HardLore - Jade Puget: AFI, Creating Their Signature Sound & Surviving Mainstream Success

Episode Date: July 2, 2026

In this highly anticipated next chapter with one of our favorite bands, HardLore is finally joined by Jade Puget: the man who was instrumental in defining the iconic AFI sound. Featuring special guest co-host Alec Faber of God’s Hate, Twitching Tongues and Holy Blade.Following our legendary two part special with Davey Havok, we’re honored to share Jade’s side of the greater AFI story… Starting from the beginning with Jade discovering punk & hardcore in Ukiah, CA alongside his brother Smith, his days in Redemption 87, joining AFI and creating their definitive sound with his work on Black Sails in the Sunset, the surprising legacy of the All Hallows EP, his (and the band’s) frustrations with Nitro Records, the opportune timing of Art of Drowning, the cultural phenomenon of Sing the Sorrow and continuing success of Decemberunderground, the agony of Crash Love, the triumph of Burials, all the way to re-defining the AFI sound with Silver Bleeds the Black Sun.It was an honor and a joy to finally chat about all things AFI and hardcore with Jade, and we can only hope you enjoy this 3 hour chat as much as we did.______________HardLore: A Knotfest Series, fueled by Monster Energy.Shot, edited and mixed by Steven Grise Title sequence by Nicholas Marzluf • Join the HARDLORE PATREON to watch every single weekly episode early and ad-free, alongside exclusive monthly episodes• Join the HARDLORE DISCORD • Get 15% off DUNABLE GUITARS with code HARDLORE. Seriously. A guitar. What are you waiting for??? • Get 15% off TIMELESS COFFEE site-wide and grab a bag of my favorite beans and the best vegan cookies I’ve ever had: ______________00:00:00 - Start00:01:38 - Jade Puget00:03:10 - Discovering Punk and Hardcore in Ukiah00:06:28 - Skateboarding & The Muhammad Ollie00:12:57 - Straight Edge & The Way It Is Compilation00:18:05 - Redemption 8700:24:21 - Becoming Aware of AFI00:28:04 - Joining AFI & Writing BLACK SAILS IN THE SUNSET00:34:30 - Jade’s Favorite Fret & Restraint in Songwriting00:38:03 - The AFI Sound00:43:10 - All Hallows EP00:51:01 - AFI, Danzig, Samhain Tour00:57:38 - Art Of Drowning01:06:36 - Commercial Success And Overall Shock01:09:20 - SING THE SORROW & Slowing Down the AFISound01:13:20 - Jerry Finn & Butch Vig01:21:21 - Sing The Sorrow’s Electronics (Fruity Loops)01:26:48 - Leaving Song 2 & Initially Hearing Sing the Sorrow Finished01:31:34 - MTV New Years Eve With Three Six Mafia01:32:59 - Leaving Song 2 Video01:37:46 - Sing The Sorrow’s Release Into DECEMBERUNDERGROUND01:44:17 - Picking the Singles for DECEMBERUNDERGROUND 01:47:59 - Butch Vig Declining to Work on the Album01:50:54 - Writing 120 Songs & The “Hardcore Club”01:57:00 - The Whirlwind of Decemberunderground into the Agony of CRASH LOVE02:01:15 - Blaqk Audio/Crash Love Coinciding and “Stripping Down” AFI02:11:51 - Sing The Sorrow At The Forum02:17:25 - The Triumph of BURIALS02:24:13 - The Blood Album & Producing AFI02:28:18 - Silver Bleeds the Black Sun & Evolving the AFI Sound02:39:22 - BODIES & AFI in 202002:43:05 - Birdlegs & Getting His Revelation Star02:46:23 - Jade's Insane Chipotle Order lololololol02:51:51 - Top 4 Hardcore Records02:54:22 - A Les Paul Epilogue For Bo

Hey, everybody. Thanks so much for joining us this week for this unbelievably special episode with the great Jade Puget from AFI. This is poetry in motion here. This is nine months in the making. This is the next chapter of the saga that we started last year with the two-part Davy Havoc episode. And now we get into this amazing three-hour chat with the man who defined the AFI sound. This episode was actually recorded back in May. So this is a few-part day. is one of the first ones we did. And we've been saving it for this very special week. And here it finally is. Jade is a hardcore kid through and through, even at 52. And while I feel many weeks, it takes, you know, 10 to 20 to 30 minutes to warm up with our guests. Jade gets right into it in a way that very few ever have. I had so much fun watching this back.

I hope that you all enjoy it. If you love the Davey episode, you will love this. If you love AFI, you will love this. If you like hardcore or punk at all, you will love this. Let's get into it. Hello, welcome. It's Hardlord Time. How you doing, Bo?

What a beautiful day we have on the show this week. First, let me introduce my special guest co-host. To my left here is one of my best friends in the universe. Holy Blade vocalist, God's Hate bass player, Twitching Tungs bass player, eventual other things as well, father of two. Alec Fabor, all the way from Pasadena. All the way. And to my right, God, what a day.

From Yucaya, California, and one of the greatest bands of all time, one of our favorite bands here on this program, which is well documented, one of our favorite rippers ever. His left hand, unbelievable, his right hand, unbelievable. AFI guitar player, Jade Puget. How are you, Jade? Thanks for having me. What an honor. Thanks for being here.

In the Valley, we may cut this, so let me know. But there's a moment that we cut in from the Dave episode where I ask him if he lives in the valley. And he goes, I don't live in the Valley. Jade lives. I shouldn't say that. I don't know where Jade lives. I mean, the Valley is a big place. It's not like, oh, he lives in the Valley, as if anyone would come bother me anyway.

I've never seen you around. Yeah, I mean, I live in Woodland Hill there. I mean, Woodland Hill is a big place. I'll see you at the Topanga Mall sometime, hopefully. Yeah, I'm spending much time there either. See, I'm good. Oh, wow. You're doing great, man.

Let's take it back to the beginning here. It's fire up the flux capacitor. Go back in time. Tell us about growing up in Yucaya and finding Punk and Hard For. Growing up in Yucaya, it's a... a rural place, not unlike where we are now. It's wine country and weed country, Emerald Triangle kind of situation. Growing up in the 80s, extremely poor,

essentially white trash, you might say. Discovering music in general or discovering? Music into how that correlates to punk and hardcore. Well, it didn't correlate right away, because the first things I discovered, my mom was playing, You know, like every mom was playing Michael Jackson. Prince and Chaudet and soul music and, you know, Motown. And a lot of classical.

She was a classical pianist and composer. Even though we were poor, she always had a piano. And so I would, my earliest memories are sitting there listening to her play classical music. And that was my first awakening to music and where I felt something. I was really young. Yeah, I was probably like two or three. but I remember sitting on the couch with my legs like straight out

because I was, you know, two-year-old and starting to feel something from the pieces of music, classical, was it such a, I know there's such a fundamental emotional aspect of classical. And I still love it to this day just because it was like such a, the beginning of my musical whole.

And it is the DNA of like everything. Yeah. You know? So you like it in some way whether you know it or not. So from there, you know, I just did what every 80s kid did and listened to what was on the radio

and the first thing that I got for Christmas was like minute work, business as usual, which still is like... Banger. Banger, no skips. A really great... I wouldn't say underrated because it has hits on it, but the songs that aren't hits are underrated. That's a great album.

And then Stray Cats, Shake Rattle and Roll, had such problematic songs as Sexy and 17. But, you know, I love that, straight cats. From there, it wasn't until sort of middle school where I started hearing about punk and discovering punk, and that's what led me on the path that put me on his seat right now. And is skateboarding a big part of that at any point? Back then, skateboarding and punk were inseparable.

No one I knew, and I knew everyone that skated in my town, because there was only a few of us. No one didn't listen to punk. No one didn't listen to punk. No, not a single skater didn't listen to punk, and not a single person that listened to punk didn't skate. Like I didn't know anyone that, oh, I listen to punk, but I don't skate. We all did both things.

So to me, it was kind of the same. I discovered skating probably like a few months before I finally discovered punk. Although I had the pistols, I had sex pistols, never mind the bullocks like a lot of people did. And I got the other sex pistols stuff, Great Rock and Old Swindle, which was not good. And the Sid Vicious Solar record, which is not good at all. But I was down because I'm like, this is, I'm trying to fly my way. Yeah. And this is the only thing I knew.

punk was sex. I don't think I knew about the Ramones at that point. It was just like this is the thing that is punk. This is punk and this is skateboarding. Yes. Is this when you invented the Muhammad Ali? The Muhammad Ali. Yeah. Can you describe that to me? I don't even remember what it is.

I haven't even heard of this. You must have went very deep for that. I don't know. He does this. He'll get lower you don't even know about. I can't remember. In fact, there's only one piece of footage of me skating, even though I skated for a long time.

And I posted it on my Instagram. You can find it. Is it like a regular Ali, but. I don't remember. Muhammadish in some way? It's some Mohammed an element to it. I don't know. I think it was maybe like, I don't know.

That's good. Now I gotta go ask some people. I'll go ask some people. Did you know that femme from Yucaya had a baby and named him Jade? Oh man. This is like some Nardwar level shoot. Femm, aka Aaron Fembris,

my best friend, and I discovered skating with him. Wow. He was like, he and I, we were each other's only friend who played Dungeons and Dragons. Hell yeah. And we skated until I found the other people that did these things in my town.

It's just him and I. I did not know that, but that is actually flattering. Pretty cool. He turned, he became a hippie, which is cool. It happens. He moved to Oregon and became a hippie. It's one of the many routes. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, there's worse things you could do. Yeah. So, yeah, when in middle school, I finally started hearing about real punk. Yeah. Real punk. I mean, sex pistols is a real punk, I guess. But, you know, there was, I've told the story, there was a kid in my science class, an older kid who told me about minor threat.

And he's like, there's a bank on myrothread, and it's skinhead music. And if you're not a skin and you can't listen to it because they'll beat you off. And I was like, damn. Did you ever get that? well I was like you know I'm willing to risk getting beaten by skinheads to listen to this music because this sounds very cool

like a forbidden music that's only skinheads and really know what a skinhead was but I never I didn't hear minor threat at that time I only heard of minor threat the mythos of you get killed if you aren't if you're not bald and a similar thing with suicidal tendencies is a dude we were skating one night

and this dude kind of appeared out of the shadows that we had never seen before and he was from down here. And he's like, yeah, you guys listen to punk. He's like, you've heard of suicidal tendencies. I'm like, no. Wow, that sounds cool. He's like, yeah, they're like basically a gang called the Sueys.

And like, yeah, if you try to like go to their show, it's basically over for you. You'd be lucky to survive. And I was like, whoa. That's awesome. Like, where are they playing? And so that was another one. I was like, I got to find out about this band. When does the guitar enter your life?

That was much later. Well, I guess everything seemed... It's very fast. It was really like this, but it seemed like way later. So I finally started hearing punk and hearing some actual punk music. And one of the first things I did hear was the first suicidal records, which to me is still my top five. Masterpiece. Another, no skips.

Everything on that record is amazing. Songs about, you know, I shot Reagan. I mean, I saw your mom and your mom. he's dead just like stuff that you know everyone you know hated Reagan yeah all the punks and hated Reagan so I was speaking to me and after that I kind of finally I met these kids including nick 13 who I'm still friends with to this day met him met all the dudes and they had a punk house that we all just stayed at and you know had circle pits in the living room and listen to punk and went out and skated streets and you know skate and destroy 80 style and cops hated us everyone hated us

Jocks hated us, metalheads hated us, Hicks hated us, girls hated us. But it was like, it was cool, you know. I kind of wanted to be hated. I reveled in being hated. Yeah, I tried to do everything that was as counter and outside the norm as possible. And the consequences were that we were pariahs,

but it was okay. Who cares? Speaking of that house, let me know if these words mean anything to you. Dude's all rockabelley. Dude got hair like my dad. Yeah, that's a, I think, yeah, that's so many who was clowning Nick 13. He had some good ones.

Rockabellie. Yeah, Rockabelle. That was my next door neighbor in the trailer park we lived in, Jason Burns. I used to drive to, he used to take me to junior college in the back of his mini truck. He had a blue miniatruck. And I mean, he'd like pick me up at eight in the same. the morning I'd be in the back freezing cold and we'd stop just a bunch of reservations out there so he'd pick all his Native American friends up and they'd all cram in the front I'd be

like in the back and he'd be playing like paper boy in like 90s rap these huge speakers in the back of his mini truck just rattling the whole thing and did his truck have a name probably yours did it's your car had a name and so all my cars as a youth had a name but there was a mini truck called Sudden Impact and it had bed dance okay or you make the bed was on hydraulics and the truck went up and did all kinds of stuff so we got my friend spanky back there and we did the bed dance on him and he was like rattling around in there so a miniatryat culture was a big thing okay in yucaya like for sure so when do you start taking guitar seriously my dad had a les paul studio and he had bought it and he was kind of like getting deep into like addiction and stuff and he just was like he turned his life around I mean he's like an amazing guy now but at that time it was you know It was pretty dire and he was just like, I don't think he didn't think he was going to play it. And he knew that I was interested because my stepdad at the time had a guitar and he wouldn't let me touch it. But he'd like show me stuff on it, but then wouldn't let me play the guitar.

And I was so curious about guitar and really wanted to know how to do it. And I had no guitar of my own. And so my dad gave me that less Paul and that allowed me to join my first band or start my first band with Nick 13. and that was really important. If I hadn't got that guitar, I don't know. And I got like a little PV combo amp that kind of like, I played those two things for the next. I still have the guitar, but I played those two things

for the next several years, every band I was in, the PV and the Les Paul. We'll talk about those bands in a second. When did vegetarianism and straight-edge into your life? Straight-edge early, probably 86, 87, I guess. Damn. Yeah. We knew minor threat, but back then it was like,

All these bands with messages like Day Kennedys and minor threat, bands with political message, or sort of bands like Fear, which we love had kind of a counter very un-peacey message. We didn't take it that seriously. We just ran for the music. So I was hearing about Straight Edge, but it wasn't like, oh, I need to become Straight Edge. And even people in my town like listen to Screwdriver, but didn't really even think about, Like my best friend, Sean Travis, who's black, listened to Screwdriver. And no one really cared about the lyrics.

You can't tell them not to, you know? It's like, no, I mean, obviously. Yeah. And he wanted, I was in a band with him for many years, Luce Change, and he wanted to cover a screwdriver. And I was like, I can't do that. No. And so, like, you know, just goes to say that people didn't early listen to the lyrics.

We were about listening to the music and skating. It wasn't until the way it is compilation, the Revelation compilation that came out in 80. That's awesome. 87, 88. And it was like, I mean, that had all these bands I'd never heard before. I'd never heard youth today. I never heard sick of it all.

Never heard bold, never heard gorilla biscuits. Had war zone. And it was not only discovering really, the youth of today stuff really put me on the path of being coming straight. So 87 was one I really was like, this is it. But also putting me onto this music that I didn't even know existed. We didn't know what was going on in New York. Yeah. Like, I knew the bad brains and chromax. Somehow we had Asia Quarrel, so we knew Asia Quarrel, and we loved that.

But as far as we knew, that was just another punk band. It could have been, like, Black Flag. We didn't know there was this scene happening. And that comp was like, oh, all these bands. Because Nausea was on that comp, which is not a hardcore band. We're like, oh, Nausea is just the same as. Nausea is great. Great band?

I was just listening to some crust punk today. So you find this comp, and you're like, okay, this is me now. Yeah, because I had minor threat speaking about straight edge. And then when youth today, you know, physically strong, morally straight, positive youth today, I was like, the two things kind of, it's like, okay, now I have to get real about this. And was unit pride those guys were those, was that part of your circle, immediate circle? No, like I didn't meet the, I didn't meet Eric until much later, like in the mid-90s because we didn't even know about Gilman Street at that point. Wow. Like you guys were so in your own world over there.

Yeah. And the only way you knew about shows was the pink section of the. San Francisco Chronicle, which had Bay Area venues, but it didn't have Gilman Street because that was like an indie collective kind of thing. So we didn't even know it existed until years later. So yeah, straight edge 87. Which would turn out to be an important year for you numerically. What about being vegetarian? That also came way later, not until I joined AFI. Because those guys were all vegetarian at the time. And even, you know, You know, when I'm like Dave wasn't vegetarian when I, even when I moved to Berkeley, he was right before he went vegetarian. So yeah, it wasn't until I joined the band where I was like, you know what?

I need to try this out. I need to see what this is about because I'm in this band now and I want this message to be cohesive. Yeah, and it wasn't. I was just like, I'm going to try it. I'm not, I want to be phony with it because straight edge is something that is so deep within the core of my being. Like I wouldn't consider drinking. Like I don't even, wouldn't even think about it. it. Like I wouldn't pick up a brick and smash myself in the nuts either. Like, it's just something

I don't even think about doing. Well said. And not to judge anyone else, but this is just like, it's so much a part of me. Whereas vegetarianism was something like, it's the right thing to do. Don't get me wrong. But I was like, let me try this out and see if this is for me. Is there any contentions about you not being vegan in the inner band contentions? No, because Adam's not vegan. Okay. So he's still outnumbered a little bit. And Hunter is vegan. Hunter and Dick. So it's... Yeah, Hunter is actually more OG than even Dave. Yeah, Hunter is, I don't think, he's been vegetarian his entire life and then vegan for a very long time. Is there, like, an unspoken, there's bands out there that are not straight edge bands,

but everyone in the band is straight edge. Is there any kind of like, unspoken idea of that being a part of AFI, even not necessarily like out in the open, but like the core of the four of you? No, because. Because Adam always drank. Okay. He hasn't, he's been sober now for many years, but, and Hunter actually never did anything. Hunter and Dave have never taken a drink or done anything their entire life. Whereas I, when I was young, because I was a fucking feral white trash child, I experimented.

It wasn't until, like, you know, really committed. You don't invent the Muhammad Ali sober. Exactly. I mean, come on. I had to get the inspiration. Exactly. He was probably drinking some, like, a country club 40s or something. Redemption 87.

Yes. Let's talk about it. How does that come to be? And how do you meet those guys? I met Eric. He was working at a record store in Berkeley. So I moved to Berkeley in 94 to go to the university there. Dave was already living there going to Berkeley.

And he and I actually had a class together. His last, because he dropped out to do AFI. And his last semester was my first. And so he had a class together. But he introduced me to Eric. And later on, Eric, at start a redemption, I think like Lars and Timmy Chunks were kind of like the first, Lars and Rancid were like the first,

and Eric started that band. But then there was a dude named Scotty who was playing guitar, and then Scotty went away or, I don't know, left. And they were looking for a new guitar player. And Nick 13 and Dave were both telling Eric, like, you should consider Jay like he's a great guitar player. And at a time I was playing pop punk and loose change, you know, like that was my thing.

But they're like, you know, this guy, because I loved hardcore too. I had for years now. Was Influence 13 a hardcore band? No, but it was a weird thing where it was like, we were really influenced by like Jobbreaker and Sam I.M., but also by like Capital's casualties and DRI. So there was like this super beautiful melodic part

and then like this insane blast beat thing. And this was like, you know, 91. But those would be like together. It was a weird band. So is Redemption 87 like the first proper hardcore band that you end up playing in? Yeah. Wow.

There was this exchange student that moved to Yucaya from Germany named Stefan, who was a drummer, and he was obsessed with hardcore, and he loved Mad Ball and all this stuff. So we tried to start a band in that style, but it was like we had like one rehearsal, so it wasn't really a band. Didn't have a name. Yeah.

Okay. Do you remember a naked guy moshing for Redemption 87 in Hagerstown, Maryland? Whoa. I remember the show in Hagerstown, Maryland, but I don't remember a naked guy. I hope that wasn't me. No, no, couldn't think you. By the time you joined Redemption 87,

you already graduated UC Berkeley with a degree in sociology? Yeah, social theory. Social theory. Do you have any internal social theories about Bay Area Hardcore in the mid-90s? I'd probably come up with a sort of theoretical framework for that scene, but it would be very interesting.

Okay. But that was a great scene. When I went to school there, I was way more interested in going to shows than going to class. So that early to mid-90s, Barry has seen Gilman Street and all those clubs in San Francisco. And, you know, Rancid had just started and were kind of a local band still, but so fucking good.

About to explode. About to explode. But I remember going to see them, even before Lars was in the band, and they were already just new or something about them. It was so powerful. Like, I saw them. There was like, you know, probably 40 people there. but it was like, it just had something, a band that you knew.

Same with Green Day, because Green Day was also a local band that my first band opened up for Green Day, and they were the local band that would be supporting, like if Barreligion came through, Green Day would be the support band. Same with Green Day. You knew that they were going to, this wasn't just another local band,

that there's something there. So like Rancid and Swinging Utters and AFI, screw 32, all these local bands is a really, really strong scene. So all guns poolside, that would be the only record you played on? How collaborative was that? It was Ian, the bass player, wrote some songs, and I wrote some songs,

so we kind of were separate. And I'm kind of rueful about that record because I felt I was a little timid in my writing on that. Like, you know, I'd be writing Black Sails like only a couple years later. Yeah. But that record, I just, I don't know.

I was too worried about stepping outside the box. So some of the stuff, you know, it was a little too on the nose hardcore when I could have injected something more interesting into it. So I'm not that happy with my contribution to that record, but it's a good record. It is. So I'm a big redemption fan.

I listened to it again recently for the first time in a while. I hear a lot of, obviously, like, Youth of Today, like Eric sounds just like Ray. Like, he sounds more like Ray than Ray does. Yeah. And it's awesome. I love his voice. But musically, like obviously,

there's youth of today but i also i do actually hear like it's like weirdly bay area punk not necessarily like youth crew 88 100 percent and and i think that those elements are actually like make it more unique you know it's not right down the middle it isn't and even the first record especially yeah it's a weird record it like uh spiky um spidey song spidey song is like kind of a crazy song all a lot of those songs are weird yeah sound like hardcore the the song structures and i think it's because You know, Timmy, who was in token entry, and then Lars, you know, like, there's just the different disparate songwriting. It's a very weird record. It's a melodic in a way that youth was today.

Right. It never was. But Eric, Eric was a huge, obviously, a huge Ray Capo fan. Right. Huge, like, he went there as a kid, like, you know, stole his mom's credit card or something and went to New York and stayed on those guys' couches in, like, the mid-80s. Oh, cool. Was really in that scene. And obviously, he took a lot of ends.

influence from that. And nobody has done it better, you know? I agree. No one's done Ray Capo, except for Ray Capo. Better than that. Yeah, exactly. But I do think, like, the black salesness of some of those parts is in there. There's a, there's some, there's the jade is in there growing.

The jade was a little trepidious to come out. Sure. But I'm just happy that when I did join AFI that I didn't have that same mentality, even though it was more high stakes. Like there was not very many stakes with Redemption 87, but I still was like, I just better play some like, you know, E minor, go up to the octave. It's pretty good.

The minor two, and then I'll hit the tritone and, you know, like the hardcore chords. 7.58. Right? What's better than that? Nothing's better than that. That's the bread and butter, baby. How early do you become aware of AFI as a band and as people?

We're from the same town, of them from the get-go. Just straight up. Yeah. They were kind of, we kind of viewed them as grommets, like kind of posers, because they were younger than us, and they weren't as good as us at skating. Like, they had their own little crew that were, that were, like, none of them were very good, and we were, like, much better.

And we just felt, like, more advanced than them. So we were cool with them, but they were kind of grommets to us. Gromit is an interesting way to put it. Yeah. Was there ever a feeling that you would end up in the band someday? No. Did you want to? No.

I did almost go on tour with them as a merch guy. And then their guitar player, I think, had like something weird with me. Like, I don't know if he was, because there was a little bit of competitiveness, like, with my first band. And Jeff Kresge, who was the bass player for AFI, was actually in my band first and left my band to join them. And so, and it was, there was like a little bit of gentlemanly tension there. And so, anyway, that led him to kind of put the kibosh on me being in the AFI camp early on. But you're like, fuck it. I don't need that.

No. I'm doing other stuff. I mean, I wasn't doing much stuff. This was an interesting question. I'm curious to hear the answer. When was your first plane ride? My first plane ride was the aforementioned trip to Hagerstown, Maryland. Oh.

Oh, wow. I'd never been on a plane and. So Redemption did one tour and it was like three or four shows on the East Coast. And that was my first time on a plane ride. Did you have a good time? On the plane? Yeah. The only thing I remember is being on the taxiway and we're about to take off.

And then when it started accelerating, I was like, oh, my God, we're going so fast. This is crazy. It's so powerful. I still remember it because, yeah, I didn't know what it felt like to accelerate in a plane. And so, yeah, it was cool. I mean, I got to go on a plane for the first time. I mean, we never had money growing up, so I couldn't have been on, like, gone on a plane.

Hagerstown, Maryland. Unthinkable. So how was that, any fond memories from that tour, other than this naked guy you don't remember? It was killer. Yeah, I don't know. I don't remember the naked guy. I mean, that's a memorable event.

Who are the shows with, if you remember? Blade Crasher, in my eyes. I think there might have been like a rotating cast of bands I hadn't heard of, like, kind of smaller local bands. Sure. We flew to New Jersey and stayed in Tim from Inson's, like, basement and just,

played some shows played at a skate park and it was great I mean I was I was young and I didn't you know I just wanted to play shows and so yeah playing parkour in the East Coast and that was the only tour you ever did for them yeah the only tour they ever did

I mean we played a lot of shows but it was drivable stuff did you ever come down down here oh yeah we came down here with H2O when Mackey was playing drums for him oh sick and Isaac was doing merch and I was just like

Ezek from Crocky from Cromag's and they had Mackey set up sideways on stage. And I was like, to me it was like, damn, this was like legendary shit right here. So to you, Jade, Isaac from Crona Thorns doing merch, that meant something to you? Yeah.

That's so cool. I was like, yeah, I mean, it was all kind of sort of these dudes from these bands. I was probably the same age, essentially, as them. But to me, it was like these legendary characters. But it's like, this is how we feel. about guys. You know, we feel this way about guys all the time. So it's cool.

Just to see. I mean, if I, I've never met Ray Kappa if I saw him, I'd be like, damn, that's Ray Kappa. It's like how I feel about it. Let's talk about, from your perspective, joining AFI. How does that happen? Why is it the right time? Why are you the right guy in your mind, you know? I've thought about this a lot because

I wouldn't, who knows what I would be doing? I wouldn't be here unless you guys wanted to talk to like a social theorist or a bomb or something i don't know i was living everyone lived in a squat we called a squat it was essentially a squat where you had to pay a rent so it was kind of even worse than a squat at least not even a pretty squat yeah this is a pay squat they were going on tour afi and dave lived in a room we called the clavit because it was

like a cave mixed with a closet it was this tiny room that was like probably about this wide and maybe that long. Okay. And that's where he lived. And they all lived in the house. And so he let me stay in there. And I had basically, they were on tour for six weeks.

And I'm like, I have six weeks here. And then I'm on the street. And I have no options. Like, I wanted to be an author. Like, I graduated from Berkeley.

And I was going to go to grad school at Yale because they had a program where if you, if you graduated from Berkeley, if with good enough grades, you would get accepted. automatically. I just didn't want to face the real world and I could get student loans. So I was like, I'm going to go to grad school and just put off becoming a real person as long as I can. A lot of people choose that life. Yeah. My wife did for a long time. She just finished. She just

finished college. Yeah. Well, I mean, two master's degrees later. That's cool. I mean, I wish I had my master's degree. I kind of regret. You don't need a master's degree. I don't even need. You made one. You know? Yeah. But, you know, it would be cool. I feel the same. I've never done a lick of post-high school education. So I always look at lifelong musicians who finish college and it blows my mind. Yeah, I can kind of rub it in the other guy's faces because they all dropped out of college to do AFI. So they did the hard work and I finished my degree and then slot it in at the right time. You came in college grad and created the AFI sound.

Yeah, I just was like living in Dave's room. in my cap and gown, wearing it every day. How does it happen? How does the conversation go? So like I said, they're on tour. I'm loving in his room. I have to get out when he comes back because there's not an effrooom in the clay, but for two people. And so I'm like, all right, I don't know what's going to happen with me. I got no prospects. I got nowhere to live. I don't have anybody in my family with money that can help me out. I'm just like, you know, I'd be on the streets. Yeah. And he comes home and he's like, takes me out to the balcony.

And he's like, hey, man, we just, like, kicked out our guitar player. Would you want to play guitar for AFI? And it was crazy because I didn't, that was not even a possibility or a whisper on the wind that something like that was going to happen. You know, I didn't know they were going to kick him out or they were going to ask me. And they didn't have, I was the only guy that they considered. So they weren't thinking about asking, you know, trying me out or something. And this is just from, like, knowing you for this long and having faith in what they know you can do. Yeah, they always, I guess, love my guitar playing.

I don't know why, but they were like, you're a great guitar player and songwriter. Because I wrote all the songs in Loose Change, and it wasn't the same style. So they knew I could write. And so, yeah, and that day we started writing Black Sails like that very day. You came with the Malius chorus. Yeah, so that was still sitting on the balcony. I went and grabbed my acoustic guitar, and I was like, I had this part that was kind of like, I think I've been listening to call my brothers,

you know, the Ignite album. Sure. And I'm like, kind of a little part here. Okay. And we just put it together, yeah. Unbelievable. The band changes overnight. The songs become compositional and cinematic.

How natural is this record for you to write, just this first one? Does it write itself in a way? Pretty much, yeah. I just knew that AFI was an established band and they had three records out already. And I didn't want to come in. And now I was going to be the songwriter, essentially.

I mean, Hunter wrote too, but the guy that kicked out had written all the songs on the previous record. And I don't want to ruin the band. Like, if I came with some whack songs, I could ruin these dudes' livelihood in their band, you know? It wasn't much of a livelihood at that point, but, you know. But they're already all on Nitro at this point, right? Yeah.

And, you know, they're doing well, and they're touring. and they can tour all over. They might not draw a lot of people, but they're a successful enterprise, so I don't want to come in and be responsible for the downfall of this band. But I didn't get in my head about it, and we just wrote,

and I think part of it is from day one, Dave and I were such good songwriting partners, and to this day, we've never, in 30 years, had a fight, we've never had an argument while we're writing, and we've spent countless years together in a room writing music at this point, And we just get along so well

and we're so on the same page that it made it really easy for me and for him too. And we just like, that record was, it just is easy. It's, I mean, there's definitive, like, well-documented proof of, like, how lucky you guys are to have found each other. Was there a, like, riff or song that for you was, like, the single kind of holy shit moment

of like, okay, this is working and it's awesome? Everyone was kind of cool and different. I mean, you know, like a song like prayer position, that's a hardcore song. Straight up. The whole song is a hardcore song. And so we were both huge hardcore fans, obviously. And so I'm like, oh, we can do hardcore and it sounds killer, but it doesn't sound like everything else.

It sounds kind of like our version of it. And then like, like, Strengthy Winning of the first song on the record, like, I remember we went and saw the deaf tones at the Phoenix Theater and we were driving home and I was thinking about like, what'd be a good intro for the record? We just started kind of going back and forth. And we came home and just ran up to the room and wrote that song.

And like, it was just like that. Everything we did just felt new and exciting and fun. I didn't think that, like, we're writing the best songs ever. We're like, this is going to be a great record or this is going to be anything. It was just like, it's fun. This is cool. Cool, man. What is your favorite fret?

I mean, there's different frets that kind of have their own magic. Yeah. I love, I mean, it wouldn't shock anyone to know that I'm E-Meyer guy. I mean, E-miner. You're kind of the king of E-Miner. E minor is the king of chords. Yeah. Because you got the low E minor, which is the heaviest chord in standard tuning.

Right. And then you got the octave up here. Beautiful. And going back and forth between those things, I mean, you've heard me do it a million times if you listen to AIFI. And it's because I love that chord. And so the zero fret. Okay. Or the seventh fret or the seventh fret.

Zero fret of the seventh fret. Got to be the best friends. I love it. Yeah. I love it. It's surprises. me, the fact that zero is your favorite, it surprises me how much restraint you have to not just throw a big breakdown in sometimes, you know?

Well, there's some big breakdowns early on. But are there, is that something you fight or where you're like, I can't do that? I did kind of think, because at that point, I had been listening to Hargrove for a long time and there's a whole kind of Earth Crisis Snap case, which I fucking loved. Yeah. But I felt like an AFI sometimes felt token. to do it. Like there's a song

Porphyria on that album that has a big hardcore breakdown essentially. And it just felt like if we go back to this well too many times

it's gonna, it would be like here's AFI kind of ripping off hardcore and doing like a pastiche of hardcore. I didn't want to be that guy

or do that. Did it already feel like by the time you joined that you, not to say that you're past hardcore, but like did it already feel like

it's too late to do those things? Kind of. Because that, That mid-90s era of hardcore was kind of the last era where I was fully tapped in. And I continue even to this day to listen to hardcore, but I don't have my finger on the pulse. And I kind of didn't because I was touring constantly and doing AFI. So I just, I couldn't go to shows all the time.

So yeah, that kind of mid-90s period, which was a great period, that was kind of like my last heyday of being fully immersed. You've been touring with sick of it all as much as you did? did it feel like sick of it all i was fully immersed and sick of it yeah yeah but you know like the the life on the rubs tour was like sick of it all hot water music yeah they were in their like fat record bag at that at that time so they were like a little bit more was that pre fat records record 99 i think that was maybe the first that might have been when yeah i think it was like bill to last was the last one not built the last might have been fat wreck maybe that's 97 no i don't think built alas is on fat rack i think the one with a red

cover was on was the first one on Fat Rock right that might be 99 I think I mean I fucking love those guys there so many things my first time getting to go to Europe was because Sikavit all took us they didn't need to take us they didn't need a fI in 99 how was that awesome I mean no one cared about us but it was killer and then taking us out on that life on the ropes tour was killer going to Japan for the first time sick of it all on 9-11 no less we're literally there I mean good boy place to be. Yeah, it was scary though, because we couldn't get home. Yeah, did you get stuck? Yeah, we got

stuck. Oh, that sucks. And we had no money. Worst places to be stuck. Yeah, it was cool, but it was also like, they're from New York, and so they're freaking out. Yeah, true. And so it was just weird. Yeah, totally. It was weird, yeah. So on Black Sales, this begins, like I said, like Dave said, the AFI sound, as it is known today. They have octaves and dark chord voicings. Where does that, like, harmonic language come from. The way that you play and the way that you write riffs doesn't sound like anything. Doesn't sound like anything good. No, that's not true. It's the six string bar quart.

Yeah, you're... That is something that, yeah, a lot of this stuff, you know, I don't know. I think a lot, I remember writing those songs like in the squat and I was trying to make up new stuff, new techniques, because I'm like, I want to I want this, I don't want to sound like obviously my last band or any of the bands have been in because it wouldn't make any sense. And I only know how to be me. I've never had lessons. So I don't know theory or technique other than my own. So I was just putting like, you know in preposition when it has the breakdown part, it's like a clean guitar. Yeah. Like I'm just like putting my fingers places and seeing what sounds good.

It's just instinct. Yeah. And some of that stuff like the inverted chords and like it's just, I started being like, okay, I like this. I mean, I was a good guitar player at that point, but I was just stretching and being like, I want to do stuff. I want to put my fingers in places they've never been.

Every little boy's dream. Yeah. What's your rig like at that time? I inherited the previous guitar player's gear because he was like, when they kicked him out, he was like, I'm done with music. I don't want any of this stuff. I'm not playing music ever again, and he hasn't.

Oh, wow. Which is crazy because he was a good songwriter. I love that record before me. That's awesome. That's a great record. Yeah, and he just went to Harvey Mudd for mathematics, like higher math. So he wrote single second and then never wrote a song again? Yeah. Third season?

Yeah. It's crazy. And a Firenside EP, which has like over exposure? Yeah. Yeah. And he just, apparently he said, like kind of leading up to him being kicked out, it was getting kind of sour on the band. And he said, like, the next AFI record, I'm going to write something that's going to be so bizarre

that no one's going to want to listen to it. And I always thought like, damn, I wish I knew what that was going to be. Because I bet it was cool. Give them a call. We can make it happen. I was curious about the way you play. And I think it's more obvious on the next LP. But a thing that is interesting about the Bay Area is there's like a strange amount of rockabilly, psychability bands from there.

Yeah, I guess you're right. And I wonder, because there's a lot of hammerons and a lot of like, interesting picking. Like, I remember I saw Viva Hate with Sikidavit. And I remember just thinking, like, all these bands are from the same area. They all the same people. Like, what is informing that playing? I don't know. I never really thought that I sounded like anyone or anyone, like, that... That's the thing. That's the question. Well, you know, I'm not saying that you necessarily...

Yeah. But it's just like, there's like a weird throughline that is... There's like maybe a shared influence somewhere down the line. Like maybe you all like Johnny Marr or something like that. I mean, I was not certainly not advanced enough to know anything about how Johnny Marr was playing early on, you know? Yeah. And like things like playing all the strings, that was just something I came with. I'm the only guitar player.

So I'm the only guitar player. How can I make the guitar sound the biggest it could be playing all the strings all the time? And then, you know, playing open like pedal tones. Yeah. Like I didn't know what a pedal tone was. but I'm like, if I only play one note on this riff, it's going to sound thin, and I'm the only guitar player. So, like, what if I just put this open string with it?

And so it's just kind of dumb logic, but those things became my thing. And then the inverted power chords or triads, those kinds of things are just shit that sounded good to my ear. That's the best. Those are the best. Yeah. That's how you also, you trick them thinking

it's more complicated than it is, you know? Yeah, like for all children in the intro. That's just, you know. It's yeah, exactly. Just move your fingers in kind of a logical way. And you get something cool. You really do. How do you look back on Black Sails now after 27 years of songwriting in this band?

I love that record. It was definitely such a pure record because we weren't trying to do something. We weren't trying to be good. We weren't trying to impress anyone. We weren't trying to sound like anyone. We were simply two guys. I mean, all four of us, obviously, but Dave and I, we kind of start the song and write the parts to it,

and then we take it and work it out as a band. But there's just two guys kind of like learning how to work together. So it was just like nothing more pure than that expression of songwriting. And then, man, you just never stopped working together. Yeah. For better, for worse.

Right for better. For better. Next up would be the All Hallows EP. Yeah. Speaking of Fall Children Room. That is like, The go to, oh, this guitar is a standard? Okay, let me check it out.

Guitar should always be in standard. Agreed, man. Agreed. This is a standard. This is a room of standard guys. Yeah, tell me about the, so the All Hallows EP was described as an exercise in fun and in punk and just wanted to do a Halloween record. Yeah, and I remember when you interviewed Dave, he was talking about how we wrote those songs for that EP, which isn't. Totally true. We wrote, we were basically starting to write what would end up being art of drowning.

And so that was totally immortal in Boydistory of the World were songs that we had written for the next record. Wow. And then the idea of doing this EP came up and we're like, oh, let's use, we got these two songs, new songs. Let's put them on there. And then we wrote Fall Children for it, obviously. And then did the cover. And yeah, it was fun. It was like, you know, Dave talked about how the label, of course. Yeah, do you want to get into frustrations there? I mean, that, like, we always talk about this as a band. If we ever were to tell the whole story of that,

probably the best of it was all of us. Because we all have our own perspective. And it was the shittiest thing I've ever experienced as a musician, or in the industry, all of us. And, I mean, we ended up in a good place eventually. So that's important. But it was a shitty experience and a learning experience and realizing not everyone is on,

is doing this for the love of the music and doing it. We came from punk and from hardcore. It was about community and everyone was lifting each other up. And it wasn't a zero-sum game where of like, you got something that means I didn't get it. So like, fuck that, that sucks because you got that thing. It's like, oh, cool, you got that thing. Maybe now you can put me on.

And like, you know, we're all helping each other and we're all lifting each other up. So that experience was kind of making you realize, though, we're in a different game now. this isn't about Gilman Street. This isn't about the hardcore club. This is about big corporations and lots of money. Right.

Even when in the things like the All Hollies, you pee, it's like, all right, we're getting to do this fun thing that they're not psyched about. And it just happens to pop off and do really well. And now it's a great idea. Well, even Black Sales, we did that record. And then we hear back through the Grapevine, like, you know, the guy who runs our label doesn't get it. He doesn't like it. And so I'm already starting off this

journey with the band being like, well shit, this sucks. Yeah, if you don't like this, what the hell is it? If our label doesn't like it, what does that mean for us? Do they, are they not going to support it? And then the next thing we do is kind of like we basically have to talk them into doing it. And yeah, both those things speak for themselves and people still are listening to that shit today. So there must have been something there. There sure is. Did not see on either one of those records. And Boy Who Destroyed the World being in Tony Hawk is legit responsible for people finding punk and hardcore in the first place. You know what's cool about that is that is slowly over time crept

up to be one of our most popular songs. And it's got to be just because of Tony Hawk. Does this, did this feel like a like a timeless special batch of songs at the time? Or was it just like, yeah? Like totally immortal and Boydister of the World were like the two new songs that Dave and I just road. I remember going down. I had the banana-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da in the guitar part and the verse. And I called him on the house phone. I'm like, hey, man, I'm coming down. I got a new thing. Because I was now living in the squat above him on the next floor. Oh, coming down, literally, I'm coming

downstairs. Yeah, I'm coming downstairs. That's how it was. Because we all all four of us lived in that house. And Nick 13 lived there too. And two of the guys that went on to be in the nerve agents, Tim Presley, and Andy Grenelli. And then another dude who was in ceremony. like so all these people just lived in this house all these musicians and so yeah I'd call them on the phone I had a riff I'd be like come down to your room or come up to my room and I just got I remember

sitting there writing totally mortal and those things we just like banged them out and you know half an hour time you don't even think about it yeah because we were just on back then I knew that no matter what I played Dave was gonna come with something great like I just had we had the most faith in each other it was that's a great feeling when you're writing with someone you're like it doesn't matter what core progression what riff I play

this dude is going to elevate it with what he does. It's so cool because I think about that too. Now, when I have two songs that I really like, being afraid to burn them on something like a 7-inch, and you had no hesitation of doing that, which is awesome. I still feel that way.

I'm very much of the mindset that always put your best foot forward because if you're like, man, I'm going to save these songs back because they got to be on something special. Maybe that's something special never happens. Or maybe those songs, putting them out now, is what, you know, something happens with those songs because you put them out now. Like, don't know.

It's like always put your best stuff out because, plus you might, by the way, you might write something way better instead of holding those two back, you might two that are way better. I'm so scared. I'll never do that. Yeah, no, same. Never. Pardon this interruption. I need just two minutes of your time

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Back to the episode. When do you do the AFI Danzig Sam Hain tour? That was 99. How cool was that? It was crazy because I think it was right when we finished the Sick of It All tour, which is a long-ass tour, grueling. And we got the call from our booking agent Stormy Shepard. It was like, hey, do you want to do two weeks with Danzig and Sam Hane? And we're like, you know.

So it basically drove from the end of Sick of It All Tour to Detroit to start that tour. And it was like, yeah, it was a trip, man. It was definitely like a culture shock because, you know, the people at a Danzig, Sam Hain Show are different just in general to the people we usually play to. But exposing them to Black Sails and El Hollows, they were going, finally, something else for me, you know? Yeah, a lot of hick accents, you know, Detroit. Yeah, totally. I remember being backstage in Detroit and like, cold his life is from Detroit, right? Oh, yeah. I think some of those dudes were there.

They're very nice dudes. Very scary. Like, oh my God. Like, you know, Detroit, the, like, Detroit Tigers logo on the face. Like, face tattoos, especially giant face tattoos was not a thing back then. And I was just like, damn, these dudes are hard. But, yeah, it was cool. Like, Danzig is very, you know, it's not like he was chopping it up with us backstage. Sure. You know, like, I remember we played in Portland.

Actually, the place we, AFI just played in Portland, like a few weeks ago. That's cool. Yeah. But he had like, we couldn't have a dressing room because he had all the dressing rooms. And he had this line of girls that were like in line to go see him and it was all girls. And our dressing room was like sort of the front area. And so they were all lined up in our dressing room. And it was just like we're trying to get changed just to go on stage.

It's weird. But and then another, we were playing in Denver. And this was at a time when I think there was some drama between Jerry only and Doyle and Glenn. And it was when Jerry and Doyle were wrestling. Oh, yeah, WCW. And the WCW was in town at the same night in Denver. And we had heard like through the roadies or something that like they had called down to the venue we were playing at. and basically like, we're going to come down there

and it's going to be on or something. It was like, everyone was tripping because there were like, there's going to be like 100 professional wrestlers showing up to try to like kill Danzig. And like, it was like a weird show. But then I saw Goldberg. Oh, he came? We left the venue to drive to the next show

and we stopped to get gas. And this is Pete Goldberg. Yeah, I went in. I mean, I don't know much about wrestling, so. But I went in and I recognized him. He was in line in the gas station that we stopped at. Massive guy. Yeah, and I'm like, it's a fucking Goldberg.

And I never asked anyone for autographs just because I don't care. Yeah. But I was the only one in the gas station. I'm like, no one's going to believe me. So I'm like, I asked him to like sign an autograph just so I could go show the guys that Goldberg was in there. The other thing that was funny from that tour is we were, we never let Dave drive the van because he sucks at driving. He's a terrible driver. He's probably better now, but he was not better than.

Okay. He was less better than. Do you load out at all? Yeah. He loaded out? He's very helpful. Really? Oh, yeah.

Dave was never. He's always down. He's never going to, like, do that. And he's a strong guy, so you'd hope. He's the strongest guy, probably, in the bands. Wow. He was always a thousand percent down to help in any way. I mean, he used to sing the end of the last song.

He'd jump off stage and run to the merch booth to sell the T-shirts. Yeah. You know, like, he was down for the cause. But for some reason, we needed to move. The Danzig people told us we needed to move our van. We had a van and trailer. and his bus was like this. And for some reason, Dave was the guy that was doing it.

And I was directing him. I don't know why I wasn't driving. So he's trying to maneuver the van and trailer, which is way beyond his skill set. And he just starts firing straight back towards Danzig's bus. And I'm like, stop! And he slammed on the brakes, like literally inches from Danzig's bus. And the curtains open as like this angry Danzig face, like peering out,

mean mugging us. And we're like, oh, man, that's it. Sorry, Danes. We're off the tour. Like, there's no way. Wow. We're out here fucking around in the parking lot. Was this, were you, were you part of the thing where macho man was trying to kill Doyle?

Was this, was this something? No, but I know someone that was there. Okay. When he was saying, what was he calling him? He didn't know Doyle's name or he had heard it wrong. Was he saying Dale or something? Yeah. Where's Dale?

Yeah. And he went back to the green and started pounding their bruise. And no one wanted to tell him no. Yeah. How could you tell him? And then he was on the side of the stage while they were playing mean mug and pound and bruise. And like, that's got to be a frightening. That's so cool.

We did a press junket. We got nominated for a VMA in 2003 on Sing the Sorrow. And there was a press junket, like basically all of the press and all of the acts that got nominated in the basement of radio suit of music hall. They got set up tables and places for people to get interviewed. And we were down there and just like all these famous bands. And it was cool. It was like, fucking got to meet Duran Duran. and like all the shit.

And my brother had a big Mohawk at the time. He was our tour manager. And Masha Mancompton was like, nice hair, brother. I was like, this is cool. This is the best thing that happened today. And this is Smith. Smith, yeah.

Legend. Yeah, Smith is truly a legend. He's awesome. Like, he's known, he's probably known more than I am. You think so? I mean, in like, maybe for like fans not. Sure. And you're Kai up for sure.

Yeah, for sure. He's known, like, everyone knows and loves Smith. I already love him. I mean, he's got an R. Kelly tattoo. Damn. Before R. Kelly got, unfortunately for Smith. Post-piss, pre-piss? I think it was pre-piss.

Oh, okay. So he's fine. He's good. Yeah, it's like, he's good. He's good. He's good. With a cell phone, like, is super crude, like hand-done. And R-Kelly's saying, bitch, as you tweak.

Did you know that after the piss thing happened? R. Kelly sold, he had one of the legendary Neve consoles and sold it to 311. He was liquidated after the piss and now it's in North Hollywood. He liquidated and then liquidated the piss. Damn. And then liquidated after the piss. Art of drowning. Speaking of piss.

Speaking of it. Art of drowning, we already know you've been writing it because now we know Total Immortal and Boat Shro of the World. We're supposed to be on it is the goal with. the art of drowning. Okay, this worked. Let's keep it going. There was no goal once again. Like, we were really just punk kids doing whatever.

You know, no plan ever in place. It was strange because Dexter decided we needed a producer for some reason and put us with this dude who didn't get it at all. It was just weird. His name was Chuck Johnson. He's like a metal dude. He had long hair. It was just strange.

And we recorded at Fantasy Studios in Berkeley where they record. like all the Creed and Clearwater revival stuff and it was a legit studio. Sure. And we were used to just, you know, you go in and do it in a week kind of thing. With Andy Ernst? Yeah. Who was a legend who recorded like Rancid and Green Day and like just all these legendary East Bay bands and he's so good.

And it's not like Art of Drone sounds wildly different than any of that stuff. Partially because we, they had it mixed and it sounded like shit and we went and had Andrew mix it. So there was a continuity there at least for that. There you go. But yeah, he was... You can hear him in it, you know? Yeah, totally.

He was like, you know, not many people know how to... That aren't from punk or hardcore know how to mix gang vocals. That, yeah. And I've experienced this with, like, amazing world-class producers. They just don't understand it. Yeah. You got to, like, know that world. And Andrew was so good at it.

That's why the gang vocals and those two records sound so good. And ones before that, too, because he just knew how to do it. And you guys, the gang vocals in AFI are so... particular because of the melody yeah and because he's Dave is up here so it's like everybody's got to be up there so you got like singers doing gang vocals that is one thing I think that we kind of maybe did we didn't invent it but doing it the way we did it I think we were kind of like one of the only ones to do it because gang vocals were usually like hard shouting yeah and like it could be a call and response

but it wasn't we were doing like the full melody the hook of the as if so the misfits like woes, how those were always big and kind of gangy. You're putting words in that, which is not easy to do. No, and like you say, every melody that Dave writes is basically a high B, which is a simitone under a high C, which is like, you know, soprano level shit. And luckily I have a high range, which I got from destroying my voice singing, backing vocals on AFI before I was in the band. That you did.

So I could hit those notes and Adam has a really high voice too. So kind of like, you know, Queen, how the drummer is like has a crazy high voice. So not that we were queen, but, but yeah, I thought that was always an important part of what we did was those melodic gang vocals. And then Dave, like, we do a hook. And then Dave would come up with a response that was also a hook, maybe even a bigger hook. And that was kind of like a good formula we had. Yeah, big time. I mean, that's all.

Art of drowning is like big time that, where it's. Yeah. But you know who did that, not exactly the same way, but was Rancid. Yeah, big time. Rancid, the big gang vocal chorus hook thing. Like, they might have been. I'm a veteran, ram going through to you. It's everybody.

The boys at the time. And then live, all three of the dudes across the front singing this, like, it was so powerful. Sounding perfect. Like, they might have been invented that because they were, I don't remember anyone else doing it like that. Something I forgot to ask about. Why are you and Hunter credited in? John Williams' score for the 1998 movie Stepmom with Julia Roberts and Susan Sarandon. Of course, my royalties.

Did you know that? No. It says you played violin on the score for stepmom. This is like, you did some. Even Nardor would be like, what? And this is not true? I definitely didn't do it. And nor have I ever even heard.

Hunter, too. Hunter's on there. Damn. I know. Something happened. There's a different Hunterberg in the J.P. Yeah. In John Williams' orchestra.

Yeah, there's some fan that has, like, my jade Puget at gmail.com. No. And I tried to, like, tell Google, like, there's no way there's another Jade Puget on this earth. That's too weird of a name. It would be another one. So can't I just have this? Because clearly, someone has it that's not. It's a nefarious character.

And he's like, I don't care. I don't care about you. Come on, Zuck, or whoever owns Google. So Days of the Phoenix. Yes. A live staple of 25 years now. One of the defining AFI songs, kind of the blue, this is like kind of the blueprint for Sing the Sorrow even. Do you remember how that song came together?

Because it's different for the band and for music. Yeah, it was like a rock song almost in a way. And that's actually, Hunter came up with a chord progression for that. He's basically, you know, I got these chord changes. And then I just like I played that intro riff and like just started putting my thing on it And Dave put the lyric on it put the vocal on it and it just kind of came together easy and it was different I mean not as different like morning star for us was really like yeah the departure because in my mind that was the god-called sick today of that But it went even farther and we almost didn't put that on the record because we're like this morning star yeah we're like this is too far

Like it's got the viola or it got the cello in it like we just can't this is too too crazy. But then you'd go so much crazier in just a few years. I know, but at that time, and I remember even God Conn's Sick today, I wrote that song and brought it to a rehearsal and Hunter's like, no, this is like too crazy. You know, Dave's like screaming in that song, even though it's slow. Yeah. Hunter's like, we can't do this. Because we're a hardcore man? Yeah, basically, we don't do like ballads. Wow. And I was like, I kind of fought for it. Lord, do you ever do ballots, you know? Yeah. And then it became, you know, like, it became fun to do. do them. And Morningstar was

even farther down that road. Or all of us were kind of like a little bit like, I don't know, but we just did it anyway. Isn't that so funny to look back at? And now it's just like, it's just a great song. Yeah, to think that anything you do is going, unless you really do a departure that's ridiculous.

There's a difference between change and evolution, we always say on this program. Yeah. I wonder about Days of the Phoenix. When you are recording, how conscious are you of too many guitar layers? Because because you are the single guitar player. I never really thought much about it.

I did think in my playing to try to write parts that were going to sound good live and sound big. Early on I read this quote from one of the Beatles where it was like, basically when they did Sergeant Pepper's, it's like, let the studio be the studio, let the live be the live. Like, don't hamper what you're doing and something that's going to live on forever because you're worried about how it's going to translate.

at some show in this intimate thing. Yeah. Yeah. And you're going to be like, what? I have a cool part, but I better not put it on there because I can't play it live. It's like, just do it. Just go all the way out. And so I always kind of had that idea. Is six to eight about gambling? It is about tour. Tour.

Because we'd always go out for six to eight weeks. Oh. Yeah. One of my sources told me something about rolling dice for sleeping spots. We did. I don't think it was anything to do with that song on. there maybe is a reference because it is about two. He says throw the bones.

Okay. Then yes. That is not about gambling. That's only about gambling for beds. Okay. Because, you know, you get to the hotel. And at this point, we were staying in a hotel, which was great. That was a step up because my early touring was before I got an AFI, my first tour, was you stopped the van and you just stop the van and turn off the key.

And then that's where you're sleeping. Like literally. Yeah. Dark, just upright, sleeping. And then you wake up in the morning and turn the van back on and keep going. So we're staying at hotels now. Huge. This is like, major.

Congrats. Yeah, thank you. But we don't only have one room, of course. We wouldn't have our own rooms, but it means. And it would be in some absolute shit hotel, of course. But we would roll dice when we got there to see who got the bed. And we'd play threes away, so. And then you wouldn't continue to gamble with the dice after?

No, because it'd be like four in the morning. He was so tired and just destroyed. Not gamblers. We did gamble. I mean, Smith was really the one. Ah. Legend. Yeah, he was like, he was, you know, we played Vegas. You come down. You thought he was supposed to fly out and go home and you come down. He's still there, like, wasted at the table. So, yeah, that's more Smith.

Does the sudden commercial success and attention from labels and managers as a result of this record in particular come as a shock? Because it's like, when you look at this in Black Sales, it's like two halves of one identity. It's because labels being what they are, they're looking for the next big thing. They're not really even caring about your music. They saw we had slowly just been building this big underground following. And especially, I think, when we did warp tour, the first time we did the whole warp tour was on Art of Drowny. And we were like every year, at least back then, there would be like the one band who was like the hot band. band who was just killing it on Warp Turn. We were that band that year. And so I think people

saw that and then they started coming to our shows, kind of starting to chase us. And they saw, like I remember we played at, it was called the Palace. You remember it was on Vine? It's called something else now. It used to be called the Palace. We played a show there and everyone came out all the label heads and it was a crazy show. And the crowd was singing so loud that, like you couldn't hear us. It was like some Beatles shit, but they were, singing like the words and like so passionate and all the labels were like okay we got to have these guys yeah and so that's really what it was they saw probably the dollar signs not the passion they didn't hear hey this record yeah it's awesome it also sounds a lot like this one that we ignored yeah i mean you

listen to our drowning you're not thinking like here's a huge commercial sounding band that's because it's not super out of character from from what you were doing and they don't none of them knew what was about to happen no i think they just saw the potential maybe if they could steer us the right way, you know, get us in there with like some songwriters maybe or I don't know what the plan was. I think a crazy thing that we left out is that this is only like a year after Black Sales, right?

How much time was there between the records? Yeah, I think there was one year. That's crazy. Because all house was the same year. Also, all hells was also came out between those two, yeah. Yeah, that's insane. Imagine doing that now. It's great when you're young, man.

And in fact, Sing the Sorrow could have been a year later too because it was written it was just all the bullshit that went on that caused it to not come out to 2003 because we were done with that done writing it by 2002 when we were in the studio in 2002

so yeah which any delay in that probably helped the timing yeah like I say where we ended up is in a good place so maybe if we wouldn't have that experience and it came out earlier maybe we wouldn't have caught the light geist

or whatever you'd ever know indefinedable thing you have to do to, who knows? That you did, whatever it is. It can't be defined. What is it about Art of Dronimo that made it kind of the last predominantly fast AFI record? That was just natural progression. I mean, Art of Drowning and Black Sells may seem similar,

but there is a progression there. It's like Dave is singing more, not quite as screaming and everything's screaming. and, you know, like, Days of the Phoenix, things like that start coming in and like ever in a day. It starts being different things in there. And when we wrote that next record, that was written by the, before all that major label stuff started happening. So that was- But didn't inform it. No, like, if that would have come out on Nitro, it would have been, still have been Sing the Sorrow, that same record.

So, like, that progression was just happening naturally within us. I think we were like, you know, when you play hardcore and a grower, and a great-old, progressive music eventually, it's like you sit down to write the same song again. You can't do it. What else can I do? Yeah. You know, some people, they do that their whole lives and they are fulfilled by that and that's great. Like I applaud that, but some people, sometimes to your detriment, you want to change a lot.

And we've changed a lot and sometimes to our detriment. Well, there are the two B sides from, I know we're getting a little head, but sing the sorrow that are probably closer to art of drowning, the synesthesia and Reverever's music. Yeah, Revere's music and Now the World were the two that were closer to Art of Drowning. And Sinisthesia actually, I think, was one of the last songs that were possibly the second to last song written for Sing the Soror. Oh, really? Yeah. So those weren't written for Sing the Soror, the other two? I think they're written in some kind of like in between state.

I remember we were on tour in Scotland and I wrote Now the World like at some shitty club. And it was like before we started really writing Singasar. The first song I wrote for Singasaro was when we're on tour in Europe with the offspring and I wrote Dancing to Sunday. And I was thinking like, it was weird. I was thinking like, man, I'm not going to write melodic shit like the last record. I'm writing smart shit. Like as if the last record was, you know, was like some radio.

And you brought up this song, this solo. where, where, how, why, how did you, where was this hiding and like why have you never done it again, basically? I've written some pretty... There's solo, but this thing is different. Yeah, I mean, I just freestyle that solo in the studio. So it wasn't really, every time I played it in rehearsal was some different thing. And so in the studio, I just kind of like went off. You're like Cyclops and you took off the fucking Ruby Quartz.

And let the beam laugh. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I didn't think at the time that that would come to be such a thing, but that's probably like one of the one, one of the things I've written musically that people bring out. It's crazy. Yeah. And like you technically didn't even write it.

You just played it. Yeah, which is the best way to do it. That's the best way to do it. If you think about stuff too much, you start getting, it gets too technical, or it's just not melodic enough. It doesn't tell a story. Like, I like soul to tell a story. Sure. Slayer, Angel of Death.

That tells a story that solo. It's like, it has a plot to it. You know, like, that's the kind of solos that I like. Is that a Hanaman solo, Taylor? Both of them. Oh, is it both? Oh, right, it's Hanamon King. Right, that's a Hanamon king.

He just goes. That's why it's so cool because they go back and forth and each one gets crazier and crazier. It's like they're competing. And you can tell their phrasings. Even if you've never heard Slayer. Oh, yeah. You'll listen to that and go, I think that's Hanamon. Oh, definitely.

Especially by Season of the Abyss. Oh, yeah. Because then Kerry King really kind of like his guitar playing becomes so much different than Hanaman. Yeah. Where Haniman is just fucking. Yeah, he is, yeah, exactly. It's the chaos. Yeah.

RIP did. Tell me about working with Jerry Finn and Butch Vig on Sing the Sorrow. Yeah. First time working with real producers, which is crazy because we still had that mentality of just, let's go to Art of Ears and record the new record in a week and we're done. And once we signed to a major label, it was like, no, why don't you, you know. let's get you in with these guys. And the guy that signed us, Luke Wood, thought, you know,

I think Dave probably covered this, but he was talking about how this is going to be a special record. What if we had two amazing producers? Because it's not very often done because... And it's crazy. I mean, yeah, it's pretty crazy. And Bush, I don't think he's ever co-produced anything. He didn't need to.

And Jerry either at that point. And so we met with Butch first, actually. And it sucked because he had Bell's palsy at the time. So, like, half his face was... Like was like paralyzed. But we demoed with him. And we actually did a song. First we went with Mark Trombino who did Clarity.

Yeah. And Bleed American. And Bleed American. Like two of my favorite records. Masterpieces. Simply, I like push for that because I love those records so much. Yeah. And Bleed American sounds.

It's like the heaviest pop record ever. And they were DreamWorks as well, right? Yes. but this was possibly pre that but anyway I love those records especially the programming that Trombino did and that was one of the reasons

because I was really getting into electronic elements bringing that into our music I'm like well this dude gets it because listen to the stuff he did on clarity it's so killer and he just like I don't know it was weird he didn't really it just felt like his heart wasn't in it

but we recorded some songs that have never made it that would have been for Sing the Sorrow like some really good one that's like really fast and sounds more like Art of Drowning. Even that have not been released as B-Sards? Never been released, never been heard by anyone but us.

It sucks because one of them would have been one of the best songs in Art of Drowning. And then another one that's just a really cool, weird, almost like at the drive-in, aggressive, screamy kind of thing. And then we went in with Butch and demoed again. I demoed that same song again with Butch, the fast one. So there's two versions of it. One with Butch producing it, which is cool.

And then we got Jerry on board. legend R&P yeah yeah i mean jerry is like did you talk to green day beforehand about him no i think that we you know it's weird i don't think we even really met with him him and butch came out we played in vintura and him and buch came out to see us play and it sucked because like nick 13 was there and jerry said something and nick 13 was going to beat his ass and i'm like dude can't beat his ass like this is a dude first of all it's Jerry Finn and second all we're going to work with this guy. But I love Nick.

I mean, he probably had reason. You know, Jerry is a very snarky guy. Isn't it interesting to think that like, so you are the quarry was a year after, or sorry, yeah. A year after sing the sorrow. And Jerry was probably shown him sing the sorrow in that same time. And he was probably like, turn this off. Turn this shit off. I like the melody.

When we did December Underground, Because Jerry and Joe, Joe McGrath, who was the engineer who I love, I talked to him last night. They both went to England to do the next Morrissey record together and were living in a house out in the middle of nowhere with Morrissey. And they had all kinds of great Morrissey stories from living with him and doing a record with him. Was that ringleader? Yeah. That sounds like a Jerry record to me. Yeah.

And they had any of Morricone on that. So they engineered that crazy session. that didn't really make it at all to the record? Yeah, Jerry was really getting, he didn't want to be known as the pop punk guy. He didn't want to be known as the Sum 41 blink guy, you know, because he thought I have a lot more to offer. I mean, I became aware of him from him mixing Dear You,

which is incredible, one of my favorite records of all time, and they mixed Alcom on the Wolves and, like, produced some of that record. Which is, like, the best sounding thing ever. So I think his bona fides, plus he's an Oxnard guy, and Oxnard Punk, you know, like bands like aggression, and those kinds of bands. We love those bands growing up. So we didn't really need to meet with him.

We already knew. And obviously, Butch, his resume speaks for itself. So, yeah, it was cool. I mean, this record is not just, like, a collection of riffs, you know? Yeah. Whereas, like, hardcore music and punk music are collections of riffs that you throw some vocals over. It's, like, it's such a monumental undertaking that it's, like, prophetic. Even that the label was, like, you might want two massive producers for this.

Because what you have is insane. And they kind of heard that before you did, it seemed like. Yeah, I guess. And I think obviously those producers signed on based on the demos for the record. And Butch, once again, and Jerry didn't need to, even if it was just one of them, they didn't need to do AFI. We were still kind of an unknown band. We were an underground band at that point. And the fact that they would put their egos aside together to work on this record.

Crazy. Speaks to how highly they thought of what we were doing. Yeah. I mean, it is a monumental, timeless, like, objectively impressive collection of songs. So, great job. Thank you. Pre-production. You said you did demos with Butch, you did demos with other guys.

Did you thoroughly pre-produce the record with the both of them as well? It was pretty short. It was like maybe a week and a half or something. And a lot of it, because they're both drummers, Jerry and Butch, Yeah. They, like, really were beating up Adam about it because they're just drummers. And so they're like kick patterns and like this and that. I remember that being a lot of the pre-production and...

Drums. Like dialing in drums? Yeah, because they just, like, that was... And it's smart because that's... And I've had so many questions about that. Because Revers and synesthesia and now the world is like, that's Adam's bag. The rest of the record is like uncharted territory for him. Yeah. So I imagine Butch just screaming at him from behind him to get him through this thing.

Butch has probably never screamed at anyone in his life. He's like Midwestern, like nicest dude. Oh, I see, I don't know. That's awesome. Yeah, like, which is like so nice. It wasn't that Adam was not playing well. It's just like, it's a different thing. It's a different thing.

Yeah. Yeah. And like they just, I think really because they're drummers, they, that was their slant. Plus, we're doing drums first. Yeah. So the drums have to be ready first. Totally. And we're doing them in the big room at cello,

you know, like where Frank Sinatra recorded and stuff. So we got to get this right. And then we recorded the rest of it in Studio B where they recorded the Smiths and they recorded like Pet Sounds and stuff. So yeah, that was cool. Yeah. And like Tom Petty and Courtney Love were recording in there and we were recording. So it was like just a chaotic scene in the hallways.

It was pretty fun. But yeah, so pre-pro was relatively short. I remember the only real, we had already written the songs, like we're a band that comes in ready. And the only thing we really changed was on the song on paper airplanes, there used to be a different chorus. It was like a halftime chorus. And so we're playing through the song,

and Butch and Jerry are like, I think Jerry was like, is that like the best chorus that you got? You know, I don't know. The song is good, but is that the best chorus. And I was like, okay, we'll write a new one. So I go, Dave, come on over here. We went over in the corner and wrote, what is now the chorus in like three minutes.

And we're like, okay, this one, this is now the chorus. And they were like, okay, cool. And like without that note, would that song have been the same probably? No. And I went back and found an old practice tape from like a rehearsal, and the chorus wasn't as good. Wow. So that was a good note.

Produced. Yes. Production. The electronics on this record. Yeah. Is this all you? Yes. So the Mortal Kombat part in Death of Seasons.

Mortal Kombat, come on. That is not a derogatory. Okay. I mean, I don't take offense, but, you know, like, I come from a background of listening to, like, industrial music even in the 80s. Yeah. And Dave, too.

And at this time, in the early 2000s, there was the scene out of Europe that was, like, EBM music and future pop, like bands like V&V Nation. I don't know if you, like, know this music. Pop Sigma Berserk. It was basically aggressive. but melodic, purely electronic music, kind of like industrial meets trance. And we fucking loved it. And there was also bands like The Faint, of course.

Which we loved that were big at the time and the electro-clash, all that stuff. But I just was, Black Audio had started before we started writing. Seems like that. Oh, really? Yeah. What? It just took us a long time to put a record out. But in 2001, there's even a little short interview, Dave and I did in Rolling Stone in 2001 where we mentioned the fact that we're doing it. it. So I had started programming and so I was getting really into making electronic music listening to it.

And I'm like, what if I like brought that into this? Like, how could I do that? And so I did the intro of Misaria with the big, you know, all the layers and stuff. And I remember I brought it into Jerry and Joe. And those, they're like old school record dudes. And I had like a hundred tracks. Just the electronic stuff. I'm like, okay, can we get this put into pro tools? This is 100 tracks. And they're just like, dude, what are you talking about? get out of here with that and I'm like no it has to this is the song we got to do it and so I was able to talk them down and get them to they were definitely a little trepidacious about that because you know like death of seasons that that part it used to just go it was like the verse verse and I was like what if we do kind of like a VNV nation eBM industrial thing it's just like all the music just stops and it becomes a completely different genre and it's and that it stands out so crazy on the record yeah that it becomes this timeless moment. Yeah. And it's the only circle pit on the record, too. Which is awesome. The song, yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. What toys are you learning programming on? I started out with Sony Acid, which was a looping program, and then I immediately got Frutty Loops, when it was still called Fri Loops. That's FL Studio. Yeah, it's FL Studio. Yeah.

It's funny. Like, my idea of what's no, FL Studio is still, to me, I'm baffled that people make records on it because it still seems like a toy to me because my idea of what it was is like calcified in 2001 is this kind of silly toy sure um but then i went on to you know reason and then are you like an ableton guy now i've been ableton for many many years but are you doing all that in computer or you do have a bunch of devices you're swiss in i was i would sit in the lounge of the studio and on my laptop and be working programming stuff or in we were staying at the oak woods so it's all

in laptop. Yeah. Wow. So the Death of Seasons Mortal Kombat part, non-derogatory. Do you know what what, was that fruity loops? Yes. Wow. We gotta get on fruity loops, dude. It's crazy. If this was 2001, I'd be like, Frutty Litch is the best program ever. Ableton's just too many shapes, you know? I can't do all these shapes. Ableton is simpler looking than free loops to me. I'm a logic. If it's not logic, I can't do it.

Logic seems not enough shapes. That's what I like. It needs more shapes. I need to zero shape. Garage band. We need to go down to garage band. Yeah, there you go. That's why we like logic.

That's like Eric Ozan is on garage band. Exactly. The worst sounding demos you ever heard. So how did you say it? Misera. Misery. I never know how to say it. I've been saying misery canterri.

Missouri canterri for 23 years. Misaria can'tari. That one. It's a little Italian on it. Yeah. Okay. Sorry. When I said Moral Combat, you didn't like that.

If I say Terminator 2 to this, is that an intentional connection? In retrospect, that does sound like I ripped it off from Terminator 2, but I didn't. Or Terminator 1, actually, because that wasn't the Terminator thing. Yeah, it's the Terminator thing. That wasn't my slant, but I could see how one would think that. 14-year-old me thought that. And I was like, and I loved it. Cool.

Same, yeah. Yeah, I mean, maybe it was one of those things where I thought I was being original, but in my mind, because I loved, when Terminator 1 came out in the theaters, I got the Nikes that he had when he went in the store and they show his feet coming down. Yeah, that scene, I went and got those Nikes because I was a breakdancer. I was like, I got to have these shoes. Were you aware of CM Punk using the song as his entrance music when he was in Ring of Honor at the time? Yes, not just people had told me about it. Do you think it was cool or were you like, yeah. Well, I knew he was straight-edge.

I was like, okay, the one straight-edge repping, wrestler is doing AFI, that's cool. That is objectively cool. Yeah, you can't hate on that. And now he just brought that back for the main event of WrestleMania where he paid tribute to Boe. Which is very cool. Did you watch it?

Yes. How cool was that? Very cool. I mean, on many levels. Yeah, on many levels, indeed. Leaving Song 2 ended up being a, a single against your will in a way. Yes.

But it's the first actual song on the album. So you have some faith in it, you know? I didn't want that to be the first actual song. I remember having, we were in the mixing studio having a discussion about sequencing. And I'm like, why don't, why wouldn't we put like Dancing Through Sunday as the first song? Or Death of Seasons, like get it started with something. You know, Missouri is kind of slow. It's not really a real song.

And then just come out of the box with something fast. and aggressive. And I get it now, but at the time, I still had that old school mentality. It's like, let's come out with something fast is the first song. It is such a, like, weird, and I've made in this in a good way,

song musically. It is. Like, riff-wise, what he's doing? Vocally, there's a bunch. It's crazy. I don't, that's something that, like, no band can ever sound like that again, you know? So it is wild that that ends up being,

The runaway single for the record. And especially because K-Rock chose it, and their whole job, is to know what is going to work on the radio. And for them, there were so many songs that were melodic and more radio-friendly than that one. Airplanes. Yeah. Or just, I mean...

Silver and Cold then was... And Bleed Black, yeah. Yeah. Bleed Black was supposed to be the next one. Okay. That was supposed to be single number two. And Girls Not Gray was... Always single one.

Yeah. Crazy. Did you hear the Leaving Song 3? that me, Bo, and Jordan from two minutes late night did? No, but I wrote a, Dave and I wrote a song a couple of records ago called Living Song Three. It never came out. I want to hear yours, though.

There's still time. It's the same thing. Oh, okay. It's one played like synesthesia. Oh, okay. It's just, it's fun. But it's fun. I thought maybe you just played it like a half step down or something.

No, it's like fast. It's like a fast version of one. That's cool. Seb from Regulate Sings, it's awesome. Finishing this record, hearing this record, how do you feel about it, how does the band feel about it, management, A&R and all that? This was probably the last record where we writing it and everything felt complete freedom with no pressure. Because like I said before, when we were writing this record, we were still just the underground band.

We had no one sniffing around. We were just writing songs with no ex-examination. expectation other than just write the best songs we can. And so, yeah, there was no baggage. The baggage all came later. And we were proud of it. I remember the two presidents, co-presidents of Dreamworks, Mo Austin and Lenny Warncker, who were like the dudes that signed Prince and Michael Jackson and Simon and Garfunkel,

like these old dudes, really cool dudes, but like that's where their pedigree was. Yeah. And they came to the studio to listen to it. I remember standing there and they were at the board. and they were playing leaving song too and i was thinking like what are these dudes thinking of this shit yeah they're like especially that song that song is so crazy yeah compared to all other music but i but it's saying i think about young me hearing it and just being like i don't know what this is but i like what this is my wife was just telling me a couple days ago about when like the video

came out how she was like everyone at her school was like damn like what is this song What is this video? It was the coolest thing I ever did. Like, first of all, you know, you go to show seeing moshing. It's not, there's no immediate cultural reference that my parents could ever possibly be exposed to where they would see that. So it was, it was just like strange to see it on like TRL, people moshing. Yeah. I mean, it's awesome.

It's the coolest. You know the part with a gas mask? that was when I saw Earth Crisis for the first time in like 94 or 95 I just kind of heard about them just got I think it was the destroy machines tour I guess and I went to see them and it was this level of

straight edge that I hadn't witnessed before it was like people wearing gas masks inside the club the construction gloves chains all the I was like this is so fucking cool like straightage like neck straightage tattoos like I never you know people didn't have when did you get the straight is that a straight edge Billy Rocker?

Yeah. That was 92. So very early, yeah. Good for you, man. Yeah, to have a tattoo that big and a straight-age tattoo in 92 was like, that's fucking cool. It was pretty early. You said TRL.

Can you tell me about doing TRL with 36 Mafia? 36 Mafia was the MTV New Year's party. Okay. Can you tell me about that experience? Because it sounds funny. That was powerful, a powerful experience. Yeah, we go. They didn't tell us this really beforehand.

So we go to the kind of like dress rehearsal, which is the same day, it's the 31st. We go down there, Times Square, and they're like, oh, you're going to be doing this with 36 Mafia. And we're like, okay, cool. And I'm a hip-hop fan. So I wasn't like, you know, fuck that. And they're like, okay, we want to have a part where you guys are like

just kind of jamming on an instrumental thing and they're like rapping over your music. And I was like, okay, now this is getting kind of dicey because we got to make up something on the spot. Yeah. A piece of music on the spot that's going to be played. on MTV, no time to figure it out. Well, anyway, one of the guys was like,

hey, Lee, lead, lead guitar. I'm like, yeah, what's up? He's like, play that Twilight Zone. And I was like, I was like, okay, he's like, yeah, play that Twilight Zone. So I started playing something like, do-de-d-d-d-do kind of riff. I'm thinking, I'm like, this can't be what he means.

And he's like, yeah, the Twilight Zone. That's what it was. That's what it was. So if you listen to it, that's what I'm playing. I'm playing that Twilight Zone. Zone and they're like rapping over it play that twilight time yeah dude which is sweet because that was his idea of like what a rock band should be playing that twilight zone riff that the fucking twilight zone type shit that's awesome let's go back to the leaving song two video in the making of that can you walk us through

that day and what that experience was like it was pretty exciting mark webb who directed we first linked up with him on the days the fanks video which was he's just like a unknown young director who obviously went on to do very big things. So that was the second time we worked with him and just we grew up in this hardcore culture that we wanted you know, it wasn't like we wanted to profit off the back of it. We just wanted to

show people how fucking rat it was. Like I say the gas mask thing, like that made such an impression on me. I wanted like immoralize that. Yeah, like here's this culture that is so cool like how fucking cool this is. And so, and we knew tons of dudes from the Bay Area and then they like dudes from Philly and all these people came

to be part of it. And two things, one major part of that day was this is the first time I ever discovered flat irons. Like I was in the makeup tent and she had this thing. I was like, what is that? This changed your life for a while. It was life changing. This was one of the most watershed moments of my life.

She's like, it's a flat iron. And this is, let's not forget, this was, you know, like the beginning of MySpace era. It's up there. And I was like, and I had like this kind of. curly, kind of shitty. It wasn't curly, but, you know, very thick, unruly hair. And I was like, all of a sudden.

So I kind of like, the rest of the day is kind of like a blur. Because you're just thinking about the possibilities. Like, how do I get my hand? I try to buy it off her. And she's like, no, I can't sell it to you. But these are very common, sir. You can find them anywhere. So that was cool.

And then... And then, at the time, Hunter was dating Zoe Des Chanel. What? And so he brought up. her down. So she was like backstage in our trailer. So it was like this kind of... What the fuck? Yeah. That's literally elf.

This is elf time. He went to visit her on the set of elf. Wow. Yeah. And so she was backstage. Did they meet when he played bass on the stepmom 1998 soundtrack with John Williams? You know, like I did my violin part and I think she might have came after

that. Oh, God. She's fucked up, man. Yeah. That's crazy. Wow. Yeah, so that was an interesting Was she a big AIF hi-head? I don't think. so. You know, it's where I think it was like, I don't want to like talk about Hunter's private life. Sure, for sure. But this is all, you know, it's known. Yeah. I think he was like one of those,

this is my number one celebrity crush is Zoe Descheno. Because I remember he used to have like on his laptop like a big picture of her. And it was like the thing that happens to 0.000 1% of people where they somehow end up dating the celebrity person that they've always had the crush on. That's crazy. I don't know how he did it.

But yeah, so she was there. It can be done. It can be done. This is why when your partner asks your celebrity crush, you shut the fuck up. Yeah, it's true. There's a chance you get Hunter. I see mine every day. That is true.

Shannon Sossman from 40 days, 40 minutes. I hope I'm not speaking out of turn here, but that was also Adam, Adam, celebrity crush, yes. I see her almost every day at intelligentsia. I saw her, the one time I ever saw her in LA was also at a coffee shop. Yeah, she loves her coffee. And I don't think Adam ever saw her. Yeah.

They say that about her. They really do, man. Wow. So. You need to cut that. Yeah, no. My Shannon Wolf Wolf Wolf. You want to know?

No, I'm joking. I tell her every time I say it. Mine was Winona writers. Oh. I mean, who's isn't? I mean, if you're an 80s kid, you know, of course. I was after that, and I still can't believe. She's the only one who was nice to Lucas, you know?

Amen. That's where I first discovered her. So pre- Beetle, it wasn't Beatles, it wasn't Beatles, like a poser. It was Lucas, her first role. I loved her in Lucas. She's unbelievable. To this day, we don't know if you're watching. See, did some, like two dudes who can recognize, she wasn't supposed to be, sorry, spit,

she wasn't supposed to be cute in Lucas. She was supposed to be the dork that was not what anyone, who anyone would be interested in. And the fact that you and I had this foresight, this vision. We all feel like Lucas. Yeah. There's the jock with his cool girlfriend. And then he got the girl that actually cares about you. But Lucas didn't want her either. That's true.

And let's just be clear that I am now married to a woman who was far more beautiful, far more amazing than Winona writer could ever be. I was just a young, stupid kid when I discovered Winner writer. Sure. I'm a smart man now. Am I Shannon? Yeah. I love her. I love her too.

She's wonderful. I love you. I have a wife as well. She's the best. She knows that. So 2003 happens, singing the Starro comes out. You have this whirlwind few years. What is the response to this like? What are these next few years of touring like? I mean, the response was... Inzain. It was, yeah. I mean, I know we did some of warps who were on that. And so those were like our peers at the time. Yeah. And I remember people just like, dudes in bands that I never met, like, coming up to me, being like, dude, that new record. Like, what the fuck, man? And I never, you know, experience.

It's like such a good feeling to know that people that do the same thing as you are being affected by your music like that. I mean, it's an unfairly good thing, you know, to this day. So it's just life-changing overnight. Yeah, I mean, having being on MTV, you know, I think it was like the number, came in number five record in the country. and going from being an underground punk man to that on the next record

and having that kind of success, yeah, it was crazy. And now you have this pressure for the first time to follow it up. Yeah, no one was pressuring us. It was just this thing. Internal. Yeah, and I knew, even at the time,

the stupidest thing you can do as a songwriter is try to write stuff, try to write a hit or try to write a hit or try to write. something that caters to radio or MTV or but you can't escape it once it happens you can never put the toothpaste back in the bottle you can't ever go back to that person you were before that happens because it just it's there sure we had hits you did we had a big record so you cannot not not think about that yeah and it definitely and it's when is there outside pressure to to think about

that or not at all like really our a and our guy who was amazing and still a friend to this day he really never and you know now dreamworks gets sold to Interscope and now Jimmy Ivan is in charge and he is like he wants hits yeah he doesn't give a shit about AFI if you're not

bringing me some hits you know this is what I'm about and hip hop was very much the culture there at the time rock was not yeah so there was that it was like DreamWorks was like this family this warm supportive thing and Interscope was very much like you better

produce, you better come with it, or yeah, we don't, you know, you're not our friend. And even when you did produce, did it still feel weird? In what way? Because like, Miss Murder is the biggest hit of the band's career. Yeah. Do you feel supported by Interscope after that? Yeah, like Jimmy, to his credit, he's a very smart record dude, and he picked that song. like we went to his office and we were listening to the record in his office and he's like miss murray's like that's the one doing that one and when he puts that machine behind you it's like it's kind of what are you

unstoppable yeah that was my big question about this this record um december underground is how the process of obviously miss murder huge single love like winter makes sense as a single and i think was the missing frame like a non video single yeah It was an unfortunate. First of all, Dave and I didn't want mismurder on the record. We were both like, because we were democracy when it comes to voting songs on the record. He and I both voted for that one not to be on the record at all. Just straight up.

Which was stupid. But we didn't, we're just like, it's fine. But you did the same thing for rabbits or roadkill, which became a hit on its own. That one should have been on the record. There is definitely, yeah. Like, the song Who Knew should have been on Black Sales. Yeah. And there's definitely something that could have come off Black

Sales to put that one on there because that was better than some stuff that was on there. Well, hold on, though. I wouldn't have taken anything off, but you can add. I... It still exists, though. It's not like it's not out there. But if we're just talking about quality of song, I feel like that way. Then we have to go back and talk about synesthesia. I voted for that to be on there. Okay. That's a relief to hear. It should have been on there. I think it's the greatest B-side in the history of music. Well, thank you. The history of Yes, dude. Period. I think a hundred words might be.

That's a great song too. I love that song. But that one I understand because that is more in line with what was happening on the record. We had this time imperfect. Yeah. We didn't need 100 words and it sound perfect. But 100 words has Michael from Steel Panther singing backing vocals. Which like, why?

That's crazy. Because we loved to see, it was called Nettle School at the time. We used to go see it and he's like such a nice dude. such a nice dude and such an amazing singer we're like we need really great singers to sing is he doing yes today yeah oh that you can hear his voice yeah too and he's saying on a couple songs on sin of sorrow wow and it was so funny because we were like all in the booth together just like looking across at him and singing these backing vocals but he's fucking great I love him that's crazy so killer but uh synesthesia doesn't sound like the record and I and I think that

makes sense to not put it on the record. Yeah. But God damn, it's so good. I agree. A lot of fans agree, too. I mean, but it did. That's probably the reason my others in the band didn't vote for it because it was more like an art of drowning type song. But what would you kick off? I wouldn't kick off.

You would have to kick off. Why? What would I kick off? Because that was just how we decided how many songs were going to be on it. Right. But that's crazy. You don't have to. There's no rules. Well, this history tells us we would have to kick something off. So, here's the problem. with kicking the song off is sometimes when I listen to Sing the Saro,

I can't wait to get to the B side because it's when I love a B side, the B side of the record, I know it's a good record. Yeah. And I guess there's nothing. When you get to track six and you're like, here we go. Yeah. Then you're good.

But Revers and Cinescesia, if I wrote those, not only would they be on Sing the Sorrow. They'd be on every hour after. That's a good idea. We should just put our biggest songs on every album. No one's done. No one's ever done. We cracked the code.

Come on, man. But with, I dug up like an old tweet. It was just a screenshot of... It's not about Hiller. No, and him? But it was a screenshot of my Apple music, and it was Summer Shutter. Ah. And it was something to the effect of why wasn't this?

lead single off December Underground. Well, going back to that, what you said, it's like, so we do Miss Murder, huge song, number one for five weeks. Yeah. We do Love Like Winner. It's like retired at TRL, which means you've been in the top 10 so long that they retire your song. Oh, that's cool. Yeah.

I mean, we didn't really, TRL wasn't our demo, but it was like for AFI to have done something like time. It's pretty sick. TRL was like the pinnacle of popular music, yeah. Popular music. Yeah. It was making the taste for the United States. For at the time. Young kids.

Yeah. Lachke kids. Which meant, yeah. Starting at four. Yeah. And we had to go to TRL several times. Yeah. And, you know, do that TRL thing, which is weird and uncomfortable.

Like Nick Lachey and his wife, not wife at the time, but, you know, now wife. Sure. And just people looking at you like, they don't know who you are. Did Carson Rock with AFI? Carson was killer. Yeah? Carson was cool. Yeah, like, because we would talk to him because we did two VMAs and we also did, we played the movie awards.

It was like us, Christina Aguilera and Norwells Barkley, which is really cool. So we would talk to Carson on the red carpets and stuff and he was always like very cool and not. He didn't seem like a phony. He seemed like a real dude. That's awesome. Yeah. So the nail polish was legit. Yeah.

He's one of us. He was rock with Summer Shroeder. Even though it wasn't a single. But so. when the third single came around, you'd think, okay, we have these two massively successful songs on a massively successful album, Wino Video. It's like they thought we could cross over

to pop right top 40. And so they picked missing frame. We had no power in this shit at this point. That would have been, to me, that's the other song. Yeah. So they're like, okay, we're going to cross us over to top 40, which is crazy. Because we need to cross over to top 40, that's a whole other insane level of success. Because when you're talking about alternative radio, you might, like the top song might have got like 2,000 spins. Sure.

At top 40, you're getting tens of thousands of spins. Yeah. So, you know, they saw the potential. But remember Snow Patrol, that band Snow Patrol? Yeah, yeah. So they were an Arescope band too. And at the time, they had a song. Jason cars.

Yes. Raise anatomy. Yeah. And it was like, maybe it was that song. It was some Snow Patrol song that was came. out at the same time it had to have been that one no they have another one no that's chasing car okay then yeah that's chasing cars that's being out they have another song we're all chasing cars but they they were trying to decide do we push a f i missing frame to top 40

or snow patrol you got you got snow patrol they fucking chose snow patrol wow and so it killed the rest of that record because then they're not going to spend the money on the video yeah Which is just dumb. It just shows another song. So, Summer Shutter. Yeah. That would have made sense. That could have been great. Under three minutes.

But Missy Frame does have the fire inside me. Yeah. He finally says it. I know. He said it. I wanted to say Davy Havoc in a song. I mean, that's what the fans have been waiting for. 100%, dude.

I didn't know. 311 does it. You can do it, too. So Butch, her demos and declined to work on the album. Yeah, and to his credit, he heard early, like the first round of demos. Okay. And this record was not easy to write. And this is this the first time you experienced that?

Yeah. Yeah. And it was shocking to me and very uncomfortable and strange because Dave and I had just always, I mean... I have this idea. It's done. Yeah. And it's not like we were budding heads or anything because we never have. But it was just like, for whatever reasons,

all these factors of success. They just, they taints things in a way that you can't get back to that pure place. So we were just, it just wasn't flowing. And it was like, and partially he had, you know,

he had surgery on his voice after singing sorrow. And so I think his mentality was a little different too. It was like, I don't want to, I got to be careful. I can't write a part like that. I'm going to put me back in the hospital. If I'm doing death of seasons.

And obviously, if you're a singer, and you're looking at maybe I can't never do this again if I hurt my voice again it's going to really inform how you... But then the record opens with Kilcostic and he's saying the whole thing. So, you know, and that's why he had a surgery again.

And he did say like, I fucked up. And he had surgery again. So, you know, so that was part of it. His mindset had changed a little bit and so, yeah, we did these first round of demos. It was like there was some good songs on there. Like I think Kilcostic was one of them.

And Kilcostic actually, A version of that we wrote on Sing the Sorrow and demoed with Mark Trombino. That's a hardcore song. It's a skink part of that. Yeah. Yeah. The whole song. Yeah.

It's a complete. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's still like, you know, hardcore influences coming in. It's Machrake. Yeah. Yeah. And so those demos, you know, I'm not surprised he said no because, you know, I would have

said no, too. We got there. You did get there. You certainly did. The Prelude track, one of my sources... revealed that it might have been inspired by 50 cent? Is that possible? No.

Is your source of J? The strings aren't... Yeah. I mean, now that you say it, yeah. No, but funnily enough, I don't know. Dave might have mentioned this. Yeah. Because I brought up 50 cent when he mentioned Jimmy I.

Yeah, the way he told it, though, was that maybe Luke asked him, But Luke asked him called me and was like, Jimmy has this idea that you guys should, and you in 50 cents should do a song together. And I was like, dude. I would love to know what that would be. I know. If you had to, if you were forced to do it.

I mean, how could it not? You already have the roof. Yeah, I mean, I was ready to go. Fucking Twilight Zone. Is it true that over 120 demos were made for this record? Yes. What the fuck? No, not 120 demos, 120 songs were written.

120 songs were written yeah i mean david and i've never had a problem writing a shitload of songs like we're very prolific that doesn't necessarily mean anything if the songs aren't great yeah but we can write some songs and i'm like i write every single day to this day i write just because i love doing it i'm in my studio writing every day so it's not that hard i'm jealous man i have i have a question about this era kind of the space between sing the sorrow and december underground there was like a mall emo explosion that you always seemed outside of and a lot of these bands like this is i'm not counting like third like third bands like thursday or anything like that in this but like thursday my chemical romance fallout boy they all have people that were in hardcore or used to

have hardcore bands did you ever have any like kinship with these other bands even though there's nothing really similar about you guys Not really, I mean, we never really cross pass. I mean, when we were on Warped Tour on Art of Drowning, Jeff Rickler came up to me. I didn't know who he was. I heard of his band. He's like, I'm in a band called Thursday.

We just put this record out. It was full claps and he gave me a CD. He's like, well, you listen to this and, like, tell me what you think. And that, so that was the only time I'd really cross past with any of those dudes at that point. Like, my chemical romance actually, after their first record, our A&R guy Luke came to us and was like, hey, there's this band Michael Compton Romance from New Jersey and I think they're really good and they're writing a new record. And I think if like if you guys want to create your own label like an imprint and sign this band

will back you, like Dreamworks will back you. And at that time, first of all, not to say Michael Lawrence had any interest in that. This was just his idea. And he was like in contact with them. And at that time we're like, we're so busy doing our own. Just like, how can we have a label and be signing bands? You know, obviously in hindsight. But yeah, so that was the only time we really sort of cross past with them.

So to your point, there were other bands that probably fans put us all together. Yeah, 100%. But we didn't like, I knew the thrice guys. I'd met them and they were really nice. And we actually ended up taking Thursday and like Coed and came. on tour on Sing the Sorrow and those dude everyone was like like those Thursday dudes are so fucking cool yeah you know yeah I was wondering because even from the outside as a fan you guys were still a hardcore band to me whereas those

bands couldn't be any farther away from hardcore in my mind but I always wondered like if you guys felt like you were on an island because it kind of seemed that way a little bit I don't think we thought of it in those terms but in our minds we were still Gilman Street Berkeley band and that was not that other stuff, you know, even though we probably weren't that, but in our minds, it's hard to divorce yourself from where you can. Well, you still are that band. Yeah, you are.

Whereas all those bands started new bands. Exactly. You know? Like members of the movie life, not. AFI is still a hardcore band. It's still these same guys, you know. Yeah, so in our mind, I don't know who we thought. We probably thought our peers were like snapcase and, and sick of all stuff.

You know, like that's who we kind of thought we were at the drive-in, because, you know, After driving and AFI were friends early, early on. Like, AIFI took after driving out, like maybe even before their first record or right after their first record. So, like, those are the bands that we thought we were kind of aligned with. The bridge of Miss Murder, when you're doing that,

are you just doing a fun E minor thing? Or are you going, this is a slight allusion to fall children? A minor thing. A minor. Apologies. But with the open A string pedal tone. So a similar concept. And, yeah, it's got the, tritone it's got the flat five in there so one wouldn't be a layman such as myself hears that and goes

he's doing the thing man yeah i mean didn't do it on purpose because if if i if someone would have said that it would have been like okay i'm doing something else oh wow okay good yeah i waited yeah because yeah it's too late to change it now unfortunately but but yeah that's just because like those are the things i like to do i mean you know that's a hardcore thing hitting that note that that blue note there's two notes that are hardcore, the minor two and the flat five. If you took those completely out of hardcore, at least like old school hardcore, it'd be punk. Yeah, yeah. Like those are the two, in my mind, those are the two chords or the two notes, the two intervals that create the sound of hardcore. The minor two and the flat five. Yeah. I got to find out what those. I got to learn

those. Well, let's see. Here we go. I think that's in A standard. Standard show. Standard. If you got some of need, I'll show you what I'm talking about. So basically, let's say we're in my favorite, you know, we're in the seventh fret, my favorite. So punk chords would be like, you know. Sure. But if you do.

Ah. Oh. That's the minor two. Oh. And then the flat five. Okay. That's hardcore music. Straight up.

Yeah, those are the two chorus. It's flat too. Yeah. So this and... Okay. Yeah. Oh, yeah. No, I know them.

Okay. Otherwise, those are... I know that guy. I know that diatonic chords. I'm not a theory guy. I just know from picking shit up. It's like new math and old math. Yeah.

You know math. Right, right. You add those two. That's hardcore. Obviously, a lot more goes into it. But from purely just the guitar playing perspective. Yeah. Those are the two most important notes.

Unbelievable. Thank you, Taylor. Thank you. This is production. Yeah. This record comes out. You've got these two wildly successful singles. You're doing a bunch of touring on it.

You're playing arenas. In some places, yeah. Some places. The tour ends here with a massive show, right? And then how are we feeling after that? To be honest, it got a little weird at the end. There were things, I think, in retrospect, that were starting to happen in a grassroots way

that only later, at the time I kind of got to. an inkling of them but i think there was like a backlash starting against a fi because we had become that band that was so successful and people wanted to hate us yeah and i also think there was a thing the way dave looked there was a homophobic aspect to it and there had been for a long time it just gave people another lever to hate us yeah and there was this other weird thing where you notice on this record is the first time dave is screaming in this different way yes not the whole time but he has this different screaming voice than that was a product of him exploring ways to scream that wasn't going to destroy his voice and ways that he could be aggressive without, you know, putting him back in

the hospital. But at the same time, screamo was a thing. And I think people thought we were trying to jump on that bandwagon. They went, oh, you kind of sound like these other guys. And is it a coincidence that now that shit is big and you put out a record where your singer is doing that thing, even though it's totally not what was happening and the last thing they would ever do in a million years. But I think people, that was another thing. People were like, oh, AFI is on the bandwagon now. And they didn't hear the five records before that. Well, you know, there's no...

It's a different kind of screen, but yeah. There's no logic to it. And people would be fans that came on board from MTV that just heard us on Miss Murder. They'd be like, oh, you should play the old shit. You guys used to be good. What the hell? were like a punk band so all that kind of stuff and i think it became like kids at school probably if you're wearing a f i shirt that's not like you might people might oh your shit yeah i might talk

shit to you because we were a mainstream band now and so these kinds of things were happening that really were outside of us yeah outside of the music but you felt yeah yeah like we did a big Australian tour at the end of that run, like playing arenas in Australia. And people started chanting old shit. Oh my gosh. Yeah. And it was just like the first time that ever happened. Yeah. And once again, these people were not old school fans. No. Yeah. So it was like it was completely token and ridiculous. It's like you come on board and you're immediately like an old school punk guy. Yeah. And you're like 17. The ultimate poser like. The ultimate poser. Yeah. So yeah, I started noticing like what what is this thing? And then only later did I kind of realize that, I mean, it's not hard to see the genesis of where, you know,

you get too big and people are like, you know, you're not a cool band anymore because, you know, you're playing with Christina Aguilera on MTV Movie Wars and you're playing with 36 Mafia on, you know, like. Pretty cool. Yeah, which was cool. Playing that Twilight Zone. Yeah, I mean, they just couldn't handle that. I was playing that Twilight Zone.

I mean, it was beyond their. So that led into kind of like a thing that we, didn't realize was happening until later but was happening at the end of that record. I bet it was very confusing because you never, it seems like you never approached writing music that way, so being perceived that way is probably a crazy feeling. Yeah, all the perceptions, I mean, yes, we were a mainstream band that was on TRL and all these things, that was true. Sorry.

Yeah, we didn't have a campaign where we were trying to get ourselves on there. We only ever did what we did since day one, which is write the best songs we could write. And we just happened to what we were doing dovetailed with the zeitgeist of what people liked. Not many bands even get that opportunity. We were lucky now. But yeah. So, yeah, it was unfortunate, but I mean, I never take for granted the success we've had and how lucky I am. Every day I think how lucky I am to be able to have done what I've done.

So that is a small price to pay for what I've been able to do in my life. Do you decide to do black audio now as kind of like, okay, this was insane. We've been working on this thing for a while. Let's focus on this for a bit. It was finally we had a chance to do it because we'd been doing it. It would have been a band for almost seven years at that point. And so we finally had a chance after the summer underground touring cycle to like finally put this record out. And does getting the electronics kind of really out of your time?

your system with black audio open up Crash Love to be a little more stripped down? No. It was interesting hearing Dave's take on it because we all have our own take on all of us in the band have our own perspective

on how things happened and going into Crash Love the first day of writing that Dave was like we started running at the standard the Hollywood standard RIP. He was like, look I don't want to sing way up here on this record. I don't want to scream. Like I don't want to play fast songs. I don't

want to play hardcore songs. He was like, I want to do something else. And part of it I think was his voice, you know, he's like, it's coming off a second surgery. I mean, who wouldn't have that? It's like, I need, I don't want to lose this thing that is the most crucial fundamental part of my life. Yeah, totally. Because I'm pressured to play a hardcore song. So it wasn't like him and I sat down or the band and was like, let's do a strip down rock record.

Like that's the move, right? Because I love putting electronic stuff in. I love playing fast and hardcore, but I recognize that this was something that we needed to do to evolve in some way that made sense. and in retrospect I don't know if I would have if I was not a stripped down ban even Black Sails

it's not a stripped down record No dense and I would say even Crash Love is like riff wise not stripped down it's not stripped down but for coming off of production wise

December Underground yeah it's stripped down like me take just taking out the electronic element which I always love to me is a hard thing because you know I naturally would have put that stuff in there. And I probably would have tried to get Dave to play some fast

hardcore music. And if you would have heard his voice, then that would have been a really terrible idea on my part. So I think it was the record it needed to be. It wasn't the record that for career wise that we should have made at that time, but it was the record probably that needed to happen. I think it's probably your, for me, the biggest grower. Yeah. Like every time I listen to it, I like something new about it. And I don't know if that's maybe because I didn't listen to it as much at the time, maybe. And just there's a new thing for me to discover every time. But there's something so cool about that record in that it...

So many of the songs are like pop-y in a way that certainly December Underground wasn't. But it was like, I can't even really describe it. But there's just something cool about that record in terms of the guitar playing. of everything is weirdly uptempo. Bright. Yeah, bright is a good word. Yeah, the tempo thing is interesting because I knew Dave didn't want to play fast songs. And so I was pushing the tempo right to where it wasn't fast.

Because there's still some like. Yeah, and that was the fastest, kind of like the fast Green Day beat. Oh, please believe. Yeah. That's still a fast part. That's the fastest song. Yeah. But in terms of.

How is that not a single? You know? Yeah. Bang. No. No. So like I was trying to push the tempo as fast as I could without Dave being like, okay, you're trying to make me do this thing. I told you what I didn't want to do. Okay. So we had a lot of kind of like mid-tempo rocking songs. And I really disliked that record for a long time because of the baggage with it.

Oh yeah, that's fair. And it wasn't just what we talked about. It's also that was another really difficult record to make. Because you had these other parameters around it? It was just, we went in with this guy Dave Botrell first. who did like tool and all these were like okay this dude's rad you know um obviously did tool and it just was like a total like flail like he i don't know he's having like health issues or something it just was like did not and so then we go in with joe mcgrath and that didn't work and so then we go in with like it's just as like like that just it didn't feel like it was

didn't feel good and so it really painted my idea of that record and i just didn't didn't And then it comes out and commercially, we go from the, you know, December Underground was the number one record in the country. We sold a quarter million records the first week. And then to go from that to like the next record and have it be none of that. And only recently, I listened to that record for the first time, like, I don't know, six months ago in a long time. I'm like, yeah, this is actually not bad. It's actually got some jazz on it.

The fourth song intro riff is crazy. Yeah, like. And that's classic you to me. Yeah, that song is kind of. a throwback to you know it's it's it's in three four it's like you know it's three four right can't remember that one yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah um so yeah there's a little there's a little bit of throwback stuff on there but you know it's interesting to think of if dave had never heard his voice what would have been if our

sort of trajectory would have been different i think we would have evolved because we were already you can see sing the sorrow we were already evolving that way because it wasn't as interesting to us to just do fast song after fast song after same screamy thing but you know it could have been worse yeah yeah 100 percent it's still i think it's awesome i think i think i kind of coming around on that record now a little bit um because it's my own baggage with that record that has that has uh which is fair yeah did the response to it while touring match how you this you this is my own baggage that came to? Yeah. Yeah, it was a very weird time at AFI's career. Like, first of all, our manager had booked us a tour based on December Underground. Let's go into these venues,

obviously. That makes sense. And it wasn't like they were empty, but it was, you know, it was a different reality. Yeah. And we also shot ourselves in the foot by waiting so long to put out another record, which we owe, you know. It was three years? It's three years. It's too long, man. It's like it's first of all, any fans that came on board from radio, MTV are long gone. Three years in a, like, a young person's life is, you know, you might be listening to a completely different genre of music three years later. So like that whole, all those people, those fans we made, almost all of them are like gone. And so it was a weird tour and having this thing hanging over us where we come out and where it's like not the same success. And ever since I joined

the band in 98, it just been like this. Right. Yeah. Which is very unnatural for any band to be that so all I had known is this and so all of that was just difficult and then you know from there it just kind of like now on me tour it's fucking incredible yeah and to think that at that time i thought like this must be over and this must be done like how crazy but this must be done ridiculous yeah and like in a lot of ways we're more successful now than we were ever because you've hit this golden legacy that you know. I think we got a little bit of that,

like a band like, you know, like The Cure. Yes. The Cure is just always going to be a band that people love. And there's always going to be some people that love AFI. And that's kind of a beautiful thing.

You put the AFI or the Cure on a festival. Somebody looks at the line up and goes, oh, fuck you. I'm seeing the Cure. And the Cure is coming back. Every time the Cure comes back, they come back with a record that... That is like,

why is this insane? Yeah. The new one's insane. Cure self-title. than 04. That was like they came back and I saw that tour and I was like, why is this so good? They're an old band. Well, partially because Robert Smith is somehow he still can sing like that. Yeah.

And play like a three-hour set. Very rare to people have that kind of voice. Right. You know, and Dave, too, Dave's voice is stronger now. And I'm not saying this because I'm his friend and I'm in the band with him. His voice is better now than it ever was. and whether he's singing something from Black Sails or singing something new, his voice is so strong. I don't know what happened.

He doesn't lose it anymore? No. Knock on wood. He hasn't blown his voice in 15 years. Do you do two on, one off, two on one off? Usually two or three on, which helps, obviously. Yeah. But even that's a lot for what he's doing. It is because, you know, I'm the one that makes a set list,

so I punish him with old songs. And so he's, you know, stuff he doesn't want to play. Can we say it a couple? Yeah, good. All right. Good to know. There's no, there hasn't been an L.A. date since. We just announced the L.A. date.

O.C., right. Yes. San Ana. Come on, man. We tried to play L.A., but there's just no right venue. Like, where do we play? What? Well.

You could. Where do we play? The Shrine, it's not, I don't know, it's just that room's not. The vibe isn't like, you know. I mean, you would smoke the play at him. We did. that last time we did two palladiums so we're gonna come back and just do the three palladiums well here's the thing exposition park outside that would be sick yeah that would be sick

well we're kind of doing like an outside yeah you're doing at the observatory yeah is the exposition does that's sound and fury yeah oh i don't know it's where it's it's by the the natural history museum there's that big grassy area i'm sure that yeah i'm sure that they probably we like yeah we explored so many different things you know like going back to the forum like The Greek is weird because they have a DB limit and you have to play quiet and it's seated. Yeah. Yeah. And then like...

Hollywood Bowl? No. Yeah. Same thing. That's for my mother-in-law. I mean, I love the bowl. The bowl is amazing. Bull rips, but maybe I don't want to sit down.

No, I don't watch that. You don't want to see A lot at the bowl. I don't want to sit down. Yeah. It was tough at the forum. You were in fit. I'm surprised I didn't get kicked out. The Sing the Sorrow.

anniversary show at the forum. One of the best live events I've ever been to. Thank you. 100%. How'd you do that? Yeah. Man, it was some, I'm not like a hippie-dippy guy,

but there was some like magic in the air that night. I don't know what it was. And we didn't go in, first of all, we didn't want to do that because we're like, there's no way we could sell out the forum. Or even we're like, maybe we put enough people in there that'll look good. And then it sold out in like four hours.

And we're like, yeah. damn and then like yeah and then just started getting exciting and yeah i was going to go to the u. the quarry forum show that didn't sell yeah sing the sorrow sold out the motherfucking form and it was it was truly like me beau aleck make mike mike britty whole squad uh just like such a magical yeah it was it was when you guys popped out of the back oh i the leaving song jering son montage. So incredible. We had to run off stage and run down the... Yeah, down the thing. There's fans in there like... Oh, really? Yeah, like on the side. I assume there was like an underground phone. Like the side where you go out into the lobby?

Yeah. Dave and I were running down that to make it to the stage in time. Where people like... There was a couple of people just like wandering around there. They're like, because we were like running full speed. That's awesome. Yeah. How special was that night? It was incredible. Yeah. I and my son had just been, born like literally like a week earlier so it was like a weird time in my life and a magical weird time yeah and yeah it was cool this is writer writer writer i did the fury five in uh the pit you do yeah a lot of people were mad at me probably leaving song and other seasons yeah someone had to represent that was probably the last time i'm washed so oh so you could always do the form

yeah but you i mean and like chelsea wolf played choir boy played jobbrainer I think the show would have sold out regardless. Well, here's the thing. The show is an O.C. and it's announced. That's not a December Underround show. No. Right. It's our L.A. show.

Right. Okay. That's what I assumed. For this tour that's on the new album. It's going to be insane. It'll be 100%. Can't wait. What do you guys want to hear? Summer Shutter.

See, Dave is the... Dave's usually a stickler for all songs, and he doesn't like the lyric of the chorus. Really? And it's sourdom on that song for in perpetuity. That's such a good song. He just doesn't like under the summer rain. He thinks it's like under the winter rain.

Yeah, it's like now it's, you know. Yeah. But summer rain is a scary thing. You know, you don't want to be able to. That's hot. Yeah, it's just he, you know, he just is like, I don't want to sing that. I mean, that's fair. It's such, it's like, also, is that song in Dropty?

Yes. That song, does the shape, the shapes of that song, I tried to learn it. Allison Chain. It's a cool song to play. Yeah, it's a fun, the verse is a fun riff to play, yeah. Yeah. Because it's all kind of like hammer-on, like quicksandy kind of. It's a really cool song to play on guitar.

But yeah, that's one of them. I'm thinking about what I want to hear. Yeah, you too. Sometimes I can get Dave to play Summer Shutter. Killing Lights? That one, we play. You play that one's fun, yeah. That one's really fun.

I'm trying to think of more to some running around songs because I love that record. Affliction. The end of Affliction. We have never. ever played that song live really the end of affliction is because of the is it the steel panther guy doing the high no these three black women came in to sing that part like real gospel songs yeah that's part that's why it sounds so cool because they were like it's funny we were in the studio and i was kind of like directing them and we did like a pass and i'm like let's do another one and like kind of just

give it like the full going to church thing yeah and she's like oh put some stank on it. I'm like, stank on it. Yeah, I put the twilight on it. Yeah, it's kind of a flat twilight zone. The Spare Factor. We just played that on the very last show. We played it like a couple of years ago. I want to hear

Lascus. Catch a Hot One, Westers, Six to Eight, Desperfactor. Smile. Morning Star. We don't, it's a smile, probably not going to happen. Yeah. Cinesia? We played that one time.

I saw a video. You played it one time on tour with Rise Against. That one's high. That's the thing. It's not like Dave doesn't like some of these songs. It's just like... That one is so high. And then you can match his...

Oh, right. Incon, hey. Even if we... Well, see, it's the problem with me writing all this stuff in E liner, too. A lot of things relies on that octave movement. Yeah. And so... Literally tune down to...

Have a guitar on the side. But even if tuned down to sometimes... There's a couple times we tuned down to C, and it's still so high. The muscle memory, you lose that. A testament to how high he was singing back then. Like I remember Dexter came to sing backing vocals on Black Sails, and he's got a high-ass voice. Yeah. And he was like, I can't do this.

It's too high for me. Like he sang above, you know, it's like a soprano range. I'll send you a set list. Okay. Wester's nice. We'll figure. Wester we play pretty regularly. Do you?

I haven't seen you in So, Soul. I'm trying to narrative, Soul against Soul. I wish. Yeah. I got one. Yeah. Yeah, that one is another one that's like dangerous for David to do. Yeah.

Yeah. So it's well documented at this point that Dave goes into a, it's a dark time post-December Underground pre-barrials, credits you in large part to get them out of that funk and making burials happen. We love this. Hard record. Thank you. We love it.

The production sounds hard. It's like evil. Yeah. Yeah, it is evil. And it's like Dave was in such a dark headspace, and we wrote it in such a sort of shitty environment. It just really bled into, it was really dark. Yeah. I mean, we had a great time together writing.

That's fun to do. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, but there was some lowering clouds over us the whole time. The rats in the walls. Literally? Yeah. One of the greatest songs ever written on the record. 17 rhymes.

God, that one was cool. I was like, we were leaving for the day. I was packing my stuff up, and I just had my foot up on a stool with the guitar not plugged in. I started playing those chords, and he just, we just did that front of back, like, on the spot. All the melodies, the whole thing. It was like, we wrote it in like five minutes. What the fuck? I typed my handle, my Twitter handle, and then 17 cries.

There's like 15 tweets where I was like September of 2013 or something like that when it came out or something like that. And a million tweets about 14. That's a song where if somebody's like, yeah, I don't know much like later AFI. I said them that. Really? And they're like, fuck. I mean, I hope you suffer is really the song that's become. Yeah, I mean.

That's a hit. 17 Crimes and I Hope You Suffer are the ones that we play almost every night because those really just became as big as almost any AFI song. When the chorus comes back and I hope you suffer, it's, it's crazy. Yeah. Yeah, we play that at festivals even though we're playing our most known songs. We'll play that at big festivals too. Well, at this point, you've been around for so long and you've experienced so much as a band that, like, you know who's coming to see you, you know?

There's some X factors. Like, when we just last year played in Sao Paulo with System of a Down, I mean, you don't know who's coming to see us at that show. Yeah, but at that, at that, play whatever the fuck you want. Yeah, when you have those kinds of support shows, what are you doing? Who cares about your place? We still try to play songs that people might know. Yeah. You know?

Like, what's the point of playing a deep cut? But that's the thing is like at this point, at this point, it's like, oh, I'm going to see a AFI. I like it all. Yeah. I like to hear it all. Yeah. That's an interesting dynamic as a person that's not the singer of a band. Like, there's so many songs you probably want to play that you can't.

Oh, yeah. And it's hard, too, because I make the set list. Yeah. And playing music is fun. Yeah. I'm so tempted to. Yeah. And Dave sometimes will play ball.

Like, we played fall children for the first time in 20 years on. the tour at the end of last year. And he, you know, he didn't have to do that. Yeah, because that one is not only a song that he doesn't want to be the Halloween guy anymore. Right. But it's also incredibly difficult song for him to sing very dangerous. Yeah, the chorus is way up there. Yeah.

He's screaming in a bee. Yeah. That's a difficult note to scream. Yeah. That's fucking up there, man. Damn. Where does burial sit in your own kind of personal FI lexicon? it's definitely up there um there's it's a very it's very triumphant and it in like crash love is like

weirdly musically triumphant but burials is like spiritually triumphant it was because crash love coming off the darkness crash love is a happy sounding record but it's a dark time yeah you see them differently and to come back and not even i don't even think we were going to be writing at that point and you know what day was going through and i went up to visit him in oakland And he's just like, you want to write a record? And it was totally took me out of the blue. I didn't think that was going to happen. And it's what he needed.

And so it just was so rad that we were doing it again. So cool. It was never going to happen again at that point. And not only that, we were having fun doing it. We were writing good songs. And yeah. So I have fond memories of that. And we wrote extremist while we were writing that record just in between and recorded it

because we were just like, hey, neither one has ever been in a straight-of-harcore band. That's crazy. let's do one. So that was that. That was right in the middle of doing, yeah, burials. And burials is the first time where it's credited as all music by J.P.J. Yeah.

That's pretty cool. Yeah, you know. You got to do what you got to do. It's true. We share all the money. Yeah, I know. I don't take a dime more than anyone else in a gun. Isn't it interesting to go back and look at

album rollouts and it'll be like this track was premiered by spin yeah oh like fuse tv and like how fucking useless that is now in the streaming world the things that were important back then that are so irrelevant and just the stickers on an album that's one that i always remember like and they're there forever i know take them off like street teams like street teams were crucial crucial yeah i had one you still do but yeah i i like label street teams i was on the bridge line. I was on, we were on the several thorough one. Nice. In the mid-2000s. What are your thoughts on the streaming?

It's one of those things that's like, you can get angry at it. It's like getting angry at a freaking rain cloud. It's there and you can't do anything about it. Yeah. Would I like it? People be going to the store to buy the CD or the cassette or whatever? Sure, but what's the point

of ruining something that just is? It just is. It's never going back. If you can't move with the time, you're just going to be like a bitter thumb, you know? Thumb is so funny. I told me a bitter thumb. Thumb is crazy. Are you at Apple Music or Spotify?

Spotify. Oh. I feel good about it, but I had the iPod till way late. I'd only listen to my iPod. And like way after. You were analog digital. Yeah. I'm like, I'm not going to listen to streaming.

Like, that doesn't make any sense. You were an iPod snob. Yeah. I was like, I got all my music right here. Why would? This is all this stuff. 192 kilobytes. 192 songs on this thing.

It's crazy. Kids don't know about the MP3 CD. No, that was too shit. Yeah. But yeah, I mean, I, you know, like today I got on, I was listening to Disfear and Nausea and Osserotan and Antisimx. It's like, I could listen to all this stuff right here. And it's very cool.

Taylor just gave the horns. You're a cool guy, Jade. The Blood album. would be next so burials as a an inner band triumph universal puts out that that record right blood album no uh burials yeah which is public maybe i think even some whatever it is yeah it's on it's on another major it's on the universal um very cool yeah how do you feel about it after and then how do you approach starting the blood album it was almost like that record burials was the kind of start we kind of had our nadir with crash love in a lot of ways and it kind of felt like we're

building back build it back stronger exactly um and from there again it was kind of like up yeah it started going up again and the shows were incredible like on that on that record and on blood the tour on that record was it was just like i was kind of in shocked that like how is this this this good this long into our career. Yeah. Especially when I thought maybe it wasn't going to happen again. It was just like it was that again. We play these songs and the place would go crazy and everyone's singing along.

It was like 2001 again. Does it feel like a before burials and after burials for you kind of thing where there's... A.B. Yeah, like your time in AFI is split between these two. It was kind of like my time of the first two records I was on, like Black Sails and our drowning was a thing. Yeah. And then sing the sorrow and December Underground were kind of a thing.

thing. That was like the mainstream part of it. And then crash love was this weird. Yeah, nebulous. Step-child thing. And then everything since then has been a thing. Okay. Yeah. So we're still in the post-burials thing. We're in a thing, 3.0. I'm loving the thing. Thanks. That's 3.0. John Carpenter's the thing. A-Fi's the thing. John Carpenter's the thing. John Carpenter's the thing, one of my favorite movies. Same. Top Four. Easy. And people hated it when it came out. Oh, man. You know? Losers. Makes you sit and makes you think. So by Blood Album, you are, producing AFI as well. Matt Hyde actually, I co-produce.

Matt Hyde was technically producer on that. After that, it was kind of like, even early on, I actually was actually a producer on Sing the Sorrow. Oh, okay. If you look on the credits. Early on, it started to be, starting with burial, kind of like, Gil Norton, who did like Pixie's incredible producer, but it started to be, I got really good at demoing.

And so we would just go in the studio and recreate my demos. And I started to think, like, why are we paying? I mean, they sounded better, sure, but we're still kind of idea-wise and production-wise, as far as like how the songs... They're not producing the songs. Right. Yeah.

It's like, we're just redoing my thing. So why not... We're smart enough to do this. Why don't we just do it ourselves? Like, we know... At this point, if Adam doesn't know what a good drum set sounds like, a hunter doesn't know what a good bass tone is, then we're fucked. So I think we could probably do this ourselves. So...

Yeah. Yeah, it just made sense. Is this... change the writing at all? No, Dave and I still do the same way we did that on the balcony at the squat. We get together in a room face to face and just bang it out. And do you feel like your freedom is back? Like it's from the pressures of December Underground and the pressures of crash love? It's a sort of different kind of freedom.

I still love, you know, I did this Birdlegs records. I still love playing hardcore. I love to hear you play hardcore. Let's say if I had totally my way, I would probably still be putting some fast, aggressive stuff in AFI. How fast? Would be P.M? Probably 350. 350? No. You know, maybe not. 185. Yeah, like 181. If I'm writing a fast song, I usually start at 181.

Okay, 181. I might go higher. I might go lower. Okay. But I just like, for hardcore music especially, I like that tempo for a fast song. Just for me. I'm going to try it tonight. OK. 181. 181.

Marker's like 205. Is it? Yeah, I think so. But yeah, it's a different kind of freedom. Like this last record, obviously, this sounds nothing like anything we've done. But it's coming from a place of stuff that I had loved since I was a kid.

And the freedom to go in a crazy different direction, that's a kind of freedom too. Yeah. And not care. We thought no one was going to like this record. Like me and Adam were talking before it came out. We're like, this crazy dude. like I love this record, but people are going to hate it.

Our fans are going to hate it. But we don't care. We're going to put it out because we like it. But I think with the newest one, it's like so crazy that it's like it's, it just might work. Exactly. You know, mad science. The response was crazy. Way unexpected response of people loving the record, probably because we went so far.

We only went a little far. I don't know that you did. It's kind of like Sing the Sorrow or December Underground where it didn't feel unnatural. that's well that's you know especially the post-barials I think the lot that the two records in between at least to me sonically kind of informed like okay this makes post-punk thing makes sense yeah it's it's extremely natural to us yeah like we didn't go in trying to do a bit like a genre exercise or like let's do like a kooky bow house copy thing like this is like Dave and I sitting down and writing the stuff that we love and you know it seemed very natural to us

but from a fan perspective, especially as someone that doesn't really follow closely to AFI, it could be shocking and being like, what the hell these guys doing that? But it's not like you guys hide your influences on your sleeves, you know? Or you've been very honest about the shit that you love. And, like, post-punk, he's wearing post-punk shirts in 1997. You go back, 25 years, we're going to be talking about the Cure and Bowhouse and Susie

and killing joke and all the stuff. We just never put it. We never delved in as deeply as a really. as a full record. Yeah. Which is the crazy part. Yeah. Let's get into the stuff that we really love.

Just like when I put that electronic part on Death of Seasons. It's like, what's this thing I really love when we put it into a song? That lead, that main riff of 17 crimes that like descending. Yeah. That's like a cure or Sisters of Mercy kind of. That one is, if you want to talk about one thing that could be a signature, me. Yeah. It's the high E peddling and then playing.

on the B string a riff. Like, I've done that. Day of the Phoenix, right? That's probably... That one is... That one's more of like a triad, but if you go, like, so many, like,

narrative soul against soul, the later, that song, I'm doing a riff. I've done it, like, preposition, the intro. Like, I've just done it a million times. That's kind of like, if you could say there's one thing,

that may be done too much. No. Keep it going. I think the newest... We'll go back and chat bodies in a second, but since we're talking about Silver bleeds the black sun. I think it is my favorite record since burials

because of how crazy it is. And despite it being a big kind of creative departure, it's so easy to listen, start to finish. Oh, thanks. It pulls from all the unique things that you guys love, and it's your 12th album. So it's kind of like, you've said all you have to say in this way.

Let's do something else. I definitely felt with bodies, if you start a continuum that's crash love through bodies, to me those records have a lot of continuity. They're like alternative rock. There's a lot of different things that are in there, but you might say that's the basis. To me, like, with bodies, I was like,

we've done enough of this. We've done this. We've done this thing. Yeah. Like, we can't. And I even told Dave that when we started writing this new record. I'm like, we can't, I don't want to have anything that sounds like the last record or any of the last few records. We got to do something different, like whatever that is.

And were there still 60 songs, 120 songs written for this one? Yeah, but part of those are going to be the new record. Hey, good. Because when we got towards the end of this, we started writing very much like this death rock, more aggressive punk, like 45 grave, you know, Christian death kind of stuff. cool and it didn't really fit kind of like no one undergone the last song yeah stuff like that so that's a that's a premonition of what's to yeah that was why we put it as the last song on the record as like a no one person who knows it's like a hint so like so we have this other record that's more like a death rock record that was written in the same this is breaking news yeah crazy is that

recorded in it's the full demos are done yeah and all the vocals are done and all the guitars are done so Adam just has to get in the studio and Hunter has to do his bass. Is that how you record now? Because the demos are so demoed, you're able to do it backwards, kind of. I mean, it's great. Technology is like made it. Like behind the clock, the first single on a record. That song, I literally, first day we started writing the record, Dave sat down.

I'm like, okay, let's write a song. It's going to be the new record. And I literally put together a quick drumbeat on Ableton, hit record, and picked up the bass and started playing that bass line. And we just wrote the whole song through. And I hit record, he's singing because he had the lyrics written. But he's making up the melody as he goes in real time. And that's what you hear on the final version.

He did one take. And then I went back and did that guitar and made all that step on the spot. That's one take of me doing it like on the fly. So like to be able to do that now? And that's on your record. Yeah. And that's your single? Like that's rad.

There's no like pre-pro and banging out in the studio. I mean, those things have their place. And going back in the studio and re-recording what you wrote, it's like, this is it. This is the fun part. You've done that, you know? Yeah. And there's so much energy in that particular moment. Like, sometimes you get demoitis because you played something in the moment that's so energetic and, like, cool.

And then when you go to try to recreate it, it's just, it's like. Yeah, exactly. You did. You did the least punk record sonically, scientifically, scientifically, you recorded in the most punk way. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And a lot of that is one. take on that whole record and Dave is like very much he's like one of the most natural

authentic people so the first take for him is when you're going to have the most real right expression from him the first time he ever does it and that's what I was capturing and like a lot of times on earlier records I can hear you know Jerry and Joe were very hesitant to use autotune or pitch correction so they would just make Dave if he was pitchy online they'd make him do it over and over until they got it right but you can hear the emotions start to disappear because then now he's just doing it by rote and trying to get a note rather than to give emotion in the line and so for me i just want dave that'd be the most raw even if it's imperfect like give like you know and this record is very that emotion is there kind of the whole car

it's very raw the record yeah you did great thank you and we didn't get to talk about i hadn't heard it before that episode. So this is a, this is me talking about it for the first time, but I love this record. What did you think when you're doing that episode? I had heard behind the clock. Okay. Because that was out. So, and then him telling me like, oh, it's that. So if you like that, you're going to love it. If you don't like that, you're going to hate it. That was interesting to me. And then I think Holy Visions was, I did get the record like that night. Okay. So I think Bo and I drove home, listened to it. And Holy Visions is, Is that the song after behind the clock?

Or is there one between the two? I don't remember. I think you might be right. That might be. Holy Visions came on, I think next. We might have been talking, but that, and we were like, we stopped talking. And we're just like, damn, this is sick. And then just sat there and listened to the whole thing.

And we're like, I don't know what I was expecting, but yeah, this is different and cool and interesting. Because it's different and cool. and then no one underground. He talked about how you guys maybe not having it last at some point. He's like, no. And he was like, no, please God! Which upon hearing it made a lot of songs.

And now knowing that there's a chapter two. Yeah. Yeah. And that one's fun live. He started going crazy on that song towards the second half of this tour. He's like Rawlins on that song. He's going nuts.

And, you know, he's not going nuts in general. but if there's ever a curtain in a club we're playing, he'll, at the end of that song, he runs over and pulls the curtain, closed on the stage, like, in the, like, all we're still playing. And last time he did it, like, the curtain closed on my head. Like, I was trying to play him. And I was like, those things are heavy. Yeah.

But he's just, like, rolling around on the ground. He's just, like, bringing it. Well, with that song, like, melodically, it's, I mean, that sounds fun to say. So, and the fact that that's, like, he hasn't, doing stuff, in one take means you haven't maybe found the live nuances you're going to be doing for 10 years. Or any nuances. Exactly. And now he gets to have fun and you get to have fun finding those little different ways you change things.

It doesn't surprise me that with that song would being what it is, no, that just sounds, I want to roll around. Is there any fear in that doing vocals or doing like one take of things? that you're not going to find maybe the not even the best version but the the version and because i think sometimes that'll prevent people from releasing songs just because they are trying to find trying to find it i just know from working with dave for almost 30 years and writing music with him and recording him i know how he works and how he works best yeah and when he's doing something for the first time especially like this stuff he He's like trying to give it, he's trying to sell me on the idea that this is the best vocal,

this is the best melody, these are the best lyrics. And so he's like really bringing it because he wants to be like, what I'm doing is going to blow your mind. And he'll never do it the same way again. And so like I think, sure, if we worked on it, maybe some certain lines could be better, but I just think the realness and the rawness of it, I'd rather have that. Yeah. And it worked very well.

Thank you. Great job. Loved it. And Run for Cover did this record. Yeah. I was working with them. They're fucking killer. They like come out to shows.

Like they came to Mexico. We played in Mexico City. And all these run for cover people just flew down to come to like really supportive after a while of being with labels that you don't even ever see anyone from the label. Like I don't know who works with these labels. Remember cover is just down. All right. Let's go back to Bodies real quick.

Just we skipped. over it. This being like a pandemic record essentially, did that affect the rollout or the creation of this record at all? Yeah, you know, it definitely didn't help it. It would have been easier. We weren't doing it. We weren't touring. We weren't like, you know, but it was just like it had been done because it was written pre-pandemic. So it's like, how long are we going to sit on this thing? Like, let's just do it. We can't, at that time, no one could predict when things were going to return to normal. So we're just like, let's put it out. And that work for some people. It didn't work for some people. But when you did your first shows post-pandemic,

they seemed good from what I've saw. Yeah, the first shows were those palladium shows. Although little that I know, Adam had COVID. And I was just me and him in a little dressing room all day. I didn't get it though. Okay. But I was like, you know, first show back out of him has COVID. So, yeah. Okay. So do you look back at bodies as a positive experience? Yeah, it was fun. Yeah, I can't really think of any Negatives with that other than I just kind of felt like like I said we had kind of finished with this idiom of What we were doing with that style of music and we needed to do something else

But it was fun right now song with Billy Corrigan was fun like we had never written with someone outside the band before so that was a new experience It was cool is that how you feel when you write records often because you're so prolific that is it kind of like okay? next thing for you like you finish a record and you're kind of at the end of that cycle or whatever is it is it just so quick for you to to cycle in your mind to the next thing yeah because i'm writing all the time yeah like by the time our record comes out i'm like that old shit right i got the nut i got the new shit right here like why are we thinking about it's not even out yet yeah so that's kind of a curse for me because everything always seems like oh that's some stuff we did in the

past because I've been writing the whole time with new stuff so that's a little tough to wrap my mind around oh this is our new record and then a pandemic record that takes yeah so long to come out i'm sure that's extra but that tour was really incredible that we did and then we went out with rab majesty who i love yeah that was a fun great man you've been busy as hell since this record came out yes tours it looked awesome response to our episode of davy was awesome it was just that was a great episode i mean it changed things for us to me i think and uh he knows how to talk He does, but it's cool that, like, in that conversation was like, okay, I'm going to have to talk to Jade about that. You guys are very kind to me, you and Bo, during that conversation, very complimentary.

So that was my intro to Hardlore. And so I was like, you know, hey. We're honest men. Oh, thank you. Of course. You're going back to the UK finally this year. I know. I feel partially responsible for that in some way.

Yeah, I mean, thank you. appreciate that yeah i've always loved the ukays just hard to get over there man it's expensive it is expensive and the deaf tones bust their hearts true like they have really been last time we went to the uk the deaf tones took us yes in 2017 yeah so like you know those guys were very instrumental and getting us over there like those guys i need a jade diary from this german shows from this week of shows video diary i used to make video diaries like on uh december underground mainly just filming Smith's antics. They're still online, man. Shit is hilarious. She looked at it.

Here's one now. You're drunk, but you're still feeding. And I'm scared. That was unbelievable. So somehow, after all that, you've got a time to do a brand new hardcore band called Birdlegs, and you put out a record on Revelation.

Yes. How cool is that? For me, very cool. revelation was from the 80s that was the one to me synonymous with hardcore like revelation and hardcore put out all these great records I loved and then to finally get my star after all this time never thought that would happen I mean how would I ever put a record on revelation in 2026 you know but it happened congrats thank you how did it feel to flex the the core muscles again it's crazy like I sat down to write hardcore for the first time since like straight hardcore since 9 And it was like a new genre to me.

Like I'd never done it because it'd been so long that it was completely fresh. And I ended up writing like literally like 60 or 70 songs. Because like, you know, all my songs I try to make no more than a minute and a half, some under a minute. Yeah. But it was so fun and so creative and so inspiring because I just hadn't done it. It was so just, I don't know, I just had all these ideas. So I've already written Ryan and I, the actual birdlegs full length that we're starting to work on, like a full-length record. And I have all these, if anyone needs any hardcore songs, I've written a lot of hardcore songs.

All right, we'll be in touch. Do you have now any of the urge to bring that energy back into AFI? That urge has never left me. I've never stopped loving that part of AFI. but I understand Dave's perspective on it and I respect his perspective and what he says is as valid as what I think. 100%. And I think that we have those songs. That's another thing.

And I always think this, it's like if AFI was to put out art of, like a new art of drowning, that would be whack. Yeah. It would just be a pale version of the thing that already exists. And I really believe, like, fans that are like, you should do some more stuff like blah, blah, blah, you know, black sales. I think if we really did that, they wouldn't like it. They think they want that, but I don't think people want that. You want AFI of 2026 to go back to when we were kids and try to pretend to be that again.

It's just, now, I think we could. do if we for some reason we're going to make aggressive music again i think there's a way we could do it that's new and aggressive and cool i think you just kind of did with no one underground you know yeah yeah exactly like the way they're singing is bizarre and new yeah good and aggression comes in there's aggressive parts on every on every record like yeah you know i think that if you want fast a f i there's seven records and we're not going to ever do fast a fi better than we did it on those records. Amen.

That is, if you want to listen to the best fast AFI that could be written, we did it. You really did. Something we didn't get into that episode at all that I'm excited to talk about is your culinary preferences on tour. Okay. They're very simple. And I'm sure, I'm sure you guys, I'm sure the catering is great for AFI. Catering?

You don't get catering? No. Okay, so let's talk. What do you like? Well, we have a writer, like, all band. Oh, okay. That's catering to me. Okay.

Well, to me, catering is, you know, you do a big tour where they... Steak and lobster, you know? No, where they have people that cook. Right. That's crazy. Yeah, we've been on those, many of those things. True, true, true, true. We actually, on our big headline tour on December Underground had catering.

Wow. Okay. That we brought people cooking food every night. Yeah, we have a writer, and it's all the craziest vegan food and potions and, you know, stuff for Dave. like powders and potions for him yeah and i'll literally eat oatmeal slices of gluten-free bread with nothing on them you gluten-free no but that's but that's what's there okay okay and i used to eat this vegan meat on there but it's not on a writer anymore it was vegan cheese and so now i just eat the bread with nothing on it and and then i'll eat you know amy's meals yeah those are good

I'll eat an Amy's meal, a vegan Amy's meal before we go on. And that's my pretty much every day. You don't explore food when you're in a town? No, because first of all, there's nothing grosser than eating some heavy meal and going on stage. I'd do it every time. It's one of our favorite things to do. Yeah, you guys is praise of this ill fast food. It's not praise, it's survival.

Also, hold on. Well, we're doing less fast, but we're going to restaurants now. Okay. Where you sit down. The cuisine has accelerated beyond. But, you know, if you go, you know, you love McDonald's, right? What's just to say? But if you say it's a survival thing, you can easily go into like a grocery store and get X, Y, and Z.

Sometimes the store's closed, you know? Okay, it sounds like you're creating a problem for yourself. Leave the gig at 1 a.m. Hopefully. Yeah, what are you going to do? You know? Yeah, I mean, I lived that life for many years. I mean, I didn't. And what were you eating?

Taco Bell. Exactly. Yeah, I mean, you know. And you're not vegan, so you can... Yeah, you can get the bean and cheese bread. Now I just want to... First of all, I don't want to get food poisoning. Of course.

I have this fear. I'm eating strange food every day in a different city. Yeah. I'm going to get food poisoning. I do eat Chipotle. That's food poisoning number one. Yeah, they got algae in them. Bad tomato.

I feel like they've been hit by food poisoning so many times now that they're very careful. That's possible. What's in the lettuce? Ebola? E. Coli. I don't eat the lettuce. Yeah, exactly. E.Colai is in the lettuce. That's the number one E. coli

purveyor. Yeah, they love Echolida. Yeah. And so I don't have the lettuce on Echipola. Okay. So that's your pick. On days off, I have Jopola. Yeah, that's like my treat.

And do you feel like shit after Shepoil? No. Okay. You get the sofridus? No, I get a breedable. Rice, cheese, and beans. That's it. Yeah.

That's it. Yeah. You're not even getting the tofu, the sofritas? Oh, I love the sofratis. I don't have that mess on my, messing out my rice and beans and cheese. Soupy-assafritos. You know block or anything? Right.

I'm a purity, man. I'm like, you know. That's got to be like $4. I used to, my order at Subway was a footlong piece of bread with cheese. But you're, so you're, so you're, one of those guys, you cannot gain weight no matter what, huh? I have pretty crazy metabolism. Yeah, but you're eating bread and cheese.

At home, though, I pig out. My wife's a really good cook. And I pig out. I'm 52 now, you know, it doesn't like... You look great. Thank you. It doesn't, you know, the metabolism won't last forever. But I, luckily, I've never, I never even, as a kid, had a fat face.

I think if it lasts until 52, it's going to last forever. Yeah, I mean, I, you know, I got my hair and I'm not, I'm not a thumb yet, so I'm okay. What about coffee? I love coffee. Just recently I started drinking decaf. What? Damn. I know.

My one vice. I'm in straight-edge, my old, you know. Yeah, but is it a vice? It's not a vice. Don't let them fully. You do that thing where you, try, try the thing. Okay, so you don't drink caffeine now? More for, like, health reasons.

Okay. Because. Has your life improved? I just started doing it a few days ago. So, yeah, this is like, this is like, I just is like, I just had my doctor just said like, you should not drink caffeine. Wow. What is he know?

This is the only thing I do. And she's like. What's she now? I know. It's like, where'd you go to school? I want to Berkeley. I don't know. What's your social theory about caffeine?

It's great. I mean, you know. It's straight edge. What does Ian think about caffeine? Yeah. He said tell your friend, fuck you. Yeah. Okay.

Yeah. If Ian says it's okay. He does. Then I'm drinking. You got to get back on it. I should have told my doctor that. Yes. You should tell your doctor, fuck you, based on what Ian says.

We should have a cup right now in there, celebrate. That's crazy. Yeah, I know. Whatever. I'm doing it. I'll do it with you. All right. I have one final question for you.

Could you tell us your top four hardcore records of all time? Okay, so, you know, there's this thing where people are like, hardcore means hardcore punk. and it also needs hardcore. I had this discussion with Damien Abraham and I'm like, to me, hardcore has always meant, even though I was listening to punk in the mid-80s,

hardcore has always meant hardcore capital H, New York, hardcore, the mags, AF, etc., etc. That's hardcore. Let's just call that as to punk. I love that stuff too. That's my first love. So I'm going to say my first,

my top four punk records. Oh. Hardcore punk. records and now I'll tell you my first four I love it I love it jane so suicidal tendency self-titled first record MDC millions of dead cops like incredible record very important record for me black flag nervous breakdown technically an EP but that doesn't matter I mean you got it this is tough because fear the record is a really important one for me dead canadies fresh with rotting vegetables that's but there's power of religion

How can hell be any worse? So that four spot is multiple choice. There are germs, I mean. Yeah. Okay, I was kind of a cop-out, but, okay, so top four, we're going to call it. Okay. Top five, capital H, hardcore records. Used to today break down the walls.

Yes. Agnostic front victim of pain. Yes. Got to be Chrome Aged Age of Quarrel. I have to say, just from my personal journey, Earth Crisis Destroy the Machines. The Machines. Unbelievable job, Jade. Even the extra credit, you correct that.

Yeah, thank you. Sounds like you wanted to say another one. I mean, I could keep going. I mean, I could do a top, you know. I've left out so many important bands and records. You nailed it, though. You absolutely smoked the assignment. Thank you.

Well, Jade, this was just a blast. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you for having me. Any time, every time. I need the tour diary from UK, of course. Yeah, and shout out to Bo. I wish I could have... Shout out to Bo.

I wish I could have met him in person today. He wished to say. You were amazing. Thank you. I mean, I would rather be listening to it in a couple weeks than be sitting here, to be honest. He's here. He's here. He heard the whole thing, and he loved it.

And he loved you. He loved FI. Let's do an epilogue for Bo. Tell me a little bit more about your Les Paul. Les Paul? Yeah. What do you want to know about Les Paul's? If you're picking up a Les Paul at home to write.

Tell me about the, the, the, the, Les Paul. My original The Les Paul was my black Les Paul standard that I played every single part of every single song on Black Sails and Art of Drowning and some on Singasaro. They got stolen out of a storage space with 20 other guitars, which is sad. Yeah. But nowadays, I do have a The Les Paul and it's a Cloud 9, 59 reissue weight relief.

So it's nice and light? Very light. Sounds amazing. When we were doing burials, I called down to Gibson, and I'm like, can you just send me a guitar that I can play in pre-production? Just whatever you have laying around. It doesn't have to be something cool. So they send me this guitar and it's got no head badge.

I'm like, what is this? It's clearly a Les Paul. And so I had it forever. And I finally called the Custom Shop. I'm like, I had this Les Paul. I don't know what it is. And I was describing it and I read them the serial number. and they're like, oh, that's a cloud nine,

which is basically these guitar stores in the Midwest got together and had Gibson make them a limited run of these reissue Les Pauls that were weight relief, and we shouldn't have sent you that because that's a very rare guitar. But he's like, you've had it for so long now, it's yours. Okay.

But, you know, we fucked up. Wow. And it's an incredible guitar. My best last ball. Fall free. There you go, Bo. Thank you so much. Thank you. Jade Puget, everybody. Silverblades, the Black Sun.

is out now. Birdlegs is, they got 60 more songs coming. In Revelation Records, it's unbelievable. He finally got his star. You're going to see them a lot this year. You're going to hear a new AFI at some point. He revealed to us in a very special manner. And I hope you have you back someday. This was great. Absolutely. Thank you. If you have any parting words for the world, it would be right there. That's it. That was good.

Jade Fugin, everybody. Thank you all so much for watching. We'll see you next week. Bye.