More Than Three Chord Punk

About a decade ago in a small Northern California town, AFI (A Fire Inside) had their humble beginnings. Back then, they were four high school kids from Ukiah making noise in a garage to kill the boredom. Now, after five full-length albums and tours with the Offspring, Rancid and Danzig, playing shows in Europe and Japan and a spot on the main stage of the Warped Tour, AFI has earned the right to be anything but humble. However, the band is not ready to rest on its considerable laurels.
Since its inception, AFI has seen a few line up changes along with its success, but frontman Davey Havok (as well as drummer Adam Carson) has been there through all of it. In addition to lending his vocal talents, Havok writes the lyrics and is partly responsible for the band's diverse sound. Upon listening to any AFI album, it is apparent that the band does not rely on punk and hardcore clichés. Havok credits this to a couple of things. "We all have all sorts of different influences," he says. "A lot of us have some influences that cross over. A lot of us have influences that don't."
Where AFI came from also played an important part in how the band developed its sound. "We didn't have any direct influence to conform to any one thing that was going on around us so we just did what we wanted to do," Havok says of the band's early years. "We grew up in a really small town that was kinda detached from any sort of music scene. We were influenced by scenes all over the place, everything from Southern California to DC to Chicago to New York. Because we were kinda separated from everything, we were forced to come up with our own kind of sound and that…continued to diverge with our growth as musicians and people."
Part of their growth as musicians can be attributed to the introduction of new band members. Most notably on 1999's Black Sails in the Sunset when Jade Puget took over guitar duties and became the band's chief songwriter. Havok praises Puget's effect on the evolution of AFI's sound. "Jade and I do the majority of the songwriting together and you can really see the turning point in the band with his joining, starting with Black Sails and going on until today. I think it's great. I've known Jade for years. I really respect him as a songwriter and I've always wanted to work with him, and now I have that opportunity so it's been really wonderful."
On their latest effort, The Art of Drowning, songs such as "Morningstar" and "6 to 8" mark a departure from the band's hardcore roots. "I really don't hope to take any particular direction other than to continue to grow and push ourselves," says Havok when asked if this is the path he would like to see AFI take in the future. "I do enjoy playing those songs a lot, and it was really nice to be able to do something that we hadn't done before. That type of variation added a depth to the music that wasn't there before…that we hadn't really expressed. It was [what] I wanted to do but hadn't had the opportunity to do. I think it turned out really well. Especially the response they get. They seem to be a lot of people's favorite songs and some of my favorite songs as well."
Despite the ten years of work AFI has put into expanding their musical horizons, finding their own voice and developing a distinctive sound, it seems inevitable that they are mentioned in the same breath as the Misfits and Danzig by critics trying to categorize them. When asked if he has grown weary of such comparisons, Havok laughs and admits, "Oh yeah, totally. I think that because we play aggressive music and a lot of the people that are doing those reviews really don't have a large musical scope that that's all they can compare us to. I mean those were great bands, don't get me wrong, and I'm not discrediting them. I think they're awesome, but a lot of those songs are pretty much three chord punk rock songs about B-horror movies. I mean, if you just take that and compare it to the type of stuff that we're doing, it's just not that similar. It's flattering. I don't find it offensive by any means. I just don't think it's accurate."
Whether these comparisons will ever end is, perhaps, irrelevant. It is hard to deny that AFI is building a strong name for themselves and taking big steps forward in the music industry. In December of 2001, the band signed a deal with Dream Works Records, the label that is home to artists like Nelly Furtado, Alien Ant Farm and Jimmy Eat World. In doing so, AFI ended a long relationship with Nitro Records, a label owned by the Offspring's Dexter Holland, which had released all of their previous albums. Holland appears singing backing vocals on Black Sails in the Sunset and, with the Offspring, covered AFI's "Totalimmortal" for the Me, Myself & Irene soundtrack. Havok recalls that it took much deliberation to leave a label that had been so good to AFI in the past. "We were really very focused in our decision making. We spent a lot of time deciding where we were going to go. We wanted to go to a place where we knew we were going to get taken care of whether we sold 100,000 records or 10 million records. And that was the feeling we got from Dream Works. We continue to feel that it was a very good choice."
When asked if life at the major label was treating he and his band well, Havok is quick to say that it has. "[It's been] absolutely wonderful. They're a really great label. The reason that we went with them in the first place is because we felt the most comfortable with them. They understood where we were coming from and were definitely going to allow us to have complete creative control as we always have… I just talked to…our A&R guy today for about two hours, and he's constantly in contact with us, making sure we're happy, and everything's going smoothly. He's a great guy, he comes from a similar scene as us. He comes from the DC hardcore scene. He really has a good understanding of some of the places that we're coming from."
AFI hopes to get into the studio to record their first release with Dream Works this summer. Would this experience differ from cutting their previous albums? Does the bigger label provide more pressure or anticipation? "It's no different for us," answers Havok in this early stage of the new album's conception. "We're just in the writing process, and we still write the same way we've always written. It's the same. There's always anticipation for us whenever we write a new album because we're always excited to create something new."
April saw the formation of The Despair Faction, AFI's official fan club. This will allow fans to buy merchandise and access to video and audio clips on the band's Web site available only to members. Havok says that the response to The Despair Faction has been "really positive so far. I think the kids are really excited about it. We're really excited about it. It was something that I've always wanted to do, because I know that the bands that I'm in to and even the things that I'm into that aren't necessarily bands, I always want as much information and as much cool stuff from those bands that I can possibly get. We try to provide that for our kids…and they seem to be really responsive to it." The "cool stuff" Davey refers to is not limited to traditional items like stickers and t-shirts. There are also rings, pendants and two cute, yet spooky, plush dolls named Art and Articia based on the artwork for The Art of Drowning.
The success of The Despair Faction should not come as much of a surprise considering the intense loyalty of the band's large following here in North America. However, AFI hasn't been greeted with the same amount of adulation when venturing overseas. This is probably due to lack of exposure in foreign countries. "With the exception of the UK, we haven't really had…good distribution in those areas, so people don't really know us over there," Havok laughs. "It's really kinda like night and day compared to the United States and Canada. The UK is really wonderful. We have a huge following there, but other than that, it's still like it was during our first couple of tours. We've been to Europe five or six times. It's always rough. But it's fun. I mean, the kids there that do support us are wonderful. It's just hard because…after creating a larger fan base, to go back to that, it's kind of frustrating."
It's probably just a matter of time before the international music community takes notice, but even if they don't, AFI has quite a list of accomplishments. They're already where every group of high school kids jamming in a garage want to be. Even so, Davey Havok isn't done yet. "I want to do so much more," he says. "It's not that I'm ungrateful. It's not that I'm dissatisfied. I want to continue to do as much as I possibly can with this band."

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