An Extended Interview With AFI's Davey Havok

In person, AFI's Davey Havok is so charming, upbeat and funny that it surprises you that this is the guy who writes tortured lyrics like ''My whole life is a dark room.'' From his home in Oakland, California, Havok, 30, says AFI's seventh album, Decemberunderground, is about finding love -- and is aimed at ''those detached few who, in their relative abnormality, find solace in each other.'' It's the group's most eclectic disc yet, a far cry from AFI's doom-and-gloom punk-rock roots, and it mixes disparate influences, from Television to the Cure. The hot single ''Miss Murder'' even has a whiff of glam. ''I'm really happy with the whole record,'' says frontman Havok. But is he superstoked that December will be released on June 6th (6/6/06). ''I don't put too much weight in those Christian concepts,'' he says. ''Does Slayer have an album out on that day? I hope so -- it would be so right.''

You're vegan. What cities do you like to hit on tour, based on the vegan dining options?
Good question. I've got it covered. New York, absolutely. You've got Zen Palate, you've got Red Bamboo. There's a lot of vegan treats. There's a woman who makes vegan desserts in -- I want to say Pennsylvania or New Jersey, and she ships them into New York. But then, I believe she also sells them in Philly, which is great because in Philly you've got a place that sells vegan cheesecakes, all these vegan desserts. Like one year I happened to be in Philly on my birthday and everyone on tour with us surprised me with a -- check this out -- a vegan cookies-and-cream birthday cake. It was out of control. L.A. -- it's fantastic. San Francisco has my favorite vegetarian/vegan restaurant anywhere, which is Millennium. Chicago has vegan French toast, as does Portland. Seattle has vegan cinnamon buns. Salt Lake City used to have vegan soft-serve. And Vegas now has vegan donuts, which is yet another reason to go to Vegas. Then you've got Toronto and Montreal, which has Le Commensal, a vegetarian/vegan restaurant where you pay for your food by the weight. Like, you go through and they weigh your plate and charge you accordingly, which is very interesting.

Why don't you live in San Francisco?
I like San Francisco, as far as that restaurant place. But I really don't have any desire to live there at all. There's really not much going on there except inability to park. Like, if anything's going on I can just go across the Bay and enjoy it and then come back to where I live [in Berkeley]. It's funny, we grew up here in the East Bay, and we always said that San Francisco was a place where people went when they retired and got old -- retired from the scene basically. And, really, I've never gotten over that concept. Starting with that, I've never really wanted to live there. It seems like the social scene over there, is mostly going out to bars, which I don't think is much different than anywhere else in the world, but there's not really much going on other than that. And I have absolutely no interest in going out at night and sitting at a bar, especially since I have nothing to do, other than asphyxiate on smoke and watch people get wasted.

Did you get drunk once and then realize it wasn't for you?
Actually, no I've never been drunk in my life. I've never even had like a beer. It never really appealed to me. That culture was just very unappealing and I never wanted to be part of it. I just saw how people acted and treated each other. And I was just like ''that is not for me.'' And I also thought of it as something very civilian. It seemed like the mandatory recreation for civilians. I thought, ''If alcohol makes you do this, I want no part. I want nothing in common with these people.'' That's when I was fifteen.

Let's go back to being a kid. When did you start singing?
Technically, I started singing when I was maybe like five years old. My grandfather used to sing to me. And my mom was very musical. I remember going to see my mom in a local musical in New York where we lived, and I was probably like four or five years old.

What musical was it?
Oh man, I think it was a local children's production. All I remember is a song that she sang with a group that was called ''It's All Okay.'' That might have been the name of the play to tell you the truth. But I was surrounded musically. And I just used to sing songs that my grandfather had taught me. And then, at a young age, I was probably doing local musical theatre. I think I did Oliver Twist in fourth grade -- in fact, I don't think, I know I did Oliver Twist in fourth grade. I did theater throughout my childhood and throughout high school. And there was a pretty good time where I was doing AFI and musical theatre in high school.

What was your grandfather singing to you?
''Darktown Strutters' Ball,'' ''Mr. Moon,'' ''Ballin' Jack.'' We're talking very old songs. So I learned those and I would just sing those along with him. Then I would listen to my mom's 12-inch records. I'd jump up and down on the bed and listen to Diana Ross and Michael Jackson's Off the Wall. And then she had The Rocky Horror Picture Show on vinyl, which I was fascinated with at a very young age. Somewhere around there I got my first tape player, and then I went out and bought my first tapes, which were Duran Duran, Devo, Men at Work and Journey.

Why'd you get those?
We didn't even have MTV where we lived, but I knew Duran Duran and Culture Club and, I think, Devo came from seeing the videos somehow. Or I knew the songs from the radio. I don't know why I bought Journey, to tell you the truth. It was 1980-whatever and Journey was everywhere. So I was like, ''Well, I need a Journey record.'' I didn't even know what I was buying, but I got it.

You were talking about doing musical theatre. Were you like the star of the show at that point?
Not when I started. When I first auditioned for Oliver I was just one of Fagan's boys, but I think the director didn't know what was going on. [Laughs] Later, yeah. I mean, we're talking local theatre, so I don't think ''star'' is the appropriate word. Lead role possibly, but definitely not star. I was the lead role in my last musical that I did in high school, which is Pippin. I was Pippin.

Nice. Do you think your interest in musical theatre has to do with the make-up that you wear now?
I would imagine that it has something to do with it. I definitely had a propensity for that for years, since a young age. And I think musical theatre helped with that. I remember being in high school, and it helping as an excuse with the more threatening students when they'd say: ''Dude, are you wearing make-up? Oh, you're in a play, right?'' ''Yeah, it's just from the play, I'm not gay.'' [They laugh] ''Yeah, I'm in a play.'' ''Oh, okay.'' And it's funny, because the same girls who thought it was totally freakish that there were guys wearing make-up, when you're wearing it because it's left over from the play the night before, it turned into, ''Oh wow, you look really pretty!''

Do you remember the first time when you heard yourself on the radio?
I do. I absolutely remember it. Well, I remember it the first time I heard it on mainstream radio. I was in my car with my friend Tigerlily, who used to help me hang flyers for our shows, and she used to do a fan 'zine. My car had one speaker that worked, which was on the passenger side. The driver side speaker was broken. The tape player was broken; there certainly weren't any CDs in it.

What kind of car was it?
It was a 1982 Honda Accord. And this was 1995. And the little button that you press for FM and AM was broken. So, you had to shove a toothpick in it to make it go to FM. All I could listen to was the radio. And so we were listening to Live 105 and the song came on. It just fuzzed out of the blown-out speakers. Before I could make out what was going on, I turned to Lily and I said, ''This doesn't sound like it sucks?'' And she's like, ''Yeah.'' And then I'm like, ''What is this?'' And I turn it up, and I'm like, ''Oh my God.'' So, I was really excited and I also really embarrassed that I was saying that we didn't suck. It was really like, ''Oh my God, I can't believe this is our band!'' And she couldn't believe it either because radio stations definitely didn't play anything like that at the time. Ever since then they've been -- that radio station, Live 105 -- has actually supported us, which is really exciting for us.

Cool, what song was it?
It was ''Don't Make Me Ill'' off of Answer That and Stay Fashionable.

Wow.
That's only the most really accessible song on that record, if you can say there was one at all.

What are your favorite, or the funniest uses of the AFI acronym?
Oh, I really like, Aw, Fuck It. On a couple occasions people will maintain that it stands for something like, A Fire Within, or A Forgotten Song, something like that where they totally ignore the letter of the acronym. Those are always really good. It's always good to hear the really sort of uninformed, base, derogatory definitions aimed at the band. It's always good to hear the new improved versions, like A Fag Inside. It's always good to see what they come up with. I kind of enjoy those just to see how those people's minds work; it's kind of interesting.

Is there a kind of music that annoys the shit out of you?