“Sex, drugs and rock’n’roll” Old cliché! Better separated.
They bring you an unique taste of goth punk, an impressive career and a fan base that’s every band’s dream! Let’s hear it for AFI aka A Fire Inside.
A Fire Inside are: Davey Havok – vocals, lyricsist; Jade Puget – guitarist, composer, back vocals; Hunter Burgan – bass guitar, back vocals; Adam Carson –drummer; back vocals.
Their latest album Decemberunderground featuring the single Miss Murder brought them a VMA award for best rock band.
The voting system: fans free to vote as many times as they could. This is a way for people to see how devoted their fans are.
I could also bring up the body art inspired by the music AFI makes.
What is also important when it comes to this amazing American band is that on stage, backstage and on the street above the artists you can see the people. It is them that influenced thousands of teenagers, young adults and adults world wide.
Davey Havok and Jade Puget are straight edge.
[Sometimes abreviated xxx or sxe – straight edge is an alternative life style that claims abstinence from drugs, alcohol and casual sex and which supports fun and togetherness. It’s a decision that once reached lasts for life.]
There is no need in expressing how valuable these people are in our time and age with the increasing drug use and the ever easier way for youth to get them.
The members of AFI are vegan [Davey and Adam] and vegetarians [Hunter and Jade]. Most of their fans took up their life styles and it’s amazing to know that at least three are some examples worth following in the turbulent world of stardom.
AFI has the most amazing fanbase and I know I said that before but I am a fan of several other bands [Placebo, The 69 Eyes, Dope Stars Inc.] and I know that fans of other bands would likely never let go if they were able to touch a member they worshipped.
It’s not the case with AFI.
Davey, Adam, Jade, Hunter and even their tour manager Smith – who has huge fan following as well, go out alone, shop, go to movies, walk down the street without the fear of harassment.
Why? Because whatever is touched by AFI is changed forever!
AFI means everything to their loyal fans and their fans mean everything to AFI!
No one, absolutely no one but Davey Havok would do this:
I am a gothic girl and any goth knows that The Crow and Tim Burton’s movies – especially The Nightmare before Christmas – have become such a must in this subculture that we ended up idolizing them and making them a must.
When a person wears The Nightmare before Christmas characters tattooed on his arms he becomes a gothic figure.
For me being a goth is a state of mind.
It means being sensible to the world around me, letting my feelings surpass and oicking them like scabs. It also means finding beauty in edges, because the grotesque is touchable and always real. The decay is the real beauty in spite of all those eyes that search for that fading perfection that last a second.
Staying in touch with your true self is only possible through art and this time through music.
AFI makes sensible music – music that stirs deep feelings and makes you remember who you are and where you came from, and it make you move forward.
Some fans would begin talking about AFI’s music with Black Sails into the Sunset, or The Art of Drowning.
This time I will begin with Sing the Sorrow, released in 2003.
Once you listen to this album you can’t deny that Davey’s voice is among one of the best voices in rock music – powerful, melancholic, angelic, sad, strong and unforgettable – yes, that’s the audio signature of AFI.
Go to a live show or watch a live recording of a concert and hear the fans chanting and showing their devotion claiming ‘we all form one dark flame’!
It’s something surreal that I never heard before!
Silver and Cold – the music video
By the time I saw this video, I read quotes, I knew some things about each member; I saw a couple of pictures and heard enough songs.
I watched it and I cried!
Davey has a theatrical performance that is remarkable; the idea of the videoclip is full of strong feelings and is rather unique.
As human beings we all found ourselves close or on the rim of the abyss, some of us wanted to jump, some did but were caught, some tried to catch someone and failed, some heard the echoes of a fall.
We all know and we all can feel the grand emotions portrayed in the video.
Hidden meaning of the album
Hardcore fans discovered the true meaning of the album.
Based on Buddhism believes of karma, esoteric astrology, Chinese astrology, and numerology, AFI presents the struggle of a human being in its life circles. “What happens to the flawless” - they reach Nirvana and will not reincarnate.
The whole CD goes in a circle.
It begins with Bleed Black. The breathing at the beginning of the song could represent life.
Playing that as the first song, and going full circle around the CD, that puts the Leaving Song and Leaving Song Pt II into order, and ends the CD with The Leaving Song Pt II.
Some people think that the character "dies" over the course of this CD, and that the "death" (if there is one) occurs during This Time Imperfect.
That would explain why Miseria Cantare would be the beginning from nowhere, bodiless. Then followed by The Leaving Song Pt II, whose very first lyrics say: "Don't waste your touch, you won't feel anything."
The Spanish in the song says, "Yo he estado aquí muchas veces antes y regreso" ("I have been here many times before and I return"); "Y regreso aquí otra vez y comenzo" ("So I return here once again and I begin") is like being reborn - the full circle of birth and death and rebirth. "I saw its birth. I watched it grow...."
Also the fact that the Secret Poem is read as in the 3 stages of life. Like he is aging through it.
We should also not forget that in Chinese astrology, Davey is a rabbit. He was born the year of the rabbit and rabbits cannot be reincarnated. Rabbits are on their last life in this world, and do not have another chance.
This is one theory. There are many others that can be found is you browse AFI’s official forum – The Despair Faction.
Decemberunderground
Decemberunderground, released in 2006, came as a dramatic change.
You either accept AFI is all about change or to don’t. However fans had the album’s logo tattooed even before the album was released - this shows trust. Amazing!
This record is dark, moody filled with striking choruses and music that really stands out.
Miss Murder videoclip
Putting the lyrics and the video together “Miss Murder” deals with suicide.
Lyrics link to clip
Beauty means anything from a better situation or state of mind that you can offer to the others to the subject of point of view of the word.
The reference to suicide is clear “if I take my life”.
The character seems to have it all, or so it seems, and falls deep and what remains are questions and the others that try to understand.
The use of the word ‘children’ can be a reference to followers or fans.
In the videoclip the character [played by Davey Havok] walks into the light trying to get on the balcony, the light is an obvious symbol of death.
The speech on the balcony is the message that surfaces in the gesture.
My opinion is that the images are not presented in epic order. Therefore the meeting with Miss Murder at the end is in fact the character’s resolution to “make beauty stay”.
Whatever you like in and where ever you are going you just can’t deny the obvious - AFI of talented.
We live in a world ruled by numbers so let them speak... they speak loudly in this case.
And still…
<< I’ll swallow your fear I will show you how... >>
Quotes Sources: Magazines: RollingStones; Kerrang Issue 1116
Special thanks to Despair Faction and its devoted members for the priceless information I found out thanks to them!
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