AFI (A Fire
Inside) is an American rock band
from Ukiah
, California
, formed in 1991. They have consisted of the
same lineup since 1998, lead vocalist
Davey
Havok, drummer and backup vocalist
Adam
Carson, with bassist
Hunter Burgan
and guitarist
Jade Puget, who both play
keyboard and contribute backup vocals..
AFI has released eight
studio albums
over 18 years as a band, the first being
Answer That and Stay
Fashionable in 1995. The band then went on to release
Very Proud of Ya the next
year, followed up by a third in three years,
Shut Your Mouth and Open Your
Eyes. Over the years, AFI has changed its style from the
earlier days of
hardcore punk, to the
horror punk-influenced sound of 1999's
Black Sails in the
Sunset and 2000's
The
Art of Drowning. It wasn't until this, the band's fifth
album, that the band first featured on the charts, as
The Art of Drowning peaked at #172
on the
Billboard 200.
The band had its first major success 12 years after it formed, in
2003, with
Sing the Sorrow
reaching #5 on the
Billboard 200. The
album was supported by singles "
Girl's
Not Grey" and "
The Leaving
Song, Pt. II", both
featured in the top 20 of America's
Hot Modern Rock Tracks chart in 2003.
It went onto receive
Platinum
certification with over one million units sold in the US.
The band returned in 2006 with
Decemberunderground, which featured
the hit single "
Miss Murder". Both
achieved #1 in their respective charts, the
Billboard 200 and
Hot Modern Rock Tracks. The album
also featured "
Love Like Winter",
which attained #4 on the Modern Rock charts. It reached as far as
Australia, where it grasped Gold certification, and also achieved
this in the United States, where it has sold in excess of 900,000
copies. AFI's eighth studio album is titled
Crash Love and was released on September 29,
2009.
History
Early years (1991–1998)
While still in high school in Ukiah, California,
Davey Havok (vocals),
Mark Stopholese (guitar) and
Vic Chalker (bass) formed an outfit called AFI
in 1991. AFI has been said to be abbreviated from the full title A
Fire Inside. However, band members have stated that the name was
formerly from the titles Asking for It and Anthems for
Insubordinates. At the time, the band did not know how to play any
instruments. Stopholese suggested his friend
Adam Carson, who had a drum kit join the band.
Stopholese learned guitar and Chalker learned
bass, but Chalker was soon replaced by
Geoff Kresge and AFI made its first EP in
recording
Dork (1991) with the
now defunct
Loose Change, which
included future AFI guitarist
Jade
Puget.
AFI
disbanded when its members attended different colleges, including
UC Berkeley
where members of the band lived and practiced for a
time in the basement of the Delta Chi
fraternity house on Channing Way. Kresge moved to
New
York
where he played with Blanks
77. After reuniting to perform a live show, the other
members decided to drop out of college to play full-time with AFI.
Between 1993 and 1995 the band released several vinyl EPs
(
Behind the Times; Eddie Picnic's All Wet; This Is Berkeley, Not West
Bay; AFI/Heckle; Bombing the Bay; Fly in the Ointment;)
independently. Their first full-length,
Answer That and Stay
Fashionable was released in 1995 on Wingnut Records. In
1996, AFI then released their second album,
Very Proud of Ya, on
Nitro Records. The songs "Cruise Control" and
"Love Is a Many Splendored Thing" from
Very Proud of Ya
were used in the 1996 independent film
Mary Jane's Not a Virgin
Anymore, which was first screened in 1997 and also featured
Havok in a small role.
After several tours in support of the album
Very Proud of
Ya, Kresge decided to leave the group. His spot was filled by
Hunter Burgan for the remaining
Very Proud of Ya tour dates. Burgan went on to help AFI
record
Shut Your
Mouth and Open Your Eyes (1997) and was invited to become
the full-time bassist. Future AFI guitarist Jade Puget also
provided background vocals on
Shut Your Mouth and Open Your
Eyes, making it the first album to feature all four current
members of the band.
Black Sails and Art of Drowning
(1999–2002)
After recording the
A Fire Inside
EP (1998), Stopholese left the band and was replaced by
Jade Puget, vocalist Havok's close
friend. Following the
A Fire Inside EP, the band recorded
Black Sails in the
Sunset (1999), a musical turning point which introduced
AFI fans to a much darker sound. On this album, the band's original
hardcore roots were still the base of their sound, but with Dark
Romantic influences (a poem by
Charles Baudelaire, "De profundis
clamavi," is present in the hidden track "Midnight Sun") and
emphasize on somber atmosphere and lyrics. The influence of the
Deathrock &
Goth
rock scenes was also apparent. During this period their style
was mostly referred to as
Horror Punk or
described as "Gothic punk".
The
All Hallows EP (1999)
spawned the single "
Totalimmortal," a
track later covered by
The Offspring
for the
Me, Myself and
Irene soundtrack. It received a fair amount of radio play
and exposed AFI to larger audiences. Offspring frontman
Dexter Holland was featured as a backing
vocalist on a number of
Black Sails tracks.
The Boy
Who Destroyed The World from the
All Hallows EP was
featured in the
Tony Hawk's
Pro Skater 3 video game.
In 2000, AFI released
The Art of
Drowning, which debuted on the Billboard Charts at number
174. "
The Days of the
Phoenix" was released as a single and video in order to promote
the album. "The Days of the Phoenix", like "Totalimmortal", had
some moderate mainstream success, garnering the band both TV and
radio airplay.
Mainstream success, Sing the Sorrow and
Decemberunderground (2003–2007)
In 2002, AFI left
Nitro Records and
released
Sing the Sorrow
(2003) on
DreamWorks Records. The
songs "
Girl's Not Grey", "
The Leaving Song Pt. II", and "
Silver and Cold" had some Billboard chart
success and exposed the band to even larger audiences. The band was
nominated in the
MTV Video Music
Awards 2003 in the
MTV2 award category for
the video "
Girl's Not Grey", which
came to be the first VMA they won.
In June 2006, AFI's seventh studio album,
Decemberunderground, was released
on
Interscope Records. The
album's first single "
Miss Murder"
reached #1 on the Billboard Modern Rock Charts. The release
reflects the continually changing and growing fan base of the band,
and the album debuted as No. 1 on the
Billboard charts. The album has been
certified Gold by the RIAA for sales of over 500,000 copies of the
album. Also, the band's second single, "
Love Like Winter", enjoyed tremendous
success on
MTV's
Total Request Live and was retired after
40 days on the countdown.
On
December 12, 2006, AFI released their first DVD I Heard a Voice, featuring a live
performance shot in Long Beach
, California.
On January 20, 2007, AFI played "
Miss
Murder" and "
Love Like Winter"
on
Saturday Night Live.
Although the band performed "Love Like Winter" according to plan,
technical difficulties occurred during their set of "Miss Murder",
in which Davey's microphone went out during various parts of the
song.
Though "
The Missing Frame" was
originally supposed to be the third single off
Decemberunderground, Davey Havok confirmed in the "Ask
AFI" section of the Despair Faction message boards that there will
not be a video for the song. Havok also confirmed on the same
boards that there would be no summer tour that year. Puget began
writing some material for the next album.
On July 7, 2007 AFI performed at the
American leg of
Live Earth. They performed "The Missing Frame",
"Love Like Winter", "Miss Murder" and a cover of
David Bowie's "
Ziggy Stardust".
AFI released a live album called
I
Heard a Voice from Long Beach Arena. This was released on
iTunes on November 13, 2007. It features all the songs from the
2006 DVD
I Heard a Voice,
including notable hits from past AFI records such as: "
Miss Murder", "
Girl's
Not Grey" "
The Leaving
Song, Pt. II", and
"
The Days of the
Phoenix."
Untitled EP, Begin Transmission and Crash Love
(2007–present)
"
Carcinogen Crush" was made
available as a downloadable song exclusively for the Xbox 360
version of
Guitar Hero III by
obtaining a code from purchasing the official soundtrack of the
game.. The song was later released as a digital single on December
4, 2007.
A new EP was set for a December release, however, Havok announced
through the Despair Faction forums, that it would not be available
until early 2008. It will contain previously unreleased songs from
the
Decemberunderground and
Sing the Sorrow
sessions. Adam later announced more details regarding the EP,
saying that some of the songs will be new and never before heard,
some fans may have heard (like "Carcinogen Crush"), and some fans
may know about but never have heard before. He also said that a
release date will be announced soon.
In December 2008, the band released a video through
YouTube revealing a contest for the upcoming album.
It invites fans to make videos of themselves, lasting 2 minutes or
less, telling the band who they are, what they do, where they live,
what their friends are like, what inspires them, etc. The fans who
win will meet the band and sing on the new album. The band promises
to watch every single video and state that they want to know who is
out there and who their fans are. Lead singer
Davey Havok posted a video on December 19
thanking the fans for the support so far and said he had watched
every video up to that point (which was about 43 videos at the
time). The contest ended on
January 5, and
fans have been given the ability to score many of the videos
themselves. Five winners chosen by AFI and the community winner
have been selected so far.
In late February it was confirmed via press release that AFI's
eighth studio album would be titled
Crash
Love and that they would be embarking on a summer tour in
support of it. In July 2009, Havok released a statement saying that
after two years of writing and recording, the upcoming album would
be released on September 29, 2009. It was recorded with producer
David Bottrill (who was later dimissed in favor of Joe McGrath and
Jacknife Lee). AFI previewed Crash Love
on their
MySpace page for two days starting
September 22, 2009, seven days ahead of the official album
release.
In the band's last update, it was announced that their
planned-since-2007 untitled EP would be released after
Crash Love, but it was recently announced
that due to legal issues, the EP will not be released. The songs
that were to be on the EP are to be distributed on various versions
of
Crash Love.
Band members
- Current
- Davey Havok – lead vocals (since
1991)
- Jade Puget – guitars, keyboards,
programming, backing vocals (since 1998)
- Hunter Burgan – bass, keyboards,
programming, backing vocals (since 1997)
- Adam Carson – drums, percussion,
backing vocals (since 1991)
- Former
Discography
- Studio albums
References
- [1]
- [2]
- [3]
- More Havok : Rolling Stone
- AFI |
Official Site
- AFI: Decemberunderground : Music Reviews : Rolling
Stone
- AFI's Billboard Album Chart History
- AFI's Billboard Singles Chart History
- FMQB: Radio Industry News, Music Industry Updates,
Arbitron Ratings, Music News and more!
- The Official AFI & DF Message Board
- The Official AFI & DF Message Board
-
http://media.www.californiaaggie.com/media/storage/paper981/news/2007/02/28/ArtsEntertainment/Afi-To.Play.Freeborn.Hall.On.Thursday-2747867-page2.shtml
- http://board.afispace.com/index.php?showtopic=13984
- AFI News: CRASH LOVE ALBUM PREMIERE, official band
website, accessed September 22, 2009
-
http://shyboyswin.blogspot.com/2008/09/ok-so-in-effort-to-be-socially-and.html
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