Words do not begin to describe just how ‘big’ A Fire Inside’s new album, December Underground, feels. If ever there was a band made for stadiums, it’s AFI circa 2006, with the band following up their major label debut and big breakthrough Sing the Sorrow with an album full of ready-made stompers ready to crush the globe.

“Well thank you,” says Davey Havok, frontman for the band, clearly chuffed. “We are playing in an arena in California soon, so we’ll be fulfilling at least one of my arena rock dreams.”

When the band formed 15 years ago, it’s impossible to believe the transformation that the group have undergone, from ratty Californian punks to synth-laden goth pin-ups. It sure is a long way from go to whoa. “They weren’t dreams I thought I could fulfill within AFI,” Davey says of the band’s continuing success and future stadium ambitions, “nor dreams that I thought I would attempt to fulfill within AFI. Luckily, through years of progression and change it’s worked out that way.”

The band and their music certainly have progressed a long way from the early days of the band. “I had dreams of releasing a 7” and maybe getting a show in a friend’s garage when we started,” he outlines.

The 7” and the shows with friends were accomplished way back in 1991, with a split release with fellow Ukiah, CA, band Loose Change (whose guitarist, Jade Puget, would eventually join AFI in 1998). It was this line-up shuffle that lead to the more mature-sounding 1999 release Black Sails in the Sunset that hinted at a darker sound, and lead to the band signing to a major label, and moving on from the Offpring’s Nitro label in the process. “It wasn’t deliberate at all but very natural,” Davey says of the band’s evolvement into the AFI we have today. “With each step of the way we’ve had achievements that have astounded us.”

For someone who has just seen December Underground, his band’s seventh album, debut atop the Billboard charts, after a three year delay after the release of Sing the Sorrow. “Having a number one record is really amazing, but it doesn’t give me any more confidence,” Davey says. “The record that we made is the record that we really love and that we’re really proud of, and the fact that it was number one and so many people recognise that make it so much better, but the fact is that I was confident with the record before I even heard it.”

More song-focussed than Sing the Sorrow, which was quite thematic in many respects, December Underground is at its best when it’s revelling in melodic structures – the likes of single “Miss Murder”, the sure-to-be-huge “Summer Shudder” and the instant hooks of “Love Like Winter” and U2-like “The Missing Frame” are natural winners. “We spent a lot of time on songwriting on December Underground, and each song was focussed on,” Davey outlines. “We wanted to further realise the songs in the studio and the way that we wanted them to be realised with the production we really focussed on that as well.”

This desire to focus down on the songs resulted in December Underground taking far longer to finish than was originally intended, and in the band missing a jaunt to Australia as part of Big Day Out 2006.

“It was just a long process,” he confirms of the band’s time in the studio with Jerry Finn, who co-produced the preceding Sing the Sorrow alongside Butch Vig. “We spent a lot of time focusing on the intricacies of the songs and the production in the studio, and we weren’t going to finish the record until we were 100% happy with it, and it took 2 years to get there.”

For Sing the Sorrow, Davey explains that there were less songs written, and less focus put on each and every part. There wasn’t as much focus on melody as there is on December Underground, and he believes there’s greater layers to December Underground as well. “They’re more pop in melody,” he says of the December Underground songs, “but if you look at the complexity of the arrangements and the parts then they’re not your basic pop song. There’s a lot more going on than most pop.”

A lot of bands have emerged in the wake of Sing the Sorrow to have a similar sort of sound and style to AFI – the likes of My Chemical Romance probably would not have come to any attention if it wasn’t for AFI’s success. “If that is the case then I would definitely take it as flattery,” Davey treads cautiously. “I haven’t heard many bands that sound exactly like us, but if people are inspired by us then that’s definitely flattering.”

Personally, Davey took his early inspiration from a diverse range of sounds – synth-pop, industrial, death rock, hardcore, punk rock, pop. He also thinks that a young Davey would have been “shocked and impressed” with the development of AFI as a musical force. “I didn’t really expect anything, and we didn’t have any expectations – and we still don’t,” he outlines. “We just do what we do, and have little moments of achievement and every step of the way is one – each achievement is really exciting for us.”

The next achievement that Davey is working on is his techno side project with guitarist Jade Puget, called Black Audio. Together, they’ve been working on this in an ad hoc manner since 2000, but haven’t ever had time to finish anything, but hope to do so within the next 12 months. Davey says that it hasn’t much influence on the AFI songwriting process which typically finds Davey and Jade working on putting parts together. “We’ll sit down and I’ll start putting some melodies over the top of them,” he says of Jade’s guitar licks, “and we get a structure down and melodies that we both like, then I take those and write the words over them.”

AFI’s December Underground is out now.
Frontier Touring presents AFI at the following dates:

November 10: St James, Auckland
Tickets through Ticketdirect (09 379 7979) and Real Groovy Records (0800 GROOVY)

November 12: Metro City, Perth
Tickets through BOCS (08