AFI

Fri 18th Sep, 2009 in Features

In their 18 years and eight studio albums together, AFI have gone from the young rebellious teenagers who released Answer That and Stay Fashionable in 1995, to the seasoned professionals who have taken two years to sculpt their latest work, Crash Love.

“There have been some just horribly wrong descriptions of us in the past,” Hunter Burgan, bassist for AFI, explains to FasterLouder. AFI have been branded everything from horror punk to hardcore, emo to electronic – but how do they see themselves? Plain and simple: rock and roll. A rock outfit with guts – and some make-up too. “I think the only word you could use to describe our music that isn’t at all inaccurate, is rock. That is so, so general and all encompassing. It is probably the laziest description, but at least it is not inaccurate.”

AFI, which stands for A Fire Inside, have had some quirky, crazy and hilarious interpretations of the acronym over the years. The most memorable for Hunter was during the band’s first trip to Japan. “We read in some magazines, and then a stub of paper that came wrapped around our current CD at the time, said as fact that AFI stood for Aggressive Furious Intense, which was news to us.”

AFI have blurred lines between genres – a feat not many bands have mastered. They explore previously uncovered turf with each album and do it well. “I think we have done something for everyone at some point in our career,” Burgan agrees.

The writing process for Crash Love was somewhat different from their 2006 release, Decemberunderground, diverging from their electronic-heavy predecessor. “We did sort of set out writing, knowing that it was going to be more of a guitar rock album. Our method for writing was more harping back to our earlier days, when we would all just get into a room and play the songs.”

Decemberunderground, while staying heavily rooted in AFI’s earlier sound, developed a whole different persona for the band. The two years between writing, recording and releasing Crash Love gave the guys “time to really re-define ourselves as a band.” The progression to a more guitar-based sound was a decision the band made early on in the process. “There is almost no electronic stuff. That is just as a result of us writing an album as a rock band, but I think it’s also as we evolve as songwriters and as musicians, we strive to do things that are new that we haven’t done before.”

AFI’s Sing the Sorrow and Decemberunderground both reached mainstream success with album sales, hitting Platinum and Gold Certified status respectively. Faced with the task of surpassing the quality and success of their previous two albums, the only pressure the band felt was internal. “In terms of putting together an album that is a really great piece of art, I feel like that is the pressure we put on ourselves. I’m really happy that we have created something that we’re all very, very proud of and very excited about. Anything beyond that almost doesn’t matter because we’ve already become successful.”

So what reaction to is AFI hoping for when Crash Love hits shelves later this month? “Usually someone’s first exposure to AFI is their favourite, and that makes sense,” Burgan says. “I mean think of your favourite bands – you think of the album you fell in love with. All we can really hope for is that Crash Love is their second favourite.”

After the two-year process of writing and recording, the band is looking forward to being back on the road. “It’s really nice to be out playing shows after really not playing much for two years. We had a lot of work to do; we had to write some songs and record – œem, but it’s really cool to be out here playing again.”

AFI is of course heading out to Australia in February 2010 as one of the headlining acts for Soundwave Festival, alongside the likes of the recently reformed Faith No More. So what can Soundwave goers expect to see when AFI assault Australian shores in February? “By that time we will have quite a few of our new songs in the set, and we’ll probably pull out some fancy visuals, and we will just bring our brand of rock.”

Crash Love is out 25 September through Universal. AFI will play the Soundwave Festival in 2010. Tickets are on sale today.

Saturday Feb 20 – Brisbane
Sunday Feb 21 – Sydney
Friday Feb 26 – Melbourne
Saturday Feb 27 – Adelaide
Monday March 1 – Perth