Good Charlotte made their fortune by hacking into the nihilistic energy of MTV-addicted teenage boys. But their third album shows a new maturity - as well as emphasis on rock over punk, writes Brian Boyd

As one of the most identifiable bands of the pop-punk explosion, Good Charlotte embodied all the genre's giveaway signs: catchy three-minute tunes, mindless frat-boy humour and millions upon millions of MTV-driven album sales. The raw template of pop-punk may have been formed in another continent a few decades previous, but with more than a few commercial tweaks, the sound proved irresistible to hordes of pseudo-disaffected suburban teens.

Always a bit more musically inclined than their cohorts, the four-piece US band knew the ratios when it came to pop and punk. The shouty, high-rotation anthems of their sophomore album, The Young and The Hopeless, propelled Good Charlotte to the top of the heap. But something happened in the three years they spent touring that album; as a result, their new one, The Chronicles of Life and Death, tugs the band into rock-punk territory. Now there's no going back.

"The growth on this one is incredible," says lead vocalist Joel Madden "We've become very comfortable in our own skin, we've nothing to prove and we've got over worrying about that pop-punk label. It's a situation where you get attacked from both sides, for not being pop enough and not punk enough. Once we realised that, it opened a lot of new doors for us.

"This is definitely a rock record. The songwriting is very different from our first two records. There's mid-tempo stuff on this one, a real first for us and a bit of a sense of 'darkness'. To do justice to the new sound, we brought in keyboards and strings and some very surprising arrangements."

Musically, Good Charlotte were inspired by an unlikely source: Outkast.

"They're great role models," says Madden. "They have that freedom to take their music wherever they want. That informed everything for us, plus the fact that we're different now than we were when we released The Young and The Hopeless. Instead of it being 'Me against the world', it's now 'Me against myself'."

The original Good Charlotte sound was predicated on their disadvantaged background. When Madden's father left, for example, the family spiralled into poverty. He vilified his situation (and his father) in songs such as The Story of My Old Man.

"Singing about my background and stuff like that meant that we were perceived as an honest band - not cartoon punks in the sunshine - and the people who bought our records reacted very intensely to, well, the intensity of the lyrics. It always seemed like we had something to say, as opposed to some of the other bands we get joined up with. But that's probably because of The Clash. I'll be the first to admit that some of the songs on our first album come straight out of the Clash handbook.

"My musical education was a bunch of seven-inch singles from the late '70s punks. We were so DIY. I can remember how after I learnt D, G and A on the guitar, I went to the Golden Pages and got the addresses of all the major labels. I hand-wrote them all a letter saying 'We are Good Charlotte and if you sign us now, it will be a lot cheaper than if you wait'."

What prevented Good Charlotte from being just another bunch of young, pissed-off Americans who grew up listening to punk rock was their immediate connection with their enormodome-size audiences.

"We were singing a lot about pretty negative situations, and we knew something was happening when we started getting these letters after our shows from people saying how they could really make a connection with what we were saying. Then the bigger we got, we started to get all this stuff thrown at us about credibility. We really didn't know what was or was not 'cool' or 'punk'. We really were just singing about our lives in as honest a way as possible."

The incessant touring of the last few years - "we've been around the world 12 times" - has changed most everything for the band. "It was almost four years and we did learn a lot, not least musically," Madden says. "I think we were underestimated as a pop-punk band in that people didn't seem to get the inherent sarcasm and cynicism of the songs. No one got the jokes, so now we've stopped joking.

"Mainly, I've stopped blaming everyone else for my situation - my dad, my background etc - and taken a long, hard look at myself. If I have problems, then I am the reason I have problems is my way of thinking now.

"So this was always going to be a more introspective work, coupled with the fact that we're much more musically able now than we were before. The songs now are really personal; they're about what's happening in my life and maybe people will be a little thrown off at first. We did want to challenge ourselves, though I think the label were a little worried when they first heard the songs. Some bands have their label's hand so far up their arses - in terms of their image and what songs they do - it's unreal."

If they started off listening to classic 1970s punk, Good Charlotte are now firmly in classic 1980s territory. "I've been listening to a lot of The Cure and The Smiths recently, and those songs seem to be more appropriate now. Do you want to know something funny? I only discovered The Smiths from talking to Noel Gallagher - he's one of their biggest fans. It's just an American thing, that you get into stuff by different routes. The big band for me growing up was Rancid. I used to read any Rancid interview I could find and they would talk about all these bands from the '70s and I'd immediately go out and buy the records they recommended."

Aware of how "mature" the new songs would sound on this album, Madden busied himself digging deeper back into musical history to find the right tone for the compositions.

"It probably sounds strange, but what really influenced me on this album was Marvin Gaye and Billie Holiday. And now what I'm really looking forward to is when I have to go on to MTV to talk about this record and how I'm going to mention Billie Holiday and they'll be going: 'Who's she? Is she the new Christina Aguilera?'"

The Chronicles of Life and Death is out now on Sony