, but like if you grow up in a small place and there's like these families that have been there for a long time, it's actually a thing. Like you feel like you're just not as valuable. I can understand that. And you kind of just want to like go out into the world

and your value. Yeah. You know? True. But I think California has kind of got this vision of like, like when you think of California, you think like a new beginning for yourself. You think of like opportunity.

You think of like when I came to L.A. 20 years ago, I didn't know anyone. But I just thought it was like a magical place because everyone just seemed happy. No one really cared who your family was. Not that, you know, now if you go to the, I feel like as an adult you go to the East Coast. Who are you hanging around with? When I was a kid. No, when you came to California and you said, everybody. was happy.

Artists and stuff. Right. I was like, that might have more to do with it. Yeah, I think everybody was happy because they're doing what they want to do, you know?

That's it. I think there's plenty of people here who aren't happy just like the world is the world, right? Yeah. And everyone's, I think the, I think the mission in life is to like find happiness. But when I came here,

everyone, it just seemed like everyone was doing what they want to do. They were happy. They were inspired. And I was like, I never want to leave this place. This feels like, endless opportunity to be yourself.

That's exciting. Just hearing you said that, that made me feel excited. Well, when you've never been here and you have no, all you've ever seen is TV and movies, and then you come here, it feels magical.

And I think that a lot of people from the East Coast have that experience, especially the weather too. What you end up missing about the East Coast is the seasons, but where you begin, you end, right? So, like, you begin with, like, the weather's always good.

and the weather on the East Coast is cold and rainy and seasonal. And then you stay here long enough and you miss that because you're like, I missed the season. So you can always go. It's still there. Yeah. It's crazy that teacher would say that. I don't know if he's right or wrong.

I don't know either. I have told that to my kids now. I was telling you, I have a 13 year old and a soon-to-be-10-year-old. I've told him that exact story because they always ask like, I can't believe we go to the same school. you know, I would drop my kids off at elementary school. I'm all, this is, I used to ride my bike here, and this is the fence, I used to lock my thing, you know,

and so eventually it's like a nice childhood. It gets to that. It was all right. I mean, it was fine. It was, unless there was something majorly traumatic, I feel like most people, you know, look back on their child and go, it was pretty good kind of fun being a kid, you know. You don't know any different, you know?

Like, it's not about, oh, I wish I had this, I wish I had that. You just, your life was your life. We don't need much when you're a kid if you have a, I think, if you have a stable place. Right.

And it's interesting what you think was stable back then. You realize later, you're like, God, that was fucked up. Yeah. That was kind of weird. Didn't,

but like I said, you didn't know any better. And kids are good at adapting and surviving, you know? They are not to get too therapeutic, but I think. Do we got the chairs? Yeah.

This is like therapy sometimes. It is for me, by the way. I love it. I think people who suffer in their childhood, because we all do in some ways, shape, or form. We go through stuff that changes us. But I think we internalize it and create a story that is happy for the most part so that we can live with the bad things that happened.

Now, I think there's like a spectrum of like there's a bad childhood and then there's a pretty good childhood and then there's a great childhood. I think we're all reaching for great with our kids. Like we wanted to have a good childhood. We wanted to like have a stable life and be able to grow up and not have to worry too much about the world until they get old enough. You're reaching the ages with your kids. I'm there with my kids because they're teenagers where like now the reality of the world

is going to, there's no way around it. Right. And then you just help them kind of navigate that as much as you can. And some stuff they're just going to learn. and some stuff you can kind of help. But I don't think it's better to have a hard childhood. Some people will say like, oh, but it makes you who you are. And I'm like, there's a lot of ways.

Everything makes you who you are. Yeah. There's a lot of ways to become who you are without like, you know, if you can avoid trauma. Everything makes you who you are. Yeah. What is that saying like the, you know, hard times make, you know what I'm talking about. You must. I'm going to butcher the saying, you know.

I'm sure. It's like somewhere along the lines of paraphrasing like hard times make, Good rhymes. Yeah, or good times. Or something like strong, you know, strong people and then strong people make good times. And then good times make weak people, weak people. It's like a cycle, you know. I don't believe that.

I don't totally. I understand the sentiment. I totally get it. I get it. I get it. I don't think, oh, dude, that's the formula. You know, that's exactly what it is. I think there's a truth in there for sure, but that's not the only truth that's out there.

I think that people try to make sense of suffering. so they create these sayings to help people live with their suffering. But I do think that there is an optimal place to live. I think there's like, we can optimize our lives and try to do things the best we can. I also don't think that, like, I think that like, so I'll start with when we met and we over the, you know, when we were back in the day when we were out there working and stuff,

we were around um i was in one of your music videos um i think that we are a generation of like i think we're like kind of like the first generation of a of the of uh of uh like our parents come from a different generation and they there was a simplicity to that they were like i put food on the table and a roof over your head and there was kind of like the old right And not to derail your thought, that grew up, you know, being a parent now, when I look back at my parents, the fact that, like, my mom specifically did that, like, she kind of was the breadwinner and everything. To me, like, check the box as, like, great parent.

Good job. Yeah. Like, she, you know, we never, we were closing her back, never went hungry, you know, all this kind of stuff. but as I've gotten older through my own therapy and stuff like that I start to get because you start to ask why am I the way I am

like the you know your whole life which is something I never put too much thought into like I am the way I am because that's who I am I never like I never really understood too much like oh I do this because of X, Y, Z and so many of the patterns that I am now are because I

viewed like parenting like that like simple yes keep your kids alive keep them fed keep them out of trouble and there's something to that yeah the basic level of parenting is that right there is something to that so i give my parents a lot of credit because so if we're a generation with parents that we're in that type of mold it's going to create a generation of people who have the same issues we have Yeah, well, I think it's like our basic needs were met for better or worse, right? So there is something to that. And so like I always say like we are like standing on our parents' shoulders. We're better or worse.

If we go to therapy and we analyze everything, we could find all the problems. And there's plenty of there's a whole suitcase of stuff to unpack and go like, okay, how did that really affect me? But at the end of the day, like the basic needs are met, there is something. something that you have to give credit to like what with with a lot of love like in that generation that was actually like that was parenting our generation and maybe I'm wrong maybe I'm just hanging around a bunch of artists so that there are I'm sure people are there are dads RH right that are like I put food on the table I have a roof over their head they go to school they have everything they need. I'm a good parent. I'm not saying they're a bad parent. Right.

But the messaging behind things and how you, like how are you framing the world for your kids so they go out into the world and they create a life they want to live in. That's what I think about. Right. Do we want to live in our lives or do we look at, there's a lot to it, but like, like, to me it's pretty simple. Like, are we living in lives we want to live in? Or are we miserable? and at some point, what's the point of life if you're miserable, right? Yeah, that seems like the biggest question in the history of humanity. You know, what's the meaning of life? Yeah.

And at some point, in my brief time here, I've been like, isn't it just to be happy? Like, isn't it be happy? Like, don't, you know, do something that makes you feel happy at not at the expense of other people. So that's what. And that, I mean, it sounds very simple. but I'm like, God, dude, what feels better than being happy? So that's what I was going to say. So when I met you and I've known you, and we haven't seen each other in many years,

but my impression of you has always been someone who's happy and is, there's a real power when you meet someone that feels comfortable in who they are. versus someone who's running around, right, trying to figure out who they are or, I don't know, there's something about meeting people who seem happy. Yeah, no, I get it. Content. I get it. There's a balance you see sometimes.

When you met me, I was probably super content. Yeah. I mean, that's a time of life. That's a time of life that everything was just like, fresh. and new and exciting and I'd worked you know years and it was a I was going through a thing that I thought you were on the ride yeah I only thought yeah I was riding it I thought this was like the movies first of all I never got into music to to to ride to take that ride I didn't I reluctantly got into music I love music and I what

did you think you wanted to do I don't know I didn't know and my mom who's Japanese was very upset about that. She was like, you got to school and college and you got to do this. My dad, who was a little more just bouncing around, had more of the artistic. So he was an artist. Yes. He did acting and painting and he could do stuff. He kind of was always like, eh, you'll figure it out. You'll figure it out, you know. And that was like my mantra for so long, still is for so long. He used to drive Dan crazy. Like, hey, man, we got to.

He was a guy who, and still is, who needs some structure. Right. And whenever I said, dude, we'll figure it out. It would drive him crazy. And I never understood it. I do now. And so I'm more, like, aware of, like, don't poo-poo people's feelings. You know, if someone's really anxious or, you know, concerned about something and you say,

eh, we'll figure it out. That can easily come across. It's like, dude, you don't, I don't care about what you're feeling, you know. Right. Like, I definitely would wear that more off. But I didn't know, man. I played music in high school with my best friend because he was starting a band. He was way more extroverted and, you know, kind of like most popular class clown type guy.

But I'd known him since elementary school. He was going to start a band and he was singing and they had a guitar player and a drummer. And I was playing guitar on my own just for fun. I'm like, fuck it. I'll play bass. I can play bass, you know? So I did that. It was terrifying,

but super, super exciting at the same time. And then, yeah, that's how Dan and I met. We just started playing, we played a battle of bands together. Those two bands separated,

and we started writing music together for fun. Like, literally, how many, like, dick and fart joke songs can we write? And then show our friends on the weekend and make them laugh.

Like, to me, that was it. Like, I'm basically riding music to make my friends, laugh. Yeah.

And so we'd be in my parents' garage on a four track, all playing instruments and like trading off and writing shit. And that was kind of it. I never thought like, oh, dude, I want to be a musician. I never thought it was an option because I grew up listening to like old Van Halen and stuff like that. I thought if you're going to do this, you need to be, I thought it was like professional sports.

They used to be really good. You don't accidentally become an all-star in, in the, you know, in the, you know, sports, right? You have to set out to do that. And so I kind of saw music the same way. I'm like, I'm not, I don't have the discipline to do it. And so I'm just going to dabble around the edges. But I think Dan always knew he wanted to do it. He had a different, I think, perspective of what it meant to be in music. He was more than songwriting stuff like that. Shit, that was completely outside of my radar. Right. And I remember when he's like, oh, I'm going to keep, I'm going to do a band for reels, you know? And I, looking back on it now, I go, dude, it was FOMO. It was basically like,

oh, shit, my good friend's going to do this thing, which I kind of enjoy. I don't want to be sitting out while he's doing this thing. And so I kind of like, oh, I can sing. I'll try sing, and I can hold a tune. Were you guys in high school? He was in high school, too. I'm one year old in him. So this is like literally right after we graduated. Or I graduated. So he was still in high school. Did you go to college? Yeah. I was. went to a couple years at a city college out here. Okay. He did too for a second, but.

Kind of dissatisfied the parents probably. Yeah, I mean, a little bit. A little bit was still me going like, I kind of need to figure out what I'm doing. Yeah, or like, this is what you do. You just go to college. That, mostly. And but at that point, I was like, I had two jobs. What were they?

I was working with Dan at the YMC out, YMCA out near where we live, doing like after school kid stuff. and then summer camp, counseling, you know, that kind of shit. And then I was working at a mom-and-pop record store. Oh, wow. So. But you loved music. Oh, I always loved music.

I actually thought probably arrogantly when I was young that I hear music differently than my friends did. Because I would listen to things and just goosebumps and, you know, hair would raise and I'd listen things over and over again. It would, music, regardless of lyrics, would make me really emotional. Like, I feel music. And then I would go play it for my friends, because I'd be so excited about, like, listen to this one part.

Like, let's one part. And they would look at me like, oh, that's cool. Like, it wasn't, it was above their pay grade or something like that. And it wasn't until people like Dan and the rest of these guys, you go, oh, there's other people who hear it and go like, oh, shit, like. And then I would tell them, like, doesn't this song make you,

like, picture this, this is? And I, like, it was more like, movie scoring, you know? Yeah. And then, yeah, I was very reluctant to do ironically what I end up doing. And I used to feel like I needed to change to fit the mold of like, well, this is what you're supposed to be. You know, you're supposed to be a rock star singer, stuff like that.

And I feel like I tried for a second, but it's never, it's not who I am. I don't know if honestly some of this is fear like I didn't want to do a lot of the shit that people think rock stars are supposed to do you know right the debauchery and then the and um you know that kind of lifestyle I had been it's been it had been pounded in my head since I was young like that's not this is this is what rock stars do the idea of that is like the fantasy yes I mean and when you go into it that's all you know I didn't know the realities of what like a professional musician what they were, the touring life, the work aspect. Yeah, yeah. I only saw what everybody lets you see, you know. Yeah, that's one of the things here that I like to try to like actually like analyze or unpack or talk about. Is this like, there's this fantasy that everyone thinks this is and good or bad.

And then there's the reality of like this, this as a, as your life's work, right? Like you're working. And having a career in music is not so different from having a career in any other field except for the work you're doing, whether if you were going to become a lawyer or a doctor or an architect or you have a company that makes clothes or whatever you choose to do with your The work is actually very, replace X and Y with whatever the work is. The process is pretty much the same as far as like succeeding.

It's time consuming. It's time consuming and it's work. It's making something and then putting it. It can feel that way sometimes. Sometimes music feels like work. Creating things in making art. It is an expression. It is us expressing ourselves.

but if we're choosing to do it for a living, it's work. Right. If you let the idea of work come into the room with you when you're trying to create something, it can fuck up the vibe of like that. But some people are driven by that. Some people are driven by the idea that they're working. But if we're doing this for a living, it is work. Right.

It's what we do. In the technical term. Technically, it is work. The fantasy of what we do is we escape. and we go and we can do whatever we want, be whoever we want, and there's no consequences. That's not true. That's not reality. That's not life.

So if you do drugs enough, you'll get addicted. And then if you're addicted to drugs, you'll be an addict. And then if you're an addict, what happens? Well, the reality tells us that you lose things and you damage people and you can end up in jail or dead. you know at worst you're dead a little less worse than dead is you're a completely unproductive per member of society who is can't be you're not living an optimal life maybe there's people that are completely happy in that i don't i haven't seen it and you've certainly been in in and around music long enough to see drugs in how they affect people's lives because it's a element that we all

were around. Right. Because it's part of the fantasy of what you get to do if you become a rock star. You get to do all the vices. Right. And you know, when you don't know any better, younger, it's portrayed like it's just part of them. Like it's a good thing. Yeah, it's you're immune to the consequences of doing them. Like, in fact, they're celebrated, you know. You're celebrated actually. Yeah. And in a weird way, if you, if you're a conflicted artist who's, struggling with addiction and you're doing whatever you want. The people that don't understand that this is work celebrate that. Right.

And when you act out, people celebrate it. And when you hurt yourself, people celebrate it. You think that's the fantasy. It's the glorification of things by society that they can't do. I think there's something about people getting away with murder that people secretly love. Right. I think there's a thing in us where we root for the bad guy sometimes. A little bit for sure.

Because we all want to get away with something. I think at our core as human beings, we wish we could get away with not doing the work, not, you know. And I think that that's what we all have to come to terms within ourselves. But I also think it's the fantasy of. It's the entertaining part. It's the entertainment. I was like, you're talking and in my mind's drifting. I'm like, well, what is it either?

I'm getting away with. Well, I don't know that we, any of us at our core. I personally think that a majority of people are good. I think nine out of ten people are good. I think there's like a 10% of people who struggle to be good because maybe they're damaged or maybe literally. And then I think there's something like actually scientific proof or there's like a certain number of people like three to percent or something.

I forget where I heard this, but that are just psychos. They're just born like psychopathic. Right. And maybe they were pred, they were, they were disposition to be that way and then something traumatic happened. So it pushed them in all the way over to be just psychos. And that's a cat, like those people, you have to kind of like pull them out and put them in a different category, like a majority of society.

Like I think like most people, when presented with good or bad, right or wrong. I've always believed that. I've, and it manifests in me as just being an inherently trusting person with everybody. Yeah. Yeah, and likely the guy who will open the door for someone, say please and thank you. 100%. The general, like, things that we, the way we behave in the group, I think that most of us want to be in the group and we want to behave and be kind and nice.

Right. But we also kind of live in a time where everyone can also like vomit out all their like, on social media, we can just kind of throw up all of our fucking toxic, you know, insecurities and anger and fear and so people can go down those rabbit holes and surf those waves but I think if you put us all in a room together in a group we'll all behave and will like want to be nice another episode here yeah a bunch of people in a room 10 people in a room I actually think that there's something to that like being in the group but the fantasy is no no accountability no responsibility

get things for free, all the things that I think, none of its reality. When you're a rock star or a successful musician, right? Because I just look at rock star and go, oh, successful performer, musician. Someone who's worked hard. You didn't get hit with the lucky stick. You actually had to try enough times. Some amount of luck. There's some luck.

There's some luck. But luck is you meaning it on the road. So you had to take a step forward and another step forward. And that guy said no. so you tried that and then finally someone said yes you got to be there when the door opens you got to be there when the door opens so there's luck yes but luck only happens to the people who show up for it time and time again and you can you a career isn't just one lucky thing happened to you it's you showing up a bunch of times it's you doing all that promo it's you going putting that effort forward so i

believe that 100 but luck is a thing but we have to be there for it and that's the work part is showing up, getting back up, trying again, all that. Dan and I, Dan's a guitar player. He's like, we're the two dudes kind of are the heart and soul, I guess, of the band. Yeah. I would say that's a reason why it's worked because we are so opposite as people. He's all emotion and intensity and anxiety. And, you know, he's like the energizer bunny.

And I'm the, I'm all like, well, let's handle. analyze this. Let's think about it. You know, and so I feel like because we're not both the same thing, we've kind of been able to balance each other out. Like he's the fuel. Let's go, let's go, let's go. And then I'm okay, well, let's choose the right way to go and then let's go. You know, like. It feels like it was just like you guys inherently just kind of found each other and you recognized kind of a counterpart, right? And you guys started doing it together. But you have great six. I think honestly, I've like recognized. See, these are all like things you realize when you're older.

Yeah, yeah. When it happens, you're like, oh, this guy is as stupid as I am, like, humor-wise. My dad, who passed away a few years ago, he used to tell me, he was an older dad, too. I think he was 45 when I was born. He was, like, well older than all the, like, my other dad's, my other dad's, my other friends' dads. He used to, like, tell me, like, you know what? You know what I like about you, Doug?

He's like, you're very adaptable. And then what you were kind of saying, I guess if you're writing music, it is a lot of, you can get formulaic about it too, but a lot of it is on the fly, you know, and that's the essence of adaptability. Like, oh, you get, this chord change is coming. Like, you better think of something to sing or something to play here. Just run with it, go with it. And if you can apply that to life in general, there's obviously, there's a certain amount

structure you need, but there's definitely a, you have to be able to, um, don't look too far ahead and don't look too far back. It's just kind of, today this is going to happen and this is how I'm going to react to it. And then tomorrow, et cetera, et cetera, you know. So I'm an amen. And like my music, my hair, my cabello can't with me and has to be able to be able to continue my rhythm. For so, Potion Nine of Sebastian professional, has all what my my cabo needs. Nutrition Profunda.

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at a month in Shopify dotes bar records yeah I agree with that I think that um so what I

do what I like to do here is analyze people's success because I don't think anything's an accident. I think there can be happy accidents in life, but not to the point where you have so many happy accidents that you have a career and you build a life and you have something to show for it. You have to have a process. You didn't just hit the lottery. Everyone has to build their own process. And then in doing that,

like you're you're married you have two kids you have a nice life right i from my perspective i look at you and go oh you have a nice life yeah i don't okay so a nice life doesn't happen on accident it doesn't in my opinion it's a series of choices we make and we build processes that work for us whether we're conscious of it or not but i mean you can say that nice life um in so far as like yeah no dude i i i yes agree. I have a great life. I think I have a great life. Is, am I like the richest dude in my block? No, no, no, no, but none of us are. I know. In a sense of like, right. So I'm saying the description, the parameters for nice life for me are very different than somebody who might just be listening and go, oh, you have a nice life. And immediately they'll go to, oh, it's because

he's a rock star. You know what I'm saying? Like, well, it's because he's done XYZ and he probably has a lot of money. He doesn't have to do that. Well, that has nothing to do with. And, you know, what I feel success with. I've been asked recently now like oh dude you guys have been you know

20th anniversary of the reason album see now that's the actual like business aspect of this conversation yeah yeah yeah and I am

and I'm definitely going to talk about that but I know my manager he'll get upset if we don't talk about it but I don't care to be honest with you but we always

we always talk about the things we're working on in relationship to to like this is definitely to promote everything that we do. But the thing that I like to look at is like, and I agree with you, my happiness, what it took me a long time to actually find was my value that wasn't really

tied to the success of my music. Right. Because all my value was tied up in that personally. Like I felt like if that didn't win, I'm a loser. I understand that. I understand that. You put your heart and soul into that kind of stuff. But also like we have to separate a little bit like the truth of the matter is is things go up and down and up and down and up and down. But you don't realize that when you've only been doing it for this long and you've only been on the upway. Exactly. And then if you do it long enough, you're like, oh, okay, I get it. I get it. Yeah. It's fine. Yeah. But that's just wisdom, you know. But to have a stable, solid life where you're like going, I wake up every day and I like my life. Right. That's success to me. Yes, exactly. We've been

asked that lately and it's never oh it's all the you know the shows we've played and the places we've been and the accolades we have and the action figures that have been made we've been made into you know um i literally put my feet down in the morning and it's not like i'm 26 anymore you know um and go you know what i've never never going to be younger than I am at this moment. Yeah, that's right. And in 20 years, I'm going to beg to wish I feel like I feel today, even though it's not the greatest like I did 20 years ago.

And yeah, I get to spend, I've gotten to spend so much time with my kids and be so intertwined. I've coached every single sport they do and still do. Like this is my son's baseball team, you know. They call me dug out, Doug. That's it, you know? Ah, that's great. I'm so in. Doug out, Doug.

I'm so involved in their lives. I take, because I take them the school. I make them lunches. I do all the stuff. And then I check the basic box of like, everybody eats. There's a roof over their head, you know.

Good job, dad. To me, to me, that's what I go, like, it's weird. It's like you, you did music. What did music give you? And like I said, most people expect me to say everything I said prior. Like it gave me all this other things. And to me, all I think about now is like, it gives me this. This is a luxury.

This is like, this is a good life. That's how I feel. Yeah. That's exactly how I feel. I think there's things I personally want to achieve in life when I think about, oh, what would I like to do with my, you know, with my energy, my effort? But at the end of the day, I couldn't ask for one more thing for music. I feel like I've been, it's provided a life.

where I get to be with my kids. I get to drive them to school. So what I try to pull out of that, though, is for people listening is there's a lot of other ways you can do that too. There's a lot of people living their dream. They built this or that. Right, right. The fantasy of music is that, oh, we get to escape and it's not a real life. You get to just go out. You don't have to deal with any problems. You don't have to deal with. No, you still, we're all the same kind of human beings. We still got to go to the doctor. We still got to deal with loss of family. We still got to deal with raising these kids.

If you're not present for that, you're not going to have a relationship with them. And then you're not going to – you know, that's the thing is like, you still have to be present in a real human life doing the same thing that every human is doing. So I got to get up in the morning and do go through the – I think a lot of my parent friends now understand that as when – opposed to when I first met them, when the kids started going to school, it's all – That kind. It's like friends, the parents of my kids' friends, you know. I've become friends with them.

And in the beginning, it's always like, oh, my God, you know, they're curious to see what the life of a... What do you do? Yeah, a musician, a rock star, whatever you want to call it. And then after, you know, 13 years of knowing they're like, dude, you're just, you're literally just Doug the dad who like... Doug out Doug. Yeah, dug out Doug who gives kids, you know, candy to pump them up before they go to bat.

you know it feels like you're naturally optimistic you're a naturally optimistic person which is the thing because you've certainly been around people that are not optimistic yes like and you also probably have a different perspective than other parents who maybe haven't had the artistic career right so always had a hard time with the word artist being applied to me yeah that's just your thing though yeah it is it is my thing i understand that you're an artist i remember hearing the first time we went to our label and they're like oh this is the artist and i thought like oh where you know like what they're talking about and they were talking about us like oh i'm not an artist i'm just i'm just the guy yeah think of the word artist you probably put a teist on it maybe yes i'm not an artiste for sure for sure

i approach i approach my art um more often than not in a very mathematical scientific way yeah um which to me takes the stereotypical artist out of it. Like, you know, I don't write my books in a leather, my lyrics in a leather bound book on a mountain top, you know, like, yeah,

the cliche thing, you know? Yeah. Well, dude, I write it, you know, on a spiral notebooks while I'm watching Monday night football, you know, and it's... I probably only started accepting myself as an art, an artistic person,

the last five years. I would say I'm a very, creative person. You're super yeah. Because I like to make music. I like to I like to make things from nothing. Yeah but you could be a you could be a sandwich artist. I was just going to say that it could be a cabinet. It doesn't matter like I love to take nothing and make it something. Yeah. And I think we're really similar. Okay. I think we're really similar because did you want to be a sandwich artist at one point. No, but my brother did work at subway. Did he? And he was a sandwich artist for a few years. He's probably made gnarly sandwiches.

I make great sandwiches. I make a pretty good sandwich too. My daughter wants me to make her sandwich for lunch because I know how to do it, not mom. It's just the little details. It's the accruciamomats. You got to cut it, first of all, triangles. It's got to be cut in a triangle. Do you cut the crust off?

If she wants. But you do the diagonal. Yes. If she wants. And she jokes, she's like, triangles just taste better, Dad. They're more fun to eat because you can eat them sideways. You could just take the corner and get a big old. bite, yeah. I'll tell you this about sandwiches. There's not enough good sandwiches places.

You'd be hard pressed to find a really great sandwich place. You'd think there would be more. Everybody loves a sandwich. Yeah. But it's hard to find. On the East Coast, there's like good hoagie shops. Right. There's a good Italian joint in our neighborhood that's been there since I was. Okay. Is the bread soft? Yeah, they bake it. They do their own bread. It's a mom and pop Italian. place and it's really good. I never understand when places do hard, chewy bread, when it's not just soft.

They actually have hard chewy bread too if you want. I don't like the hard chewy bread. Don't order that one, my jaw gets. But I do think that like people need encouragement and they need to, they need to have seeds planted in their head that that feeling they had might be right. Maybe I could do this. Maybe I should try that.

Literally talking to my son, maybe yesterday, I took him to the LA Auto show with a bunch of his friends. Oh, that's cool. Yeah. Where is that at? At the convention center? Cool. Downtown? Yeah, yeah.

It was chaos. I used to go to that shit all the time. I love cars. I love cars. Love cars. Like old, new, whatever. And I think I was, before I went to go pick up his buddies, I always joke around saying, I can't, I've told my wife this, like, I'm kind of in no place to tell the kids know as far as, if, I'm, I'm not, I'm kind of no place to tell. as far as if they say, dad, I want to be or do X, you know, for for a living, X, Y, Z, whatever.

I can't say no. Like, look what I, look what you ended up doing. Like, the odds of the success that we've had at all are minuscule, you know. But I can't say no. Like my mom, my parents never said no in, in action. There were words that kind of pushed back, but they would support an action always. Yeah. I was talking about that.

Like, what do you think he would do right now? And he's like, he's not even 10. He's going to be 10 soon. Yeah, that's good age, though. He loves, he loves baseball. I love sports. And he's like, pro baseball player, whatever. Great.

And I'm like, awesome. That's awesome. And it's the same thing. Well, do you think that happens by accident? You know, like, no. Like, you have to like, if that's what you want to do, you have to commit yourself to doing that. And that's kind of also goes around to that conversation. we had earlier about you multitasking and me being honestly the total the polar opposite like i like to

hyper focus like when i focus on something the world around me could be on fire and i wouldn't even know like uh i'm only i can only use music as a reference like when i'm writing it took a long time for my wife to understand that i'm not checking out from the family i'm not like like i wake up in the middle of the night and start because I'm writing in my sleep like I'm all it's just melodies and lyrics all the time meld constantly just oh I got to stop I got to do it and then I'll be at dinner and we're all sitting on the table and I'm got a thousand yards stair but it's because I'm running things through my head constantly and I can't stop thinking about it it's not even a thing that I'm aware of until more recently I'm like holy cow I really get obsessed with certain things

So I tell my son, you got to, you know, you're going to have to throw everything into it. And I know it's really, really rare that you may not, you may not make it, you know. But, and he would say like, yeah, you know, because so many people want to be it. I'm like, right. But to come, to plant the seed that you were talking about, instead of asking why me, you got to say, why not? Big time. Why not? Like, I told him, well, do you think, like I said, he's nine.

Well, do you think in 12, 15 years the Dodgers aren't going to be hiring players anymore? It's like, no. It's like, you can be one of them. Why not you? If it's not going to be you, it's going to be somebody else. For sure, why not you?

And I kind of think you have to take that mentality into anything you want to do, even if it's far-fetched or just statistically rare. If somebody's going to do it, why not you, you know? So maybe that's the optimistic side of me. I feel like I don't even think anything's not possible. Right.

To a fault sometimes because where I go wrong is sometimes I'll over, I have to be more thoughtful about going around telling everyone anything's possible because I sound like a crazy person to most people because it. And that people go around being overly, I think I'm, I feel like I'm realistic. but and optimistic when I say like hey why not you

I understand that it most likely won't be here but here's the difference it's the old like did you miss every shot you don't take you know right but no the truth of that is that it's true

and the reason you can tell your son it's possible is because you did the impossible virtually impossible four million four times platinum right your album whatever it is the fact that

it's 20 some odd years later and that's still all that I do, you know, like, to me. That's what I'm saying is like you're the living example of something that was really hard that people go, hey, mom, I want to be in a band and the mom will be like, okay, don't get your hopes up, right? Here's the thing about don't get your hopes up. I understand that we're trying to protect our kids from disappointment. But the truth of the matter is, is we already know that. I kind of feel like it doesn't work without hope.

And that's the thing for me is like, I never say don't get your hopes up. I always say that's a cool idea. The idea is that I like to take out of all of this is the lottery. It's not a lottery. The work is still the work. And the work part is supposed to be attached to the idea of that we can do that. Okay, well, how? Okay, well, let's make a plan. Let's see if we all like the plan. Let's build a process around it. Okay, now let's get down the road. What's working? What's not working? that's the reality of work, right? It's process. So process has to be kind of the next conversation of like, okay, there's the mountain we want

to climb. Okay, great. Now, what do we need? Okay, we need this stuff. Okay, no, what's the plan? What date should we start or what this? So the process and the work is actually a real thing that we don't talk about in music because it's like supposed to be like magical.

It is magical in those moments you wrote those songs where they felt like magic. and when the song connected with people, you're playing on the big stage. I kind of feel like there's some aspects of that I can totally relate to as far as like, there's the mountain. But in my like overly, not romantic, but like in that kind of improvisational way, I'm the type of guy I would go, just start climbing it.

Right. And then figure it out as you go. You know, like. But that's an actual style. Yeah. That's the actual. choice. For sure. I'm just saying, sometimes I've taken that approach when I haven't been able to figure it out. I mean like, okay, I need to step back and get organized. Run and gun is an actual

kind of, like, it's a style. It's like I'm just charging it. And it works. Like, if you think about strategy, it works in some scenarios. In some scenarios, we do do that. I just, me and Benj have gotten really good about articulating and communicating with each other when we're doing what. So if we're just charging it because we know we feel like okay there's an opportunity has has come in front of us and we within like sometimes you have to make split second decisions so you're like you know what let's charge it and then we'll figure it out as we go or we'll feel that's not the best strategy and we have time let's let's let's go around it let's prepare and let's prepare and let's see what resources we need. Let's see what. So I do think that like like experience and again like the the

science of success. There is a science. People can go, I want to have a strategy and I want to like execute the strategy. And I think I'll have more success if I do that. And then sometimes like no strategy here, but charge it and go after it. So the theme of this conversation is really adaptability because it really is. Yeah. Because do you go? Yeah. And you have to. And you have be you have to be able to encompass both those strategies. And you should have more moves than one. I'm just saying yes. And so there's two right there. You can you can you can circle the wagons and really study what you want to do and then make your move or you can gun it and go and but you got to be able to do more than one. Because you can't approach all the all the opportunities and

adversity, whatever that's going to come up in your journey to whatever you're trying to do with only one approach. Because it'll work. sometimes, but not other times. Absolutely. And the point of us talking about it is people listening that are trying to have success in maybe they're small ways in some ways and maybe some people have bigger ways they need. But everyone deserves to take what they're doing themselves seriously and with care because I think a lot of times we are told to dismiss things as not important or ourselves

is not important. And we only get to live one life. We get to be one person. And if I look at my kids and go, you're important to me. I want you to take your life seriously and I want you to be happy. I want you to do things that make you happy. And I want you to have success, whatever that means to you. It might mean something different to my daughter than my son. And then I zoom out of that and I go, well, why shouldn't everyone have that same opportunity, right? And we can argue about all the ways people don't. But for people listening and they how many times in your life as someone said how did you do it how did you do that right what was that like right and you don't you think don't you think um just for lack of a better word perseverance it's like big time whoever just lasts the longest as a strategy it is

is one of the best strategies is if it now perseverance only works for the most part and what i think a happy life is my idea of a happy life is perseverance doing something that I enjoy that I love now if I was persevering the job I hated right you don't just keep punching yourself so yeah so in in this in in relationship to something that I really want for myself with anything marriage health personal growth perseverance success perseverance is like a great is is part of the strategy Right. I mean, how many times have you heard those stories? It's too numerous to count like, you know, this actor or this CEO or whatever like that. Like, dude, we didn't even start until we were 40 something, you know? Or I've been working at this forever and I got my break when I was 45. Yes. You know, and they're like the biggest thing ever. So yeah, it's like whoever, whoever is in it for the long run, you know. But that all goes back to why are you doing whatever it is you're trying to do. do it because you love it. And then also like bring reality into it of like the reality.

Because we always, especially in entertainment, we always talk about things in big sweeping kind of statements where it's like there's only one richest guy on the block. Only one guy gets to be that. And we could, if we dissected his life, we would still find problems and challenges. Right. There's only one. Everybody. You know what I mean?

There's only one winner of that trophy. and then there was the rest of us who. Yeah, but that winner still has a shit ton of issues. Nobody gets through this. So it's great to win the trophy and you should celebrate it. That's not what I'm talking about. But like take out the fantasy that everything is better when you're the richest guy on the block or you won the Grammy or the Oscar or you had the biggest movie of the year or you

had the biggest record of the year. Like we still have to get up in our life every day and be a real person and a human being. And then, and so like, I just like to try and dissect these things and, like, highlight certain things for people listening because I know from my experience in the world. And I love meeting people. It's like my favorite thing to do is meet people. Make friends. Really? Friendliness with people.

Would you say you're an extroverted person? I'm an introverted extrovert. I get that. I understand. You know what I mean? Like I have. I don't want to meet anything. anybody ever. I love meeting new people because I'm inspired by people's unique, everybody's

different. Every single person you can actually, you can talk to them and they, right. And but everyone's different, but everyone's the same. So you can see through lines with people. And then you can, and I love to see people who grow, like people who have grown, people who like, I love seeing people on this part of the journey and then see them a year later. And they're like, hey, remember that thing I told you about? Now we're doing this. That's awesome. And that gets me excited because things grow. Right. It's like having a garden or a farm.

It's like you plant a tree and then five years later there's all these apples. How much do you now still tie your identity to Good Charlotte? That's a really good question. How much do you tie yours to Hoobestank? And then I'll tell you my answer. I don't know. It's less now that it obviously has ever been. I don't.

that's age right like i don't i feel like well it's only yeah it's it's only time so i've i've thought to myself like i'm in no rush or i have no inclination i've ever not doing who was thank you know um i always said like if people want to see us play i'll just keep playing until i can't play anymore you know um i have gone like i know at some point in my life whenever that may be that i'll probably do doing something where I go, oh, dude, I can't believe I used to be singing in a band. Like, most people would say, that's just another chapter, you know, like you've gone to something else. There are other things, you know. I don't know what that is right now, and that's my kind of like, you know, willy-nilly adaptability thing. I don't know what it is

right now, but I'll figure it out. There's going to be something I do later in my life when I will go, Hube-Stank was this. And it still is part of me, and I'm still probably doing, it, but most of my identity or whatever it is that fuels me on the day-to-day basis is something else. It could be my family right now. Obviously, I feel like I do more with my family and think about their what needs to be done initially on a day-to-day basis until it's like time to go right and play shows. Well, that's your real legacy.

For sure. Your family. 100%. The guys who miss that to me or miss the point. I never want to seem flippant about the success. are unappreciative of like, to the fans. I always tell them, especially now in our careers, I've never felt more grateful and more lucky for what I've been able to do

and what the fans have given to me and the band because of what I said, because it has given me this life where I get to do what I want with my family, you know? So I never want to make it seem like, oh, he doesn't even care about music because that's not true. but um i feel it almost identical to you i feel um the metaphor for me is always like good charlotte is this badass chevy cheval that was like a sick car and then there was probably a period there after like a decade or so where it wasn't the hot new car and i may not have valued it the way I should have, but I kept it.

And then one day I woke up and I was like, man, that fucking Chevelle, I love that Chevelle. I'm going to put a little time into it. And I'm going to, I'm going to polish it up. I'm going to. And then we modified it a little bit. We added some things that make it run even better. Right. And now I feel like we have this sick, classic car and we love it so much.

We're never selling it. And we take it out sometimes and people like all look at it and go, that the car is badass, dude. What did you do to it? I opened the hood and show them what I did to the engine and I walk him around the car because I care about it and it's really nice to share. But no one's driving it except for us and we'll take it out every now and then. Maybe we'll take it to a car show. And even that new sick Mercedes or that car or the concept of that car is out, they're rolling it out and it's excited. The whole crowd's around that concept car. But when they come out and they see the Chevelle,

they all stop and they go that's badass. And lucky for us, people are kind of into old cars right now. Yeah. And they always will be if you keep it nice. Right, if you don't sell the car. If you let it sit and collect rust and it becomes something in a junkyard, you go, oh, that could have been a great car. But if you keep that car in perfect condition and you just keep fixing it and modifying it

so that it can exist in the world, it can be a classic. And everyone doesn't need to love it, but everyone can respect it. But everyone, no one, it was never a point where everyone loved it. Yeah, there was never a point anyways. So that's how I feel like, good Charlotte is this special thing. And I'll never have another one. It'll always be the only one. Right.

And it'll always be something that, and it'll have its moments. Because that car can still go win some car shows and have some. It's never going to be the new concept car that everyone's excited. about right now, but it's a badass classic. We're in a different part of the hall as far as the LA Convention Center, you know? There's two big halls where all the new, the huge manufacturers are showcasing their brand new vehicles. Yeah, it's like all the labels and their brand new artists.

There's a different point to that. But then there's these two halls underneath that are just all custom cars and cool shit, you know. And when you see that new concept, you always go, man, that's fucking cool. Awesome. Yeah. But I don't know if it's going to last. I don't know if I want to drive it every day.

Well, the problem, a lot of times, and something we went through for a certain amount of time, is that you start off in that hall with the new concepts, and you are that car. And then as years ago, you get pushed to the other hall, but you still see yourself as that car, you know? And you try to, like, stay in that building. And I always used to say, like, music in general, or at least the music world that, we came into is a young person's game. It's a young man's game. And you wouldn't want to drive.

And that's the thing that I remind myself too about that, that Chavelle is you wouldn't want to drive it every day. Because you don't want that thing to get beat up by the road and by life. You protect it now. And there's no version of like me wanting to drive that car every day. I want to take it out when I can enjoy it. Right. And I want to stop and be able to have the time to show people what I've done to it.

to show people why it's special and enjoy their enjoyment. You thought about this analogy a lot? I have. I feel like it's really well thought out. It is. This isn't the first time you've brought this out. No, so it is something that I've continued to build on when I realized that that's what it was to me. And so the analogy.

I'm going to absolutely rip it off. You should. And use it when I'm trying to describe. You should because that's, to me, that is how we should look at our bands and our art. Now, there are some that are like, like, I look at the, I look at the food fighters, right? Because they, they tour a lot. And it's this band that continues to just make this like relevant music pretty frequently. And I see them as like a fucking Chevy truck that runs forever.

And it's like, it's a different thing than what I am. And that's why, but I love cars. So I always like, am always analyzing things a lot like. cars like that I love. Right. So I would always, so if I'm using a, you know, analogy of a Chevy truck, it means I love it because I love like Chevy. I have a Chevy that will run forever and it's a truck that could take anything.

You could take it anywhere. You could use it for work, but you can also drive it around and people like, it's cool. It's an old truck, right? So anyways. I kind of feel like we're a band that was really popular, a car that was really popular when it came out. but it wasn't recognized as a car that would be a classic later on. I don't know, 67 beetle, a bug.

You know, like, oh, it's everywhere. It's everywhere. And it's very common. And there's nothing flashy about it. And then 40 years later, you're like, that fucking car is cool. Carmen Gia? Love Carming Gia. Yeah.

Maybe a Carmen Gia. Yeah. Just like, you know what? It wasn't, it was popular for a second. And it was poo-poo. for a while and now it's like, cool, dude, that's, that car's pretty cool. Or at least people have, have wizened up

to go, you know what? I used to shit on that car. A convertible, but now I think it's pretty cool. A convertible like 67 bug is a cool ass car. Hell yeah. When you drive up in that, it's still like the car everyone stops and looks at.

You could be next to a Ferrari and people are looking at that car going like, oh, look at that. Because is there something about classic? You know what it is? it's when things survive time. We're captivated by them because most things don't survive time.

Nothing does eventually. Yeah. It all ends up in the heap. Temporary. All of this. We're going to die, you guys. Plastic will remain. How's that for optimistic?

Plastic wool. It's in us right now. We're going to die. So, but listen, so to me, you coming on here and talking, of course, Huba Stank,

the success you guys have, the records you've sold. Of course we want to talk about that, but everyone knows that. Everyone. So it's been 20 years since the release of your second album, The Reason. Right. I've always wanted to actually talk to you because I've always thought you were one of the people in this. Whenever I think about you guys and especially you and Dan, I always thought you guys had good heads on your shoulder.

right like when you look around this crazy business you see people it doesn't matter how successful are you get a peek behind the curtain or you you interact with someone you go it seems crazy to me like it seems unsustainable or it seems unhealthy sometimes and and some people glorifying things that I just don't think are healthy or good or they don't make me feel good about myself and um I always thought you guys were impressive I always thought you guys had a really grounded uh solid thing about you that I was always impressed by. So it made me feel like, I took something away. It influenced me a little. You know what I mean? Like you go through life and you meet people. Right. You pick. How do you behave? How do you behave? And you kind of, you start to piece together

this idea of who you want to be in the world or strive to be. And like you take little threads and you put together this thing. And I always thought you guys were solid. well-mannered. Well-mannered. Yeah, no, we are. No, we're very well-mannered. No, but no, like decent. Decent is a thing.

I would say we're pretty good dudes. You guys, what I'm saying, like, that's not always normal in our, for sure. When you're going on that roller coaster. You meet some weirdos. So I know well-mannered is like a, is like a weird way to say it.

But like when I think of like solid, decent, like, that stands out weirdly in a room full of crazy. Okay. And I thought I was... Is it my turn to return the compliments now? No, no, you don't get to. I was always impressed with how you guys rolled, how you carried yourselves. And I thought, you know what?

That's a mental check of along the road. You meet people and you're like, you know what? Fucking solid. That's solid. And you just take a note and you compile this idea of like what you think. We were always impressed with your guys' ambition. Thank you. You guys were very...

We were talking before this. Like, you've built quite a little thing, you know? You know, I was going to say empire, but is it an empire? No. No? Is it like a studio apartment? I think it's a portfolio. You've built something that we haven't built,

and not because I wouldn't love to have been able to branch out at a time when it probably made the most sense for me. when we were at our biggest and most relevant in popularity and stuff like that, I was approached by multiple people. You got to do a solo thing. You got to do this and blah, blah. We got to science tech.

And I never entertained it. I did a little bit. I'm like, that's a good thing. I did a little bit, but I'm like, I don't do music me. I do music us.

And so it never felt right. But then also, we've had a ton of what we thought were. amazing ideas that were probably stupid, but that we never acted on. And I kind of feel like we would sit back and watch you guys. I'm like, dude, they're doing this and this. And do you know, you know, Joel and Benji that have done this. And I'm like, fuck, that's awesome. So stoked for these guys. A lot of stuff we did didn't work. And right, because you only, you only see the success stuff, you know. Yeah, you get to see the highlight real. Right. That's something that I can say,

honestly, that Dan and I would talk about like, do those guys know. know how to do that. That's awesome. And we don't. We, we do our thing and their thing is a different animal. And it's awesome. So props to you guys. Thank you. What's next for Hubas Stink? I've been riding my ass off lately. Are you guys going to make an album? I don't know if it's going to be an album. I know Dan's been fighting for years, like a decade plus to not put out albums. He's like, we just put out songs. He's not wrong. At the time, I thought, I don't, I like making it. I like making the album process. He has a little bit of a love-hate thing going with it. I don't think he's wrong now. I don't know what we're going to do. There'll be new music next year for sure.

Yeah, dropping songs is definitely a strategy. It definitely works. What are you guys doing? We are going to make music. We're trying to figure out what that if same thing. It's we understand dropping songs is a, is it works. And it is kind of the modern release method. But albums are what we come from. So we're talking about when to drop because we have music coming. So we're making it. We're working on it. So it's a matter of like, do we drop it right when we make it? Because there's something gratifying about that. And so we're working out like our strategy for how we want to put the music into the world. As far as shows go, we're never going to be back on the road for more than two weeks. So the shows will have to feel special. So, um, the shows will have to feel special. So,

We just did a show, first show in five years, and it was really fun. I think I saw some footage. Yeah, it was so fun. It was so fun. And so I kind of feel like if we could replicate that feeling and that experience, you know, 10 times a year or six times a year, I would definitely be down to do that. Because I look at it and I kind of go like, I don't know if I'm going to want to play shows when I'm 55 in 10 years or in 11 years or whatever. Right. I don't know how I'm going to feel about if I'm going to want to play.

Stage is weird for me. I like doing it. Same. Same here. But I don't know at what age I will feel like I just don't want to do it because it's not that I like being in front of people. I like the feeling that we all have together. You know what the best thing about is, is you don't have to make that decision now. That's true.

You don't. It doesn't matter what you're doing it when you're 55. Why think about it? Yeah, yeah. Why put it an expiration date on it? Yeah, exactly. Do it as long as it feels good. Yeah, that's a good. You're going to wake up one day or come off stage one day and go, you know what?

I think I've done. You know what? You're saying that was something that I needed to hear that I haven't heard. And that will be the thing I remember from today. Like, that is something that someone has not said to me. And I've been thinking about this for probably the last five years. Good. You don't have to know.

Yeah. You will know, though. You will know. And it'll just happen. And it won't even be. I feel, I only say this because I feel like the same thing. At some point, people will tell, well, how long are you going to do this? I mean, not some point, forever.

And the best, I used to try to put an expiration date on it. And I would go, well, why? So much so that it stopped me probably from doing it for the last five years. Well, it also, it also kind of, it kind of insinuates, you've been doing this too long. Like, the person who asked that, it's never, it never seems like it's coming from a place of like, keep going. It seems like it's coming from place of like, dude, stop already. Hey, don't stop doing this. They're telling you, dude, it's been long enough.

Like, you leave the party. That is so true. That is so implicit. It's like, I'm implying that you've been doing this too long. How long are you going to do this? Yeah, how long are you going to keep doing this? Why, am I bothering you? Like, I'll stop if it's really bothering you. Does it look miserable?

Yeah, do I look like I'm not happy? Because I'm an old guy in the yard, like chopping wood? Like, are you asking me how long are going to stop? Stop, Grandpa! Yeah. We have enough firewood. Yeah. I think that like...

That's really wise, man. I just think that... I mean, trust me, there have been times in the past a handful of years that I've thought, like, dude, this... I've come off stage and go, God, that was fucking hard. That was miserable, man. I'm not in a good state of mind. And thought to myself, why do I keep doing this?

I feel like whenever we decide to stop, it'll be like the... it won't be an anger stop. It'll be a peaceful stop. Won't be sad. No, it won't. And those moments when I've been like, fuck, I hate this. It's because something bad has happened

or I'm under a lot of stress and playing shows and stuff like that was causing me physical and mental trauma. Whiplash? Yes. And I go, well, that's not the coach in me. It goes, that's not when you quit. That's when you persevere.

Yeah. And when we quit or when we call it a day, it'll be when our cup is full. We're like, you know what? The cup is full. Yeah. I'm, I got everything I wanted out of this. You know what? I don't need to do this anymore.

I don't need to do it now, but I'm just saying I don't, I'm good now. I don't feel the need. Yeah, I'm good. And it'll be a peaceful let go and it won't be like, I'm fucking done with this. I had a conversation today with my friend Matt Coma. Do you know Matt? Matt is in Winneka Bowling League. He's a really incredible writer.

producer. He plays in Good Charlotte now. What does he play? He does guitar, keys, sings, lots of stuff. Got it. He's the, but I'll tell you what he's brought to the band and he played in the last show with us. He's a produce, he's a natural born writer producer. Okay. So he just hears songs. Oh, you're talking music. So I'm thinking like scripts. No, music. Okay, yeah. So when he's creating, he's, he's naturally creating a fully produced song in his head when we, so, we'll write together sometimes. And live, he kind of brings that. He elevates things in a way where you're like,

I didn't even know we needed that, but that sounds fucking great. So we were talking about this exact thing, because he's 10 years younger than me or nine years younger than me. But need is not a good feeling. It's a double-edged sword. We can need something so bad we work our asses off to get it. We can also need something so bad.

We'll never be happy when we get, however much of it we get. Right? So if I always feel hungry, no matter how much I eat, that's not a good need. It's not about not needing anything. It's about actually stopping and going, why do I need this? Why do I feel I need this? And trying to get to the bottom of like if it's a good need or a bad need, if it's a real need

or a false need, right? So anyways, we were talking about this exact thing. And what you just said is like the cup can be full. like you can go like yo my cup is full i'm good i've experienced as much as someone could experience in this and that to me is like a really nice way of knowing when you're done and when we when we feel like that right can be done but for me i think i have a little bit of i have like maybe like like a old injury that still bothers me sometimes. I think the world is a really, the world, especially around music and art, it can be really cynical. People can dismiss and or be mean around

something that you care about and force you to act like you don't care about the thing. Right. And it goes back to like where, where I, my relationship to good Charlotte now is, is so loving. It's the car that I love. you know and I don't care what anyone else thinks about it you know and I think that's where I got to through the journey and however probably some of it is my kids some of it's my wife some of it's time experience yeah it's having it's having had the success you guys have had it's all of that everything you just said which is really funny because that's how I feel about the band too you know at one point at one point you you drive that car and you want people to go holy shit and you want to race people

and you want to do all the things. You want to take it to all the car shows and you go like, this is it. And you got a lot of your, the car's value by the reaction you got. I did. Yeah. In my younger life, I got a lot out of that. I'm 100% on board with like, dude, I just like to cruise this thing around. And if people laugh at it, I still just drive and I fucking love this thing.

Yeah. You know, like, this thing's cool. Yeah. I think that comes with time, man. Like life experience does allow you to like, appreciate the thing. And when someone stops, I'll take the time to talk about it because I love the thing. But I think it's just, it's time, like it's experience. But what you just said is like, you don't have to decide and you don't have to know when. And that's what I've always wrestled

with is how long am I going to do this? And the answer is, is like, we don't have to decide until we have to decide. You don't have to answer every question, dude. Yeah. Yeah, you don't. Thanks, Doug. Thanks, Joel. You coached me. Therapy right now. Yeah.

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