ShockHound

Interview by Nadine Cheung

It’s been over three years since AFI’s last album, Decemberunderground, and fans have eagerly been awaiting new material from the lauded Bay Area band. Of course, Blaqk Audio  — AFI frontman Davey Havok and guitarist Jade Puget’s electronic side project — helped fill the gap with 2007’s CexCells, but a proper album from AFI has felt long overdue. Now the band is back with their eighth studio full-length a benchmark that many artists never reach.
    On Crash Love, AFI return to their rock roots, shedding the electronic elements of Decemberunderground. Lyrically, Havok explores our society’s “great attraction to inappropriately shared intimacies” on a record he refers to as one of the “least introspective” albums he’s ever written.
    ShockHound caught up with Havok during a rare 10-day break at home in Oakland, CA, to find out about the meaning behind Crash Love, the polarization of AFI and Blaqk Audio, and how their music has not only transcended age, but also withstood the test of time. As the band celebrates nearly two decades together, Havok, Puget, drummer Adam Carson and bassist Hunter Burgan remain as humble about their success as ever. “Really, every step of the way has been a pleasant surprise,” Havok says.

SHOCKHOUND: What does Crash Love refer to?

DAVEY HAVOK: Crash Love refers to many of the themes that run through the record, and some of the themes that it speaks of can be drawn from the title, if you take the word “crash” and you look at it in different ways. If you take the word “crash” and you look at it as a command, it speaks to one of the themes of wanting that which you adore or love to be taken apart, to be destroyed. If you look at the word “crash” as an adjective, as a modifier to the word “love,” it becomes a type of love, and in that respect I feel it’s speaking of the affinity to or for relationships, people, experiences, situations that are destructive. Those are the views that really run through the record and tie the record together, and thus Crash Love is the title.

SHOCKHOUND: Your lyrics on this album have a lot to do with the Internet, social networking and the desire to know every little detail about certain people. Do you feel conflicted about that at all, considering that digital media is such an important part of promoting and marketing music these days?

HAVOK: No, not very much at all. I don’t think the spread of music is a negative thing at all, with media used as a means to proliferate art and to extend art to many people. That is not the problem. I think the problem is that what is presented as art sometimes is not. What is presented as something positive is sometimes not. What is presented as something of substance is in fact hollow and presented in a way to really be revered and consumed, and that experience is happening quite often. So those are two different circumstances.

SHOCKHOUND: Do you partake in social networking?

HAVOK: No. Definitely not. [Laughs.] In no way. There’s zero appeal for me.

SHOCKHOUND: Did anything in your personal life happen since Decemberunderground to inspire the songs on Crash Love?

HAVOK: Not so much. I mean, certainly my perspective is personal since I wrote the songs, and in the end it does come from my perspective, but there are a lot of different viewpoints that are touched upon on this record. It actually is the least introspective album, I would say, that I’ve written lyrically in a while. Certainly my perspective does come from my experiences, and what I wrote about on this record I wrote about because I thought it was poignant…I really felt that what was going on culturally should be talked about. People should, if they are interested, at least try to become aware of what’s going on. At least, I have become aware of what’s going on and thus I’m writing about it. [Laughs.] That’s kind of how it works for me. Whatever I write about at the time, is what I feel is important to me and what is impacting me the most. The culture crash that’s happening around us right now has impacted me very much. Not so much in a one-on-one personal interaction way, but on a greater scale.



SHOCKHOUND: You guys really pulled back on the electronic effects this time around. Was that a conscious decision?

HAVOK: It really wasn’t conscious; it was something that naturally happened. When we finished [touring] Decemberunderground, Jade and I went and toured on CexCells, the Blaqk Audio record we released shortly after Decemberunderground. We had been writing and recording and touring on an electronica record and were really immersed in electronica, which is something we love and still love. However, once we sat down and started playing rock after having that bit of respite from it, it was really inspiring to be playing rock again. I think our time with Blaqk Audio just polarized what we did with the two bands and naturally pushed us in a rock direction without actually saying, “Okay, we’re going pull a huge amount of electronics out of the record.” It was more, “Wow, this is really exciting to play rock.” It’s really inspirational to be working with guitar and drums and bass on that stripped-down level.

SHOCKHOUND: It’s great that you have this other outlet in which to pursue your love of electronica.

HAVOK: Yeah, it’s great. We love it, and the thing is, we did make it a point to make Blaqk Audio purely an electronic group with absolutely no acoustic instruments, so I guess thereby it’s not so strange that AFI moved in the other direction.

SHOCKHOUND: Are we going to see a new Blaqk Audio record anytime soon?

HAVOK: Yeah, I hope so. We have one done — we have for a long time. It’s a shame — it’s very political with half of AFI being in Blaqk Audio, not in respect to the members of AFI, but really in respect to the record label and the organizations that work both groups. So we can’t really put it out yet, but after Crash Love has been out for a while, there will be a new Blaqk Audio album waiting to come out.

SHOCKHOUND: Can you tell us what it’s called?

HAVOK: No, I’m sorry. [Laughs.] It does have a name though! Which is unlike us to agree upon a name so immediately. I mean, the record is done, but usually if there were an AFI record that was done we wouldn’t have agreed upon a name until, you know, weeks before its street date.

SHOCKHOUND: This is your eighth studio album with AFI. Did you always know your band would enjoy the longevity it’s had?

HAVOK: No, absolutely not. [Laughs.] Certainly it was something that I started to hope for quite a few years ago; but when we started a band, I very much remember recording and releasing our first 7-inch, which was something like 207 copies, and thinking, “This is fantastic! We’ve put out a 7-inch. There’s going to be a record of this band’s existence.” I thought that was just going to be it. Then we broke up for six months during the fall and winter of 1993, but were encouraged to have a reunion show at the Phoenix Theater in Petaluma, CA, which is a small place we used to play.
    It’s really strange that we were encouraged to do so, because no one cared about us before we broke up. But the kids in the scene up there ran into me at a show and said, “You guys need to play a reunion show.” I asked him why, because no one cared. He said, “No, after you guys broke up, people started really getting into you!” It was mind-blowing because there wasn’t really anybody who really knew who we were, but we played this reunion show and it was fantastic. It was the first time we experienced playing and having a group of kids singing along. There were maybe 100 people there, maybe 150, but it seemed like 10,000 people as far as we were concerned. It was that night that we decided that we were going to get the band back together and we were going to do this for the rest of our lives.  But to really have gone as far as we have was something that we never really expected.

SHOCKHOUND: Much of your fanbase has grown up with you over the years. Do you think there’s an element about Crash Love that will attract or be attractive to younger listeners?

HAVOK: I really hope so. I think what attracts our listeners really transcends any age. When people ask me why it is that we have such dedicated fans and what it is that touches people, I can’t say for sure, but I guess people react — either on a conscious level or a subconscious level — to the honesty in our music. What we do and what we create really comes from the heart, at the risk of sounding trite, and we love what we do. Everything we put into our music, we do so with passion. I think, if you listen to the records, that comes out. Whether it’s lyrically or melodically or just a visceral reaction to what we do, I think it can appeal to people in really any age group.

SHOCKHOUND: What are your upcoming touring plans?

HAVOK: We will be touring on Crash Love for at least a year. We’ll be touring North America throughout the winter, and at the end of December, that will include Canada. We’ll be going to Australia in February, and hopefully we’ll hit Mexico somewhere in there, and do another large North America tour in the spring/summer. We’ll just keep going as long as people care — and then when they stop caring, we’re going to release a Blaqk Audio record!

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