AFI frontman Davey Havok has shared the terrible advice he received from his major label, including suggestions of a 50 Cent collab and a ringtone album.
The musician looked back on the difficult period surrounding the creation of the band’s seventh album ‘Decemberunderground’ in 2006 in a new interview with Metal Hammer.
AFI had signed to DreamWorks Records before the company’s music division was absorbed by Interscope, leaving the band under the umbrella of the label run by Jimmy Iovine.
“The writing of ‘Decemberunderground’ was a miserable period,” Havok said. “Our A&R guy was hellbent on trying to get Jimmy Iovine – who had expressly claimed in the press that rock is dead – to pay attention to AFI, and so it was suggested that we collab with Jimmy’s great love at the time, which was 50 Cent.”
“I have nothing against 50 Cent, but what does that even mean?!” he added.
Havok went on to reveal that an even more unusual suggestion arrived, in keeping with the trend at the time for downloadable mobile phone ringtones.
“Even worse than this was the era when ringtones were the new technology craze,” he said. “I love this man and I still see him once a month at the least, but this motherfucker says to me, ‘What if you were to be the first band to write a ringtone album?’”
Although songs from ‘Decemberunderground’ were eventually released as ringtones, AFI never made a full album designed for the format and did not collaborate with 50 Cent.
Released in June 2006, ‘Decemberunderground’ became the band’s first album to top the US Billboard 200 and included the singles ‘Miss Murder’ and ‘Love Like Winter’. In a review at the time, NME praised the album’s “crunching call to arms” and described ‘Miss Murder’ as “sublime”.
AFI released their 12th and latest studio album, ‘Silver Bleeds The Black Sun…’, in October last year, and they are due to return to the UK next month for a run of headline dates and festival appearances.
The band will join Deftones, Interpol and others at All Points East’s Outbreak event in London’s Victoria Park on August 23.
They will also appear alongside acts including The Neighbourhood, Converge, Jehnny Beth and Lip Critic at the 2026 edition of Deftones’ Día De Los Deftones festival in San Diego in November.
