Davey Havok is content being a misfit. Throughout his life he’s been told that he doesn’t fit in, but that hasn’t stopped him from having a successful career in the music business. He’s fronted rock band AFI for a quarter of a century and has dabbled in several more projects, most recently the straightedge hardcore band XTRMST and electronic duo Blaqk Audio, all of which he works on with his friend and longtime collaborator, Jade Puget.
What began simply as an outlet for Puget, who is AFI’s guitarist, and Havok to explore electronic music since the duo are big fans of the genre and acts such as Erasure, Skinny Puppy, Ministry, Fischerspooner and even more recent artists like Kaskade, Deadmau5 and Afrojack, has become a full-fledged musical endeavor as it just dropped its third album, “Material,” on April 15.
“We don’t really fit the genre exactly and as much has been the case with most things that I’ve created over my life,” Havok said of Blaqk Audio during a recent phone interview. The duo will kick off a small tour at House of Blues San Diego on Wednesday, which then comes to the Observatory in Santa Ana on Thursday and the Troubadour in Los Angeles on Friday.
Just after our interview last month, Puget and Havok played a few Blaqk Audio songs, including “Anointed” off of the new record and fan-favorites “Stiff Kittens” and “Cities of Night” off its 2007 debut “CexCells,” live during an intimate performance and discussion, led by MusiCares and Grammy Foundation vice president Scott Goldman at the Grammy Museum in Los Angeles.
Though there isn’t a full band backing them as with AFI, it’s still a powerful performance with Havok’s soaring vocals and theatrical moments bringing the dance music to life as Puget gets to work in the background, pumping out an array of sounds.
“We tend to blur the lines through electronic genres,” Havok continued in our interview. “Jade is creating these styles of music and I listen to them and they put me in one place or another. That was the case with ‘Material’ and in that regard some of the pieces like ‘Ceremonial (Burst Into Stars)’ or the title track, they had a more ethereal vibe and felt like music we listened to in the 90s.”
The song “I’m a Mess,” which was written after the guys recorded their debut, also got to see the light of day on this record.
“It’s been one of my favorite Blaqk Audio songs for a while,” he said. “That really harkens back to the inception of the band and where we were back then, but we both really love the song and didn’t want to lose it. It was interesting for me to look back at it lyrically and be somewhat disappointed that what I suspected is true, and that’s that I’m constantly singing about the same (stuff) over and over and over again.”
With any of their projects, whether AFI, Blaqk Audio or XTRMST, Havok said that he and Puget are extremely picky and there are numerous songs that no one will ever hear. The duo are constantly working independently and together to juggle all of their obligations and keep things fresh, which is why straight after the release of this Blaqk Audio record and the tour, new AFI music could be out as soon as early next year.
Yet, Havok and Puget still aren’t sick of each other.
“There’s a lot that goes behind that and history is very important,” Havok said of his collaborative relationship with Puget. “We’ve known each other for so long. We know each other’s personalities and faces and we know how we write together and separately. We have the same dedication to what we’re creating and the same passion for it, as well as the same wide array of influences. All of that goes into a really great working relationship, not to mention we’re both straight edge, neither of us use drugs of any sort. People kind of overlook how much that impacts bands, you know? Destructive personal relationships and destructive substances are mainly the two things that go into deconstructing collaborations and we’ve never had that aspect infringing on our work.”
Though AFI has been heavily spun on rock radio for years, Havok said that it never gets old to hear any of his music played on-air. When KROQ/106.7 FM DJ Ted Stryker debuted Blaqk Audio’s “Anointed” just before the album release, Havok was tuned in and celebrated with friends and patrons at a place where he gets his Acai bowls in L.A.
“It’s really exciting for me because I never, never did expect anything I’ve ever made to be played on the radio,” he said. “That core element of me never goes away, so whenever anything like that happens, it’s really exciting for me. I can’t imagine ever being like ‘Eh, who cares.’”
Even with his plate overflowing with Blaqk Audio and AFI tours, songwriting and recording, Havok managed to find time to work on a new record with Adrian Young, Tony Kanal and Tom Dumont of Orange County’s own, No Doubt. Despite the rumors that followed the leak that the quartet had been shopping an album, no, Havok is not replacing No Doubt vocalist Gwen Stefani. Though Havok is a big fan of No Doubt, and the song “Don’t Speak” in particular, this is an entirely separate project.
“We’re not really in any position to go into too much detail,” he said. “We have a record written and we should be recording it soon. They approached me a couple of years ago to work on some music and I heard it and I loved it, but I can’t really tell you what it’s like right now, but it’s great.”
Contact the writer: 714-796-3570 or kfadroski@ocregister.com
