AFI (left to right): Adam Carson - Drums, Jade Puget - Guitar,
Davey Havok - Vocals, Hunter Burgan- Bass
When you're playing a style of music that doesn't really fit anywhere, you run a risk. You're challenging people to leave their niche, to leave their predetermined ideas of what they're supposed to like. Luckily, we have a lot of people who just focus on the music and appreciate us for what we are. So we get fans from all different genres of music, the jocks, the spooky kids, skaters, college kids, punk rockers, hardcore kids, metal kids, all that"
- Davey Havok
The origins and history of AFI are as humble as they are passionate, beginning with the meaning and philosophy behind the acronym now known to an ever-growing legion of fans the world over: A Fire Inside.
Over 10 years on and counting, the same inner flame that fueled four teenagers making a primal noise in a Ukiah, Calif., garage has propelled AFI to unforeseen musical and professional levels, as evident on Sing The Sorrow, due out March 11, 2003, on DreamWorks Records. "We've been doing this for a long time, and we love it more than anything," says AFI singer Davey Havok" To play music you're passionate about every night - it's like a dream. Sometimes you get sick; sometimes you get really tired, but I can't imagine doing anything else with my life"
If Sing The Sorrow is any indication, Havok won't have to worry about doing anything else for a long time.
Co-produced by Jerry Finn (Rancid, Green Day, Jawbreaker) and Butch Vig (Nirvana, Smashing Pumpkins), the record retains the Bay Area outfit's signature aggression and pathos - forging ever forward into uncharted territory like the virtuoso guitar intro of "The Leaving Song Pt. 2" or the industrial-leaning break and Dead Can Dance-worthy outro of "Death Of Seasons"
Meanwhile, from its sublime intro through beautifully subdued verses and infectious choruses, first radio track "Girl's Not Grey" is a standout that both recalls AFI coming into its own on 2000's The Art Of Drowning and hints at a myriad of future directions. For the purists, "Dancing Through Sunday" and "Bleed Black" come strapped with generous chant-along opportunities and heavy-as-hell, bolt-tight riffs and rhythms. And as with virtually every track on Sing The Sorrow, these are all imbued with alternately brooding and celebratory lyrical imagery of rebirth, resurrection, apocalypse, all somehow deeply personal - in other words, classic AFI. "We've always been able to do anything we want," says guitarist Jade Puget. "The credit for that goes to both the band and our fans: to us for striving not to sound like anyone else, and to our fans for embracing those changes and looking forward to the new directions each new record will take"
"It also comes from never having any other choice but to do everything ourselves," Havok adds. "We never planned or had any expectation of assistance from anyone else. And thanks to that work ethic, we were able to grow slowly and naturally so that when others gradually took an interest in what we were doing, whether it was Nitro [Records] or DreamWorks or whoever, they realized they couldn't change us even if they wanted to"
Although AFI first surfaced in 1992, on Dork, a split 7" with fellow Ukiah High School students Loose Change (featuring future AFI guitarist Jade), it wouldn't be until the band's third full-length, 1997's Shut Your Mouth And Open Your Eyes, that bassist Hunter (ex-The Force) would enlist. And it would be later still that the present AFI lineup would coalesce, with the addition of Jade (by then ex-Redemption 87) on the defining and now-classic fourth album, Black Sails In The Sunset, and the subsequent All Hallow's EP.
The latter would give AFI its first taste of exposure beyond its long-cultivated cult following when the Offspring's cover of the EP's "Totalimmortal" appeared on the Me, Myself & Irene soundtrack and, in turn, on Modern Rock playlists nationwide. A year later, "Days Of The Phoenix," from The Art Of Drowning, would do the same, albeit with the band playing its own composition this time.
"I was completely in awe then - and still am now - to hear any of our songs on the radio," says Hunter. "The fact that radio would pick up on us based solely on the quality of the music is still difficult for me to fathom, as is everything positive that's happened for us. It all seems to have come naturally from our efforts, and honestly, that's really hard for me to comprehend"
In the meantime, AFI's live draw increased exponentially, and with good reason: To witness the AFI live experience is to understand both that unique internal chemistry and the undeniable bond between band and audience that has been honed and strengthened through nearly seven years of non-stop worldwide touring. Favorites from Black Sails, The Art Of Drowning and the All Hallow's and A Fire Inside EPs typically find the band fighting to be heard over the din of the chanting crowd, every song received with a rabid enthusiasm that possesses the players, the songs and the audience alike. It's a primal, almost tribal experience, one that via word of mouth has tickets for the band's already sold-out early 2003 shows eliciting eBay bids of more than $300 a pair.
"Touring has always been the most important thing for us," says drummer Adam Carson, who co-founded the band with Havok in the early '90s. "We basically created our fan base by touring non-stop" "I've been touring since I was 19 years old," Havok continues. "We were always of the mind that if two people showed up the first time we played somewhere, we'd go back until there were 10, then 30, then hundreds or thousands. We would keep coming back until they were forced to take notice"
As regaled as their live show has been, however, the members of AFI make it clear that there was no attempt to replicate it on Sing The Sorrow. "That's a big priority for so many other bands," says Jade, "but it's never been a concern for us.
If anything, it's the other way around; at least for me, it's about creating the song in the writing and recording process, then hoping it'll translate live, rather than road-testing the new songs, then hoping we can 'capture the live vibe' in the studio" Instead, the band prioritizes making the best and most adventurous record possible time and again, this time with the more-than-able assistance of the aforementioned Finn and Vig (both of whom Jade recalls as "so cool and affable from the very beginning," explaining, "There was never any kind of 'star producer' vibe"). "I think the progression from The Art Of Drowning to the new record is similar to the leap between Shut Your Mouth and Black Sails," says Havok. "People familiar with our previous records are going to notice a marked growth. The songs are far more complex, the performances are superior, there are some ambient and electronic elements, which we've never done before, and vocally, I pushed myself to extremes I'd never achieved before, both in terms of aggression and melancholy"
"Everybody says, 'This is our best record yet!' every time they come out with something new," Jade concludes. "I know it's a total cliché, but in our case, we're always pleased with our latest record because each one is different from the previous one. The fact is, this time we had more time and put more effort into writing and recording and I believe that really translates"
“I flee to decemberunderground. As you exhale, I breathe in the water underground and I'll grow pale without you” —“The Interview,” AFI
"decemberunderground is a time and a place. It is where the cold can huddle together in darkness and isolation. It is a community of those detached and disillusioned who flee to love, like winter, in the recesses below the rest of the world."
-Davey Havok
Decemberunderground is also the title of AFI's seventh album. And like much of the record's lyrical and visual imagery, it seems to stand in stark contrast to the name behind the band's world-renowned moniker: A Fire Inside. Then again, the brightest flames burn white-they just don't usually burn so bright for so long.
The documented origins of AFI stretch back to 1991 when Ukiah, California teens Davey Havok and Adam Carson formed the band and released a debut split 7" the following year with fellow Ukiah High students Loose Change (whose lineup at the time featured future AFI guitarist Jade Puget) titled Dork (Hey, they were in high school). A handful of singles, EPs, compilation tracks and early albums Answer That And Stay Fashionable (Wingnut, 1995) and Very Proud Of Ya (Nitro, 1996) followed in that youthfully exuberant, sometime sophomoric East bay hardcore/punk mode, as early incarnations of AFI hit the road and began to cultivate a worldwide following.
The earliest hints of AFI's move in a more diverse, mature direction appeared on their third album and first to feature current bassist Hunter (ex-the Force), Shut Your Mouth And Open Your Eyes (Nitro, 1997) and the subsequent A Fire Inside EP (Adeline, 1998). It would be one more year, however, before the present AFI lineup would click with the addition of Jade Puget (ex-Redemption 87) and the release of fourth album Black Sails In The Sunset and the All Hallows EP (both Nitro, 1999). Another year later, The Art Of Drowning (Nitro, 2000) would find that AFI signature sound received by a rabid audience by then numbering in the hundreds of thousands. Yet more new AFI disciples would come into the fold as that record's "Days Of The Phoenix" somehow found its way onto modern rock radio playlists.
AFI would make the decision to brave major label waters soon thereafter, releasing sixth album Sing The Sorrow on Dreamworks in 2003. Another ambitious leap forward for the Ukiah foursome, Sing The Sorrow was co-produced by Jerry Finn (Green Day, Blink 182) and Butch Vig (Nirvana, Smashing Pumpkins), and expanded the AFI palette in all directions: "Girl's Not Grey" would be the band's single most infectious "pop" moment to date, while "Death Of Seasons" incorporated lockstep industrial rhythms and mournful choruses before dissolving into a cacophony of screaming anguish. Elsewhere on the record, "Leaving Song Part 2" and "Dancing Through Sunday" showed that the familiar AFI chant-along choruses were as fierce and frantic as ever, even if they were couched in increasingly virtuosic musicianship.
As with AFI's previous forward strides, their fans made the leap of faith with them-and then some. Sing The Sorrow sold in excess of one million copies U.S. and the bands burgeoning live draw continued to grow exponentially. Sing The Sorrow's success would also provide AFI its first truly mainstream recognition, in the form of the 2003 MTV2 Viewers Choice Award, as well as best of 2003 accolades from the NEW YORK TIMES, GUITAR WORLD, SPIN, ALTERNATIVE PRESS, REVOLVER and USA TODAY-who named "Girl's Not Grey" one of the top singles of 2003.
"I was completely in awe then and still am now," says Hunter. "It all seemed to have come naturally from our efforts and honestly that's really hard for me to comprehend."
As the members of AFI readily acknowledge, their atypical success story owes no small debt to possibly the most passionate and unlikeliest assemblage of fans to coalesce around any artist: The Despair Faction. "They're not really a fan club per se," says Jade. "The Despair Faction was conceived to be more interactive than that, to have more of a direct connection with us." As such, in addition to more conventional fan club perks such as exclusive merch and ticket pre-sales, DF members regularly attend AFI's soundchecks, where they come bearing gifts ranging from vegan baked goods for Davey and Hunter to homemade AFI merchandise, clothing, artwork and other keepsakes.
Now with the new decemberunderground, AFI invite the Despair Faction and other fans new and old (and yet to be made) to experience their most accomplished and labor-intensive work to date. The product of some two years so worth of painstaking songcraft and performance, decemberunderground finds producer Jerry Finn returning to provide an evolutionary continuity between Sing The Sorrow and the new record. With their team in place, AFI then set about the process of writing and perfecting decemberunderground.
"There's a lot more attention to detail on this record," Jade recalls. "We spent a long time writing it. We refused to rush ourselves. We took our time not just on every song but on each guitar part, each vocal, each bass line. We definitely didn't rush into the studio."
"Plus we had such a huge amount of material written," Adam adds. "Condensing that sheer volume and magnitude down an album's worth of songs was very difficult. We could have made five different records"
The fruit of this labor is a record that Davey Havok is confident "should break us out of any preconceived genres." And even on a cursory listen, the wealth and diversity of material backs him up from the first note: "Prologue: 12/21" is a rhythm/vocal-oriented curveball that differs radically from the customary calls to arms that have opened all AFI albums since Black Sails From there, decemberunderground veers from AFI's first straight-up vintage glam style shuffle on first single "Miss Murder" (complete with backing chants from the Despair Faction) to the stark and stunning soundscape of "Love Like Winter" and the epic suite "The Interview." The longtime AFI faithful need not worry, as decemberunderground features more than a fair share of familiar AFI hallmarks, from the slash and burn of "Kill Caustic" and "Affliction" to the balladic finale' "Endlessly, She Said."
Of AFI fans' reaction to the new record, Davey says, "Our fans always come with us every step of the way. I think they recognize honesty in our music, that this is the only way we can express ourselves, to make music that we love. Nothing else. That's what allowed us to make the jump way back when and what continues to keep us going now."
"Some artists fear change and their fans' reaction to it," Jade says. "A big part of our relationship with our fans is that we do change with every record. It's expected and embraced."
"That's true," Davey agrees. "Our fans would probably be devastated if we ever released a record that was too similar to the previous one."
"Whenever we start covering territory we've covered before," Adam adds, "We just get bored."
Jade condludes: "As long as you make the record you want, sales don't matter. We have our music and our fans. Everything else is subject to the whims of the marketplace."
This is what I brought you, this you can keep
This is what I brought, you may forget me
I promise to depart, just promise one thing
Kiss my eyes and lay me to sleep
This is what I brought you, this you can keep
This is what I brought, you may forget me
I promise you my heart, just promise to sing
Kiss my eyes and lay me to sleep
Kiss my eyes and lay me to sleep
This is what I thought, I thought you'd need me
This is what I thought, so think me naive
I'd promise you a heart, you'd promise to keep
Kiss my eyes and lay me to sleep
Kiss my eyes and lay me to sleep
Kiss my eyes and lay me to... sleep.
Hey Miss Murder, can I
Hey Miss Murder, can I
Make beauty stay if I
take my life?
With just a look they shook
And heavens bowed before him.
Simply a look can break your heart.
The stars that pierce the sky,
He left them all behind.
We’re left to wonder why
He left us all behind.
[Chorus]
Dreams of his crash won’t pass.
Oh, how they all adored him.
Beauty will last when spiraled down.
The stars that mystified,
he left them all behind
and how his children cried.
He left us all behind.
[Chorus]
What's the hook, the twist within this verbose mystery?
I would gladly bet my life upon it
that the ghost you love, your ray of light will fizzle out
without hope.
We're the empty set just floating through, wrapped in skin,
ever searching for what we were promised...
Reaching for that golden ring we'd never let go...
Who would ever let us put their filthy hands upon it?
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