On this week’s episode of Artist Friendly, we’re bringing back Joel Madden’s conversation with Bert McCracken of The Used.

Raised in Orem, Utah, McCracken left home at 15 and was still a teenager when he joined the band that became The Used. Their 2002 self-titled debut produced by John Feldmann helped define the early-2000s emo and post-hardcore scene, and both it and 2004’s In Love and Death have since gone platinum.

More than two decades later, McCracken, now based in Sydney with his wife and two daughters, stepped out on his own with robbietheused, a self-titled pop album released in October 2024 and again produced by Feldmann. When this conversation took place, the record had just come out.

Joel and Bert dig into the pop music he’s always loved, the difference between the frontman he plays on stage vs. the dad he is at home, how loss & grief have shaped his songwriting, and the harder question of what it means to be happy.