GOOD Charlotte’s Joel Madden had a lot of anger and pain to get out on the band’s new album Generation Rx.

Written in the wake of the death of rising hip hop star Lil Peep and the raft of mass shootings in America, the record is both the most punk and personal of the band’s two-decade career.

They were rocked by the recent death of five journalists at the Capital Gazette in Annapolis as Madden, his brother Benji and bandmates formed Good Charlotte as teenagers in their nearby hometown of Waldorf.

The band played at last weekend’s Annapolis Rising concert to honour the victims and support their families before Madden snuck into Sydney this week to promote the new album’s release next month.

Madden said it was terrifying to contemplate the shooting as anti-mainstream media sentiment is being fuelled in the US “is an idea now.”

“It is horrible to think that is an idea now. Ideas are put in our heads and they grow and there’s good ideas and there’s bad ideas,” Madden said.

“The Annapolis shooting really hit home because it’s our hometown; Maryland is always going to be our roots.”

Madden said it had been life-changing to return to his home state to rally around the community as families and the newspaper’s journalists shattered by the shooting attempt to rebuild their lives.

“What I loved about that day was everyone was there together doing what they do, volunteering their time and people there I hadn’t seen in years,” he said.

“The experience of just being a member of the community for the day and contribute what I could, all of us taking the time to gather around the families and the newspaper and all these people who had been traumatised to just show them everyone cares, really did something to me.”

After his five-year stint as a coach on The Voice, Madden maintains strong ties with Australia and revealed he and the family often slip into Sydney secretly to enjoy holidays.

His management team also guides the career of Chase Atlantic, one of the first signings to their MDDN music company and recently signed breakthrough Adelaide duo Atlas Genius.

Madden said Chase Atlantic are “blowing up” on the American live rock circuit and will play Lollapalooza in Chicago this weekend.

The new Good Charlotte album generation Rx is released on September 14 with the band confirmed to tour Australia next year.