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Press the pearlescent insides of a conch shell to your ear, they say you’ll hear the ocean. Music, it turns out, is often like those hollowed husks of sea snails — beckoning you back to its home. AFI make this kind of music — 12 albums deep, frontman Davey Havok tells me, you can still hear the East Bay in their sound. And on their forthcoming project, Silver Bleeds The Black Sun…, it’s in the marrow of each note’s very bones.
Though you’ll hear the waves, a conch still can’t transport a curious ear back to its nascent time — you won’t hear the drifting of sea-born larvae. In the same vein, AFI can’t take us back. Not directly. Silver Bleeds The Black Sun… isn’t a referential rolodex of AFI’s earlier years. It is neither a bump of hardcore nostalgia a la Answer That and Stay Fashionable, nor is it here to whet the palate of those salivating for another Sing the Sorrow. One thing will always remain true — whether we’re unpacking an AFI project from ’95 or 2021 — expectations will be planned resentments. Where it does connect the band’s many chapters, however, is in its intentionality, its ability to communicate “otherness,” and how honestly it speaks for, and of, the artists behind the music. AFI have poured themselves into this new project, and along with that comes their past, their present, and the years of growth in between.
Read more: “I’ve always thought of us as underdogs”: the oral history of Coheed And Cambria
Havok, who now resides in Los Angeles, and his band members, Adam Carson, Jade Puget, and Hunter Burgan, haven’t all stayed in the Bay Area, but the city where they cut their teeth holds as much weight today, if not more, than it has since their days hopping onstage with Rancid in Berkeley. From basements and garages in Ukiah, California, Carson and Havok — followed by Puget and Burgan, who would bolster the lineup shortly after the band broke into the East Bay scene — found refuge in the unique creative community burgeoning around the fabled 924 Gilman Street. Entirely volunteer-run, defying convention, the legendary punk space was a petri dish for art, music, and radical thought that drew in outsiders like Operation Ivy and Sweet Children — later known as Green Day — in the late ’80s and ’90s. It was a passionate, ceremonial tangle of punk expression that uplifted and grew young, misfit artists, purified by its community-run structure — spaces Havok calls “sanctuaries.” Unified in an effort to stay afloat as much as to create and consume art, the audience, artist, and venue were one and the same. According to Saint Francis, one has to understand to be understood, to give to receive.
Mourning the loss of these sanctuaries has been a lengthy process for Havok and AFI, and the themes of isolation and alienation that permeate their catalog reflect as such. Though Gilman Street is still up and running, with the times, the internet, and new ownership, things have obviously changed. After departing that incubatory scene in their early days, AFI became a self-contained unit, the foursome sticking together through sonic shifts, social shifts, label changes, and the peaks and valleys of mainstream success around their 2003 album, Sing the Sorrow. In many ways, that’s what’s kept it all together. Like the freestanding world of Gilman Street, these four musicians had to find a way to drown out the noise and behests of the world to understand themselves, their art, and the relationship between the two. In order to survive, AFI had to be their sanctuary.
On Silver Bleeds the Black Sun… AFI lament the loss of said sanctuaries, a throughline Havok describes as “a struggle to reconcile existence in a godless dystopia that lacks sanctuary, mystique, reason, and a chance of survival.” And across 10 intricate songs, he and his bandmates do so against an appropriately massive, otherworldly backdrop that confronts the stark and painful reality of modern life in the eye, while being paradoxically transportive and cathartic.
While self-assuredly charting new territory, like the sonic cartographers that they are, Silver Bleeds The Black Sun… sees the band also drawing on where they began, pulling in the references that have long since been inherently infused in the band’s DNA. With post-punk progenitors like Sisters of Mercy, Bauhaus, and Echo and the Bunnymen on the table as initial inspiration, the deeply atmospheric album immediately sets itself apart from AFI’s last release, Bodies, shedding its cold, stripped-down skin for a lush, fuller-bodied experience with AFI’s twisted new-wave soundscape. Blending post-punk and death rock, the band lean into dramatism, building an anarcho-punk dream-state, layering distortion-heavy bass and dark, sultry synths with Havok’s almost operatic vocals — which traverse the lowest notes he’s sung in his 30-plus-year career as heady, while poetic lyrics tumble out, brooding over Baudelaire’s toxic relationship, running the Lynchian gamut, and lamenting the many things the world is dastardly void of.
Sitting across from me in Los Angeles, Havok and I discuss origins — those of the album, of himself as an artist, and his love of — or need for — art. We unravel what AFI have lost, and gained, over three decades as a band. I hear of his connection with the characters of Mulholland Drive, with Bugs Bunny dressed in women’s clothing for the first time, and the Ramones.
As a band who album to album does something different and surprising… How do you continue to surprise?
DAVEY HAVOK: That comes from our need to be surprising to ourselves. I definitely in the writing process need to feel that we’re doing something, and I’ve spoken about this in interviews for a long time. In order to be inspired by what we’re creating and to continue to connect with it in the writing process, it’s long been those moments that we haven’t touched on before that really excite us, that really push us forward. This being our 12th full-length, and in the light of so many other releases as well, honestly, again, speaking for myself — it was somewhat of a daunting task. Personally, I love Bodies. I was so, so happy with what Bodies became. Afterward, for the first time in the history of writing in the context of AFI, I became a little bit daunted personally at the prospect of writing new music. Because we’ve done so much musically in the context of AFI, the question was, “OK, how are we going to progress from here? What are we going to do next that we haven’t done? What could that possibly be, while working within the confines of something that we would enjoy doing?” Of course, there are countless genres of music we haven’t touched on, but the question was, “Which of those would be exciting or interesting?”
What really defined this process and really defined the album in the process was a conversation which we’ve rarely had over the years, if ever. Definitely in modern times, the writing process was sitting down and writing, and whatever came out of us that was exciting, we would gravitate toward, and that would direct us toward an album. I knew that could result in exciting songs. But personally, I felt that as far as being inspired and creating something that is fresh for us, limitation might actually help us — or at least help me — which was something that we really hadn’t had for a long time. I was thinking about this in a technology regard as well as an emotional aspect. I realized that in the beginning [of AFI], we were confined by our lack of resources, and then resources opened up to us and opened up the possibilities. Then you get things like Art of Drowning and Sing the Sorrow and Decemberunderground and records that we never could have made before, because we just did not have the resources to do that. We didn’t have the time. We didn’t have the technology. We didn’t have the instrumentation. We did not have any of that. That opened things up. But as money went away, simultaneously, it became very possible for us to write as much as we want with the vast amount of technology that our generation didn’t have at the beginning. Without the finances, things opened up in an even larger way.
Back to your question, I guess I can limit it to this. We had meetings, and we talked about creating a record with a singular mood, which is something that we’ve never articulated before. If you look at the AFI records from the past, you can find records with a singular mood, but that mood is angst, or aggression, which is adjacent to angst. There they were without a conversation. But as we grew and we got out of simply aggressive music, we left that. Upon leaving that, our records had all sorts of different moods within them. And I thought, if we had a conversation about creating a record with one mood, it could result in something like Silver Bleeds the Black Sun…, which it did. So the writing process, I guess this is very loquacious, was very different in that we were very clear about where we wanted to stay, and it did grow, and it did weave from the initial conversation into what we have now. It is not truly a singular mood, the entire record, but it’s close to it. It’s closer to it, I feel, than any of our more recent records.
There’s a lot to think about there. Firstly, it’s interesting because you say this is the first album with a singular mood, and I’m thinking about those albums [Art of Drowning, Sing the Sorrow, and Decemberunderground], and immediately I’m like, “No, AFI is all about singular moods!” But then I hear you articulate it as anger and angst, and it makes sense. I think of this therapy concept, “the tip of the iceberg.” The idea is we can see anger above the water, but underneath the surface, there’s a multitude of complex feelings it’s been masking.
Correct. So as a puerile child, we were at the tip of the iceberg. There’s been a lot of growth, and we went deeper and deeper into this world. There’s been a lot of growth for a long time — you can’t help it. Well, one would hope.
When you say mood, too, there’s the more literal definition of emotional state. But in terms of having a conversation about an album and its sonic landscape, how would you define mood?
It’s wonderful that you would say that because when I was presenting this concept and the band was talking about it, I meant to say “moody,” a record that is exclusively moody. And I said mood. I gave references, different bands, records, songs, and we started there — and it went somewhere else pretty quickly, but somewhere adjacent. To be clear, the first conversations in the meeting were [about] Pornography, Heaven Up Here, Swamp Thing. I think Red Lorry was addressed and the Creatures. As we began, it almost immediately turned from there to something more tense, something slightly more aggressive. Ironically. Or maybe not ironically. It’s not an aggressive record, but there’s some aggressive themes.
It brings up something noteworthy, though — the question of, if you’re a band or an artist and every piece of work is really different, then what’s the through line? One could say you’re coming back to aggression, but are you, if you’re coming back to it in a different place in your life? You’re coming back to it against a different backdrop. My other question is, how do you get four people on the same page, in a singular mood — musicians, at that…?
Yeah, intense. But it wasn’t [hard], which was great, and made the writing process so prolific, as it has been in the past. We always write far more songs than one ever hears on the record. And that was the case this time, but because there was communication about it, there was an explicit agreement on which way to go, and in the case of us, we all come from the same place. If we can use the term “punk” in any of its fundamental definitions, that’s where we all come from. Thereby, we have a lot of the same influences. We are all fans of music. So when having that conversation, none of it was difficult to agree upon. It was just a suggestion that we thought we’d try, and it was immediately clear that it was artistically successful once we started writing, because songs were just pouring out. Jade would come with gorgeous musical ideas, just perfect as he always does. It was just so fun, which is wild — coming from a place of, “How are we going to do something exciting for us?” [Silver Bleeds the Black Sun…] was immediately exciting. “Behind the Clock,” which I’m pretty certain is my favorite AFI song, is one of the songs that we wrote maybe day two, day four, over a 10-month writing period. I remember when we wrote that, immediately thinking, “OK, this is it. Here we go.” Then from there, I thought, honestly, because “Behind the Clock” came so early on, that it would all be “Behind the Clock” — and it’s not. So that’s an example of it not really being one mood, but adjacent moods.
As punks who came from hardcore initially, I’m curious, also as a big fan of post-punk and darkwave, what do those kinds of music do for you?
That is punk to us. So fundamentally, it has the same messages, and it has some of the same messages hardcore and post-punk deal with alienation in different ways. Finding the dark and beautiful compelling, post-punk has thereby always been compelling, if we’re going to use genres — because it is in fact dark and beautiful. So the poetry and the connection and the beauty that’s involved in that, but [it] has long spoken to me since I was very young. In fact, I was a Cure fan before I found hardcore. I’m not that old. So I wasn’t there for any of that. I wasn’t there for the second wave, and I wasn’t even really there for the third wave. I started going to punk shows in the early ’90s. But there’s an emotional connection in that attraction to crooked beauty.
I also think that it’s “space,” right? If we’re avoiding genre, talking about genre, whatever…
We must, I suppose.
For me, it’s always been a melancholic narrative that you can also dance to, which is something I’m always drawn to. It’s cathartic. And I mean, I’ve always found that in your music as well. I think that also has so much to do with how tapped into a mood it has always been.
Absolutely. Well, there’s all sorts of moods. Your mood affects everything. The music that we love the most releases endorphins in our body, and for certain reasons, certain people, different music will or won’t. That has to do with our childhood most certainly. Doesn’t it all?
Oof. I’d love to talk about your vocals on the new album. They are really special here.
Thank you. [The vocals] were part of that conversation when we were writing and working to do something unique within the general frame that we had created for ourselves — which broke and cracked, but then reformed and stayed in a similar world.
A lot of it was a response to the sound, but the sound was something that we had already curated, if only intellectually, that would push toward the vocal that you’re going to hear. On this record, that baritone is traditionally not something that you hear very frequently in the frame of AFI. I definitely hit the lowest notes I’ve ever hit in AFI on this record, if not the lowest notes I’ve ever hit on a recording. Most certainly, that was part of the directive, at least internally for me. In analyzing my writing of the past to an extent, which is something I would never have done otherwise, I looked at, “What is it that I do… What is it that I don’t do?”
Repetition. Doing the cover band and listening to Ramones songs in different ways than I had in the past, actively listening to them to rehearse them, I was even more impressed with the Ramones — and repetition. It was very impressive to me that the Ramones were able to create such music with such repetition, which I would argue is profound. Repetition is something that I lyrically don’t traditionally do and melodically don’t traditionally do. So there was a conscious effort from me to try to repeat [on Silver Bleeds the Black Sun…]. There was an attempt to create more space, which is something where, again, historically I’m trying to fill every bit of space with some sort of fucking vocal. I wanted to try to leave out some. That was something that was actually consciously attempted, and I believe achieved — as well as elements of spoken word, Sprechgesang if not spoken word, both of those. So again, there was a consciousness to it that really distinguished the writing process from the past and a pointedness to it and a directive. That’s where the sound, the very distinctive sound of this record, came from. Vocally, it’s quite different, and it’s very much in my vocal strength, which is really exciting for me. When a song sits where I am able to sing it best, it also makes me deliver it better — and the sentiment.
I’ll say, listening to it the first time, it wasn’t what I was expecting.
What did you expect, if I may? I don’t mean to corner you.
Not at all. So, what I had as a reference was the word “post-punk.” And Bodies, [the last album], which I loved. But I’ve learned at this point, having been listening to you for what feels like my whole life, is that I can’t go in with expectations. I know nothing.
Thank you. That’s what I would presume for someone who has listened to us their whole life. And I am curious about that because I would presume that, and I always do, and this has been proven on many occasions, that AFI fans who are fans of the music and not fans for just one period of time, don’t know what to expect every time.
Also, I guess another reference as to what you’re up to — I read your Substack.
You read my Substack?!
I love your Substack. First of all, you’re such a good writer — and the way you write even in that context, it’s very theatrical… I don’t know how to articulate it exactly, but it’s similar to what you said about “leaving space.” Like your writing, the vocal delivery on this album feels similarly dramatic, theatrical. At times, it sounds like you’re delivering lines of a monologue or soliloquy. It’s really interesting, and very poetic.
With the space, it frames the sentiment more, the written, the language, the lyric.
Everything is very intentional — and that’s what I see as a major through line with AFI. Intentionality.
That’s a part of this, even more so than before, as a whole. Certainly everything we do is intentional. Thank you. I wouldn’t want to say that we were just fast and loose with writing the records before. Every song that we work on, we’re very focused on it, but the threads were woven more delicately this time.
Lyrically, I’m also curious what went into that. There are a lot of interesting references. You have some Lynchian references, there’s Jeanne Duval…
There’s a lot on “Behind the Clock.” The Lynch reference is very clear. Actually, I had a very poignant moment personally in my life — I recognized parallels in my life trajectory with multiple Lynch characters, which I couldn’t have recognized in my lifespan, as I’ve been a Lynch fan since I was very young. It really made me contemplate the question of, as one of the poetic greats said, “Who made who?” That’s AC/DC — by the way, my first record was Back in Black. But it is a classic question: “Is the art a mirror? Does the art connect to me because I’m fundamentally these human beings?” It’s not terribly flattering in the case of these Lynch characters. [Laughs.] How did this happen? So getting inspiration from film, yes, absolutely.
There’s film, literature, but also the current upside-down state of modern existence as a human, in this really fucked-up dystopia that I never could have foreseen. There are very universal elements of that in a lot of the songs, trying to cope with this just nightmare world that we live in. And in addition, very personal artistic inspirations and references in the context of that — where you’re seeing inspiration from, as you pointed out, Baudelaire, David Lynch, Sartre… And now that I’m saying this out loud, I’m realizing it’s the same shit… I’m realizing… Oh my gosh, these are the same references that I’ve had since I discovered those artists decades ago. I actually had this epiphany. There’s some mysticism, references and imagery, [and] on one of the songs, “Void Word,” I realized I was referencing similar beings that were referenced in Art of Drowning songs. How boring. Oh, new, huh? So yes, literature, art. But again, in the context of now — what the fuck happened? And I’m not speaking simply politically, but social politics. To me, I’m really pummeled by the deconstruction of art culture and the deconstruction of sanctuaries and the deconstruction of communities by way of dilution, which is, of course, let’s say it, the “internet” word, which is social media. We’ve seen this coming for a long time, but we didn’t know what form it would take. It’s sad to see sanctuaries fall apart.
What would you say your first transcendent experience with art was?
So many, but we’re going there — we have to go back there. I think we as humans really react to music immediately, at a young age. I’ve seen this with my friend’s children. They play them songs, and they dance. We have some sort of fundamental connection with the beat and with sound, and of course, part of our senses. I used to bounce on my bed to my mother’s “Upside Down” [by Diana Ross]. So we’re talking about the disco era, and when I was 5, I got the AC/DC record. But also, I’m reacting to the Muppets, which is art. The Muppets — these creatures that I relate to, these impossible creatures, whether they’re talking animals or something completely other, they’re singing, and they’re dancing. Meanwhile, my mom has her records there, and the poor woman had a copy of the Rocky Picture Show on vinyl.
I was very young, so I know that all really affected me. I certainly can’t pinpoint one. I went and saw Looney Tunes at the Symphony. It was really fun and beautiful. They would show Looney Tunes cartoons while the orchestra scored the Merrie Melodies. And I counted — it’s Bugs’ birthday — they had four Bugs Bunny cartoons in a row, and in four Bugs Bunny cartoons in a row, Bugs Bunny wore women’s clothing and presented as a woman.
That informed me as a young child, as it does — and it’s awesome. They knew that children were watching that. So, all of that, growing up. Then, if we’re speaking within music, [and] the bands that really inspired me, I remember seeing Devo and their hats — sorry, their energy domes, though I certainly did not know they were called energy domes when I was that young — but they were in Honda scooter commercials. If they hadn’t been wildly popular in America, someone my age would not have found them. It was so mainstream, so much so that Honda was hiring Grace Jones, Devo, and Adam Ant to do Honda scooter commercials. Look ’em up. That informed me. You see these people, and they’re beautiful, and they’re other.
I remember looking at the cassette at Tower Records in Sacramento, where I lived, and thinking, “Wow.” Little did I understand that it was performance art and commentary, Warhol with a rock ’n’ roll guitar, and space age technology, all of that. I have so many big moments of being inspired by something. I started watching Lynch when I was a teenager in those formative years. I read a study recently that they did on a large group of people, and the study showed that the songs people listened to between the ages of 10 and 15 hold the most emotional value. Anyone who’s listening to this thinks and goes, “Yeah.” All of those years are so important.
It’s giving me a lot to think about.
It is why I still listen to all that stuff that I grew up with those years, 10 to 15, almost all of it. Everything that has had the biggest impact on me, almost everything, came from that era. And if it didn’t come from that era, I was led to it by those bands. I was not listening to Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds when I was 15 years old or 10, but by the time I was a teenager, I knew “Release the Bats” and then, “Oh, that’s this.” So it all comes from that.
It’s all the portals that get you there. All of the experiences you’re naming, The Muppets, the songs — it’s all very narrative, and it’s all very transportive. And like you said, “other.” I relate to that. Those are the reasons that also connect me to your music.
But I actually want to go back to the Substack and talk about a recent post about Nerve Agents. You wrote, “I can hear the Bay Area circa the centuries end talk about punks who enjoyed explosive catharsis, but still believed in the forward-thinking ethos of our progenitors.” Do you think you can still hear the East Bay in AFI?
On this new album? Absolutely. When I think about this record, this is a punk record. Who knows what that word even means now? But to me, this is a more punk-sounding record than a lot of the records in the most recent past. When I think of Gilman Street, when I think of coming from there and playing there every weekend, and then later in the 2000s with what Eric Ozenne was doing, but AFI wasn’t playing there at that point. Those people who founded that collective were — if we’re going to agree upon the word — punks, and that ethic was more than embraced. It was demanded of participating in that community, or you were a pariah. Which comes from the original directive of what came from the Ramones, the Sex Pistols, the Saints, and so on. Fundamentally, that community is that, and I think that is very much a part of what’s going on. Not that it ever wasn’t, but sonically you might hear something that sounds more like that.
It’s interesting, though, because even though the project does feel like such a departure — and again, everything AFI is — there are also a lot of full-circle moments.
I don’t disagree with you.
But to use another familiar word — the references, the full-circle moments — are in the context of the band’s growth.
I have to step away from it to understand that. But yeah, I think so. Again, it’s hard. As we were talking about lyrics, I have the epiphany like, “OK, I am doing this. It’s all new and new.” But it’s like, “You literally wrote about something you’ve already written about to an extent. You’re referencing something very literally, and you forgot.”
Well, that’s psychology, isn’t it?
That’s what I mean. This all is a psychological experience. Experiment.
Hear me out. There was a comment on Reddit…
Oh no.
From a fan, who said, “AFI sacrifices themselves for us to feel something.”
Oh, that’s kind. That’s a very kind way of framing it. I think you’d have to talk to each of us to see a reaction. But personally, I’m so happy that anybody feels anything from what we create. I have to do this. My hope has always been that there is some connection to feel something. If someone’s getting that from what I do, they’re giving me the gift, sacrifice or not. One might point to my life and say, “Look at all that you’ve sacrificed.” Well, I don’t want it if it’s not a sacrifice. Certain things that are general precepts of normal Western behavior might be perceived as a sacrifice. And I’m grateful for that take. It’s very kind. And thank you for feeling something, and thank you for listening to it and taking the time to connect to it, because that’s not a lot. Not everyone listens to music that way. A lot of people are passive listeners.
People don’t even listen to words, and if they are singing the words, perhaps don’t even bother to question what the intention is. I’ve beaten myself up pretty badly. But again, I’m so lucky to be able to do that, and I’d be doing it anyway, and that someone cares about it is so nice. Everything is ego. It’s all what we want and not want to do. If we want to benefit someone, that’s something I want to do. So I don’t think of it as a sacrifice.
Yeah, it’s definitely a connection. On both ends.
Hopefully.
Well, at least for me and this person on Reddit.
That’s fucking cool. No matter who’s listening to us, we always came from a place of really expecting no one to listen to us, ever.
Do you still feel that way?
I don’t have high expectations ever. It’s not that I’m a pessimist — especially now back to the overwrought moment of me almost breaking into tears even more so than ever. Nothing is what it seems.
A question I’ve been asking and talking to artists about this year a lot is — what does community mean to you as a musician in 2025?
I mean, that’s the thing. That’s why you’re seeing me tear up. Community is tough. As a musician, gosh, AFI hasn’t had a community in decades — because all of the artists that we grew up with disbanded, and we just kept going.
[It was] the Nerve Agents, Eric Ozenne back then, Screw 32, Blatz, the Criminals, Dead and Gone, and all the bands that we used to play with that we really related to — which may not have sonically sounded like us, but we were all coming from the same place. Swingin’ Utters, who we did our first tours with, still play, and they’re still wonderful. But the community that’s around that 1754418719… it could be there! It could be there, but we’re not a part of it, just by way of generation. Culture just changed so much. Then we had a couple years of mainstream recognition, and we’re over here doing that with absolutely no music that we can relate to. I know there is something for young people. I know there is a community, but I only feel a part of it in lineage.
Here’s where I see community [today] — during a live show. That’s what makes me tear up. When I’m at a show — even if it’s a band I don’t like — and I see people all singing the lyrics along together…
Exactly. That’s everything. That’s why AFI still exists, exactly what you’re talking about. We broke up, we played the reunion show, and suddenly there were people singing along. This is 1993. We broke up for six months. [Laughs.]
It was the first time people were singing along, and it was so moving. Then the owner of the club at the Phoenix, Lenny, and the guys from Dead and Gone sat me down on the couch in the dressing room and said, “Fuck you if you break up this band.” And I went upstairs. I’m like, “Guys, Dead and Gone and Lenny said this, and we got to do it. Let’s quit everything and just do the band.” And the band at the time said, “Yep.”
I’m curious about any band that’s stayed together for a long period of time and seems to work well together. What is the secret?
We know each other so well. Jade is the newest member, but he’s been in the band for 27 years, Adam at least 27 years, and then Hunter, 28. We all come from the same place. We all want to make music that moves us, and we love it. So we continue to do it, as they always say. What else are we going to do?
