Pollstar Live! Digital Session: Good Charlotte’s Benji and Joel Madden, Co-Founders Of MDDN And Veeps

David Wolff – Patrick/Getty Images – Joel Madden and Benji Madden
from Good Charlotte perform at Le Bataclan on June 7, 2017 in Paris.

Good Charlotte’s Benji and Joel Madden, who are the co-founders of MDDN and Veeps, took part in Tuesday’s edition of Pollstar Live! Digital Sessions to talk about lessons learned over the years, both as artists and executives.

The 41-year-old twins founded MDDN – a Los Angeles-based company that offers music management, production and digital media marketing – in 2015 along with their older brother Josh as Chief Creative Officer. Ticketing platform Veeps was launched a few years later to help bands sell VIP offerings and has evolved during the pandemic to become one of the premier ticketing livestream platforms with clients including Brandi Carlile, Liam Payne and Pete Yorn.

Since COVID hit in March, artists have made millions of dollars in revenue from their livestream shows on Veeps, with hundreds of thousands of tickets sold. The artist-friendly company boasts no set up or hidden fees and is 100% commission-free, with fans paying a 15% service fee that is charged on top of the ticket price.

Asked to share tips for artists when it comes to connecting with fans during a livestream performance, Benji Madden said, “We just encourage every artist to just express themselves. The thing that feels organic to them is what’s going to be the best experience for everyone.

“I think [someone’s] who’s never been on stage might try to encourage you to follow what someone else did. Anyone who’s been on stage knows how uncomfortable it is not to be yourself – to have to try and feel like you have to do something that someone else already did or live up to something. We’ve been on that stage before and so we always know the best experiences we’ve had is when we could just do what we wanted to do and just be ourselves.”