juliejohansen

THEIR DARK MATERIALS

"Davey...I have fallen completely in love with you." he whispered. I gasped softly a feeling of pure elation rising inside of me.
"I know I have...I love you Jade." I said, kissing him gently.
"I love you, too...so much." he whispered, kissing me back. How could I not love him? He was the one who opened my eyes, who gave me the will to be who I was. He was protective of me, beautiful, and everything I could have ever asked for. My life had been filled with so much pain, so much anger. I loved him so much. Although I was still afraid of everything, everything seemed perfect there in his arms.

Um. How aware of the whole "Javey thing...are you?"

"Javey? Oh the FAN FICTION!" Davey Havok, who for much of the past 40 minuts has been sitting quietly suddenly leaps into life. "Yeah! I haven't seen the Javey ones have you?"

"I've actually seen a couple of pictures," Jade Puget, Davey's songwriting partner mumbles shyly. "People...send me them..."

Here's one of you being penetrated lovingly by your bass player, Hunter, look.

"WOAOOOOOAHHHHH!!!! Davey's eyes widen and his mouth drops open.

"Hunters so big," mumbles Jade.

"Hunter's pretty much bigger than me. He looks like a giant."

"That’s great! Can I have this?" Davey holds the print out up and grins broadly.

Actually, you might not like this one so much...

"Let me see! WOOOW!!! Wait-am I getting fucked? Oh, that's me. Who's fucking me?"

It's your lifeless body being tied up with fishing wire, being anally raped. It's not actually your best angle.

"AH! I'm dismembered!"

"You kinda look like a mummy." mumbles Jade.

"Yeah, I do." says davey. He then adds a quiet but emphatic, "wow."


We're sitting in the foyer of a london hotel to discuss AFI's seventh album, the reent "Decemberunderground". Davey and Jade sit side by side, sipping Starbucks coffee, smartly dressed in black shirts and ties and bearing only minimal applications of eyeliner and mascara. At 11:30 in the morning, they don't seem massively phased by the sight of gruesomely explicit fan art- what AFI's itnernet fans have codenamed "Javey"--depicting the two of them engaged in a myriad of sexual activities. Although the sketch of a dead Davey Havok, jeans yanked down, his comically huge flaccid cock knocking against his knees as e's taken from behind raises a few concerned eyebrows.

It took AFI three yeas to concot the follow up to their 2003 gold selling album "Sing the Sorrow". A lot has happened in that time. In AFI-time, a year was spent touring, a year was spent with just Davey and Jade locked away, writing what beame over 100 new AFI songs, and a year was spent in the studio refining the final 12 songs to perfection. In the outside world, bands came and went, scenes fluttered up and then, just as quickly evaporated.

The people that remembered AFI wondered what they were doing, and frustrated by the lack of information on the Californian band, made up their own stories. Obsessive internet communities sprang up, devoted to keeping the "fire inside" burning. Instrumental in this, was the establishment of the AFI fan club, the Despair faction, who appear on "Decemberunderground--stomping, clapping and shouting like (let's face it) jackbooted Nazis.

Davey Havok talked of making a "cold" album, revealing in a press release how "december...is a time and a place. it is where the cold can huddle together in darkness and isolation."

It's a slightly excruciating turn of phrase, and a bit of nebulous mission statement for a band returning to the fray after three years.

"There was no plan for this record," admits Jade. "We've always been an unfocused band in a good way. In that we play a lot of styles." He pauses, "You know since we're not a punk band, or a hardcore band."

So for the record...you're not a punk band?

"I don't think so," states Davey.

"It probably wouldn't be very accurate to say that we were," considers Jade "But there are a couple of new songs on our record that are fast and aggressive."

It's true, for better or worse, there isn't a shred of the 15-year old AFI of 1991-the cult brat-punk band who squealed "I Wanna Get A Mohawk. (But Mom won't let me)"--anywhere on the major label act who crafted "Decemberunderground"

Jaunty comeback single "Miss Murder" may dwell on suicide, but it's wrapped up in a catchy made for-FM stomp that resembles the Killers at their most anthemic. The rest of the album is elegant despairloded pop-cum-metal-cum-popular-punk.

Do you think much as changed in the three years that you've been away?

"The market forces of rock music have driven it to be more commodified." Jade states, "Punk and hardcore is turning into that emo pop-punk sound. Everythings becoming more homogenised."

Are you aware that in the three years you've been away, a number of bands have emerged who have done quite well out of AFI not being around?

Davey Havok grins, "All the people I looked like never yelled at me," he offers a little mystically. "Some of them became friends and were really nice to me. Still, a 15 year old rock fan who has gotten into musci in the past year will know more about Aiden or MCR than AFI. Doesn't that bother you?

Jade shrugs, "We certainly don't want some kid to be like, "WHY ARE YOU GUYS TRYING TO LOOK LIKE MY CHEMCICAL ROMANCE?" That would be Ridiculous! But we did go away for three years. What you gonna do?"

Was changing your sound an attempt to disassociate yourselves from those bands? This is definitely the poppiest album AFI have ever made.

"We've done fast and aggressive for years," his guitarist explains, "We could write another fast song with screaming, but how many of those can we write?"

"You're the most beautiful person I have ever seen. I love you Davey." he told me I smiled wickedly at him feeling my heart rise with elation.
"Thank you so much...Jade...for everything. I love you with everything in me." I whispered, feeling my throat tighten.

In terms of online presence, AFI fans must be the most dedicated in the world. Although battle lines are drawn between the "official" DF and the fringe elements such as those who post fanfiction stories to afislash.com, there does appear to be a genunine sense of community around the band.

"For people who can relate to the themes and sentiment that are running through the record," Havok explains, "I would hope that it does provide some feeling of comfort and some sense that there are other people out there. They can find some kind of community in their detachmetn from the majority of people and the majority of perspectives."

As a member of AFI, do yout hink of yourself as being different?

"Yes." the frontman states emphatically. He laughs as if the notion that he isn't is absurd. "Yes. Yes I do."

Is this a straight-edge thing?

"Simply being straight-edge alone separates you hugely from a culture whose recreation is focused on drug use. And beause I don't find that appealing, that alone separates me from a lot of what's going on."

"Davey gets a lot of letters saying 'Your music saved me.'" Jade says, "Even though these songs are sad, you identify with that and it's a catharsis. It helps you deal wit things in your own life."

"God...you're so beautiful." I whispered. Davey looked up at me and opened his mouth to speak.
"Jade...is this the last..."
"No. Don't talk of that. Just...let me hold ou." I whispered, burying my face in his neck.

How do you feel reading the Javey stuff, given that you two have been best friends for 15 years.

"It made me feel kinda dirty!" Davey grins squirming slightly. "It was VERY explicit. It was kind of eerie and unsettling because they base these stories on real events and they name friends of ours who are not in the public eye and take things that actually happened in my private life and expand on them."

The majority of the (literally) hundreds of AFI fanfiction stories on the net are set during the band's adolescence. Typically, they feature variations on the 15 year old Davey and Jade's school life, exorcising self-hate and repressed homosexuality through self-harm and or eating disorders. The two of them finding each other and ultimately bonding over that sel-abuse in a homo-erotic manner.

Some of the more deviant stories include rape, murder, necrophilia and even one where Davey incites Jade to sexually abuse Smith--his younger brother and AFI's tour manager.

"Why is it all gay?" Jade laughs. "Maybe it's some creepy old paedophile who's doing this."

What do you think it is that people are getting from your music- and as you as people- to be coming up with this stuff? No other band's fans are doing this.

"I don't know. For years there's always been rumours about us. Maybe people just heard too many rumours and took to writing disturbing fanfiction."

Rumours regarding Davey and Jade's sexuality have raged, uncomfirmed and undenied, for years. Davey does it bother you that when you're playing live, people will be watching you and expecting that after your gig your guitar player will be giving you a stress relieving blowjob backstage?

"No!" He exclaims, seeming to splutter. As if he has something in his mouth. "I mean, who cares?!"

Jade, when was the last time you saw Davey naked?

"What direction is this interview taking?!"

Davey himself seems, unperturbed though.

"We change together!" he says. "We're in a band, it's like being a sports team! We're constantly naked."

What is interesting though, is that none of these internet posts are in anyway homophobic. Actualy it seems that this is the place where AFI fans explore issues of sexual health and mental-well being.

"That's a good point." Agrees davey. "it's that kind of community. That's very positive because a lot of people struggle with those kind of things. I don't like the killing...and dismemberment but they could have us doing something truly horrible..."

"They could have us eating meat!" pipes up Jade.

"YeaH! Eating meat and drinking beer!" laughs the charismatic frontman. "Then I'd be pissed off!"