Davey Havok
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Davey Havok is the lead singer of hardcore punk band AFI.
Havok was born on November 20, 1975 in Rochester, New York. Shortly after, he moved to Ukiah, California. There, Davey attended Catholic School in Ukiah until the eighth grade. During high school, his friends Markus Stopholese and Vic Chalker wanted to start a band. Unfortunately, they had several problems. Chief amongst them was that their lack of a drummer. Mark suggested his friend Adam Carson be in the band. Furthermore, they didn't know how to play any instruments, but they knew that Davey had a good voice, and Adam had a drumset. So Mark learned guitar and Vic learned bass (he was later replaced by future Tiger Army bassist Geoff Kresge).
Davey cites lead singers such as Freddie Mercury (of Queen), Robert Smith (of The Cure), Glenn Danzig (of The Misfits), Ian MacKaye (of Minor Threat and Fugazi) and David Bowie as his influences. Shortly after high school, the band broke up and Davey moved to Berkeley, California, where he attended UC Berkeley. He began constantly writing lyrics to songs that would eventually appear on the albums "Answer That and Stay Fashionable" and "Very Proud of Ya".
In a memorable band reunion, put together by one of their classmates, the band played at the Phoenix Theatre for several hundreds of fans. They decided to reunite and record an album. In 1995, "Answer That and Stay Fashionable" was released on Wingnut Records ( re-released in 1997 on Nitro Records). Geoff left during a tour for "Very Proud Of Ya" and was replaced by Hunter Burgan. Hunter would eventually become the permanent replacement for Geoff. Hunter was still in The Force until he permanently joined AFI during the "A Fire Inside" EP. However, before that, AFI released their third full length release, "Shut Your Mouth And Open Your Eyes", in which Davey started getting very serious about his lyrics. He started singing about religion, humanity and other more serious issues.
The next release was the "A Fire Inside" EP, which was the first EP they ever released. It featured covers of "The Hanging Garden", in which Davey got to do his best Robert Smith impersonation, and "Demonomania" by the Misfits. Afterwards, Mark was asked to leave the band. His replacement was Jade Puget, the band's old friend from high school who said he would join after he graduated college. AFI then released their first full length release with Hunter and Jade, "Black Sails In The Sunset". In fall of that year, they released the "All Hallows" EP. In 2000, they released "The Art Of Drowning" to fair record sales, but great acclaim by fans of the band. AFI then toured for a few years releasing a few EPs along the way. In 2003, the band's first major label release, "Sing the Sorrow", came out, getting great record sales, but losing many of the older fans, whom considered the album to be somewhat corporate, and lacking in the older hardcore punk sound of their previous releases.
Due in 2005 is Glitterboy, a new fashion line from Davey Havok and Serious Clothing.
Other appearances
Havok provided backing vocals for The Offspring's 4th album Ixnay on the Hombre.
Havok provided vocals and lyrics for the one-off Samhain tribute Son of Sam, alongside Todd Youth of Danzig, Steve Zing and London May of Samhain.
Alongside Jade Puget from AFI, Havok is believed to be involved in an electronic side-project named Blaqk Audio, of which little is known.
External links
- AFI (http://afireinside.net) - A Fire Inside official site
- Blaqk Audio (http://www.blaqkaudio.com/) - Eletronica side-project