AFI was the runaway choice by our readers as the band of the year in 2000

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AFI was the runaway choice by our readers as the band of the year in 2000, due mostly to the release in September of their album, The Art Of Drowning, which actually found its way onto the Billboard charts for a week. Recently, AFI has not slowed down, completing a tour with Rancid, headlining the Sno-Jam tour and participating in the entire Warped tour. And in all this, the band's lead singer, Davey Havok, found time to croon for a little side project with some of the members of Danzig and Samhain, on Son Of Sam's Songs From The Earth. I got the chance to chat with Davey at the Warped Tour, and got a little help from a local kid starting up a new webzine. Unfortunately, I feel really stupid about this, but I can't remember his name, so I've had to refer to him as "Stranger" in this article.

Davey: Yeah, we do our best to stay out of the sun. I guess sometimes it's unavoidable, playing in the middle of the day in direct sunlight. But despite that, it's been great.

Davey: It's a completely different environment. Club tours have the obvious benefits of being indoors and at night. Playing in a theatre is just a better environment, but playing out here we get to play in front of thousands of kids who have never heard us before, and we get to just hang out with our friends every day. We do our thing for half an hour, try to have a good show, and then the rest of the time we just watch some good bands and hang out with our friends. It's really fun, I love this tour.

Stranger: You guys come from the Berkeley scene, and I'd imagine some of the shows when you were starting out were just like the hardcore kids and the street punks and all.

Davey: Well when we started it was different in that nobody cared about us. Then after years and years of practicing and years and years of touring, slowly we've gained a following in California, and then it slowly spread across the states. The only thing I prefer at shows is that there are people there, as opposed to not there, which wasn't always the case. Now it's really nice because pretty much where ever we go, there's at least some kids there to see us, and they can sing along. But with regard to who those kids are, whether they're hardcore kids, or punks, or straightedge kids, or metal kids, or skinheads, it's not important. If they're into our music, that's all that matters. It doesn't matter what scene they come from. The nice thing about our band is that the crowds are very diverse. I wouldn't say we play one type of music, so we don't easily fit into any genre, so we get all kinds of kids.

Kevin: AFI seems to have a really dedicated following - is there any show in recent memory that's had a particularly low turnout?

Davey: Actually yeah. We did a tour through Canada last winter called the Sno-Jam tour, and to work our way back home we played a lot of smaller cities, and all those shows were like tiny little clubs. I mean, some of them were as low as 200 capacity, and at the largest, only maybe six or seven hundred, and that was only once. Some of those places were pretty brutal.

Davey: It's not harder to play to smaller crowds, it just sucks that there are 200 kids in a place that doesn't even fit 100, so it'll get really hot, or there won't be room on stage, so people get in our way, stuff like that.

Davey: No, not at all, just as long as they don't fuck with us. Like if they get up and want to jump off, or if they want to dance around or anything, that's fine - usually once people get up on stage, they only manage to stay up for about ten seconds anyway before they end up back in the crowd.

Kevin: Is it a let-down to stare at a row of security guards and barriers in front of you?

Davey: It's not a let-down because we knew about all this before hand, we knew what we were getting into when we took this tour. Usually once you reach a certain size, legally you're forced to have a barricade in front of the stage. Barricades you know, I'm not into them, but if you go to a city and there's a big club with a barricade, which would allow everyone who wants to come to the show to come, or going to a smaller club with no barricade where only a quarter or half the kids who want to come can, and you're in a place where you only maybe come once a year, then yeah we'll take the bigger club.

Stranger: When I first got into you guys, you were really like straight up hardcore, and your style has definitely evolved since then. What kind of stuff should we look for in the future?

Davey: Continuous change. We don't want to write the same album over and over again. As songwriters it's much more interesting to push ourselves to grow and change. I wouldn't expect to see us going back to being a straight up hardcore punk band because we've done that. Those roots will always be there, but it's no longer interesting for us to write those type of songs.

Davey: Always, especially coming from the scene we come from. You grow up in a scene and play there for four or five years, you can never forget it. You think about the friendships we had back then growing up. You know a lot of the bands on this tour come from the same place, we've all experienced the same things, Rancid in particular, we have that bond that you can never take away from us.

Kevin: You said you don't really want to go back to your older style - what then was your mindset going into the studio for Son of Sam?

Davey: Oh, Son of Sam was great. I only wrote the melodies and the words for that, I didn't write any of the music. AFI was never really that type of band, so I got to do something that I'd never really done before, so it was fun. To me, it really sounded like Samhain, and no one really sounded like them except for them, and no one's sounded like them since, so it was kind of like my little opportunity to play with that.

Davey: After we toured with Samhain and Danzig, about six months after, London called me and said that he and Steve and Todd were writing songs together, and they wanted to know if I wanted to write the words and melodies for them, so I said sure.

Kevin: Do you think your influences and inspirations have changed over the years?

Davey: Well as new bands start coming up, yeah, your influences change. New bands, you listen to them, if they're good or bad, they influence you. There are a bunch of new bands, meaning, they weren't around when we started the band, like, I love the Deftones, I love Tool, Perfect Circle, Radiohead, I fucking love those guys. But you know, I don't think my influences have changed all that much.

Davey: Completely shocked, it was totally unbelievable. I was actually in the studio with Son of Sam when we found out, and everybody just freaked out. Everyone was just really happy for us, it was amazing, I never could have predicted something like that.

Stranger: Do you guys ever clash or have disagreements in the studio from having different influences or tastes?

Davey: Not really. By the time we go into the studio, we're pretty set on what we want the record to sound like.

Stranger: I just heard that some bands, like Rollins for example is known to spit out some of his best work on the spur of the moment in the studio, so you pretty much have it done before?

Davey: So many. We grew up on stuff like the Germs, Black Flag, Bad Religion, 7 Seconds, Negative Approach, Jane's Addiction, The Cure, Bauhaus, The Smiths, Morrisey, Green Day, Rancid, Jawbreaker...

Stranger: Well you mentioned Green Day. All these bands that have been around for a while, you know, keeping it real in Berkeley or LA or whatever, are now going to majors like Sony and stuff - does that bug you at all?

Davey: Well as far as political concerns about what label a band is on, I don't give a fuck, I couldn't give less of a fuck, and I haven't for years. As long as they make good music, that's all I care about. It's really ridiculous when you think about it, who cares what label a band is on?

Davey: Nitro's a great label, I don't know. I suppose we could, I don't think about it much. I don't know.

Kevin: You think the Offspring will take you back out on tour? I guess they got TSOL out right now.

Davey: Maybe. Yeah they got TSOL out right now, I'm so happy for those guys, they're a great band. Any band that grows up in our scene, that continues to make the same music, and has expanded their fan base from thousands to millions, more power to them.

Kevin: I think it's really cool that they'll bring out bands that maybe not necessarily be "huge" but kids into the Offspring might like.

Davey: Yeah, and all those bands do that, you know, Green Day, Blink 182, The Offspring, Rancid...

Davey: We're going to Japan right after Warped with Sick Of It All to do some shows out there. Once we get back, we're going to start a headlining tour in Chicago, a couple days after we get back from Japan, and that should be something like 17-18 shows. And then after that, we have to get our shit together and get back into the studio to do a new record.

Davey: Actually, that's older, it came from the Art of Drowning sessions. We're probably not going to play any of the new material live before we go to the studio.

Kevin: I thought the production on Art Of Drowning was excellent - do you think you'll go back to the same producer?

Kevin: One thing I find about you guys is that every time you put something out, I think that you can't possibly improve from that, like, Black Sails was pretty much my favorite album after it came out, and I didn't think you could improve on that, and then Art Of Drowning surpassed it practically in every area. Are you ever concerned that you might lose that momentum, or do you feel any pressure going into the studio?

Davey: Yeah, anytime you release a record, you're worried that no one will like it, especially since each record is different than the last one, so you're asking kids to listen to something new. I think we've been around long enough and put out enough records for kids to expect the unexpected with our albums, but still, you don't know what the unexpected will be. Every time we put out a records we're hoping that people will like it, but the number one factor is whether or not we like it. It would suck to write a record that we're not into, so that's really all we can do is right something that we're happy with.

Kevin: So if you write a record that you like, but maybe it doesn't do so well with the kids, you don't care?

Davey: No, not at all. I mean, I'd prefer it, if I had my choice, but when we get out of the studio, and we've created something we really enjoy that's fine. If a million people also happen to enjoy it, then hey, I'm certainly not going to complain.

Kevin: Was it weird to turn on the radio and hear the Offspring playing your song?

Davey: It was a pretty long time ago now, but basically nobody - not the Offspring, not us, expected that to go on the radio. But yeah, I'd say it was a little weird.

Davey: I think it helped in a sense that DJ's became familiar with our name, and now they know who we are. That doesn't necessarily mean they'll start playing us, but they know who we are, so maybe one day that will help get our music played.

Kevin: Were you upset at all that Dexter didn't just try to push one of your songs rather than cover it?

Davey: I really don't think it matters, because this was a situation where DJ's got a hold of "the new Offspring song" and you know, it's the Offspring, which is something that radio crowds care about.

Kevin: This is something I've talked to other bands about too - I've read that you and Jade are straightedge - do you ever feel the urge to talk about it at shows or sing about it or anything?

Davey: Well, seeing as I write the words, and I'm straightedge, inherently there are some straightedge roots in the lyrics, but I don't like to preach, and I don't like to preach about anything. You know, if a kid comes up to me at a show and wants to talk to me about it, I'd be happy to talk about it, I think it's a very positive lifestyle. But, you know, we're not a political band, and that's kind of a political issue. Plus, like you said, it's just me and Jade that are straightedge, so it doesn't necessarily represent the band fairly, so for me to start going off about straightedge on stage, would be unfair to the opinions of the other members of the band.

Stranger: So the other bands and people on tour are pretty respectful of that?

Davey: Definitely - there are a lot of sober people on the tour, a lot of striaghtedge people, and a lot of people that aren't close to either lifestyle, but when we all get together, we all get along just fine.

Kevin: It's just something I think about because AFI's a really well know band now, but people may not know that much about you guys personally, and a lot of people could see you setting this example...

Davey: Well I think if you spend even 20 minutes reading about us, reading our website, you'd figure out pretty quickly that Jade and I are straightedge. On the surface, yeah there are probably a lot of people that don't know anything about that, but I guess it's not something I think about that much.

Kevin: Is it a little scary to think about the fact that AFI is a role model for so many young bands?

Davey: Yeah, it's crazy! I hear from kids all the time saying the want to be like us, or they cover our songs and stuff, or you know, how excited they've been for us to come and play. It's so amazing to me, because I don't feel that much different than I did when I started this band, and I remember when I was that kid waiting for someone like Bad Religion to come, so for me to be able to do that for some other kids, to be "that band," is so surreal, it's really satisfying.

Kevin: I guess you've gotten to share the stage with a lot of the bands you've grown up idolizing - is there anyone you still haven't gotten to play with that you wish you could?

Davey: There's a lot of bands that I grew up loving and would love to play with that we'll probably never get to, you know, like Nine Inch Nails, or The Cure, actually I guess Jane's Addiction is playing again, and there are bands for obvious reasons, like Bauhaus and Guns N' Roses... As far as bands in our immediate scene, you know, I guess we've played with pretty much all the punk bands I would have ever dreamed of playing with.

Davey: It's always so hard to pick - there's been some great ones. Salt Lake City... We played in Milwaukee indoors which was awesome. We played in like a large capacity club, and it was nice to get indoors for a day.

Kevin: Are there any bands from your local scene that you'd really like to see get bigger?

Davey: The Nerve Agents, no question. I love the stuff they've been putting out, and to see them doing well, it's so great. We've known them for years and years.

Kevin: Yeah, I hear that Eric's touring with a bum knee and he needs surgery and stuff, that's pretty bold.

Davey: Eric is probably one of the most dedicated people in the scene that you'll ever meet. He's just an amazing guy.

Davey: Yeah, there was a band on the tour in Canada called the Black Halos. It was the total, old New York style dirty punk rock, and they did a Joy Division cover <giant grin>.

Kevin: Well I think I'm out of questions. Thanks for taking the time to talk to us.