Old AFI Days

The early years of AFI started one day in Ukiah, California. A small town with about 14,000 people in it. Then, one day, their were 3 kids and they decided to start a band since they needed to do something in between skateboard sessions. And finally, AFI was set! With Davey Havok as lead vocals, Mark as guitar, and Vic Chalker as the bass player. Problem? yes, AFI had a problem..NO DRUMMER! So Mark got his friend Adam Carson to play drums. Then, for real, AFI was set and they decided to make a 4 song EP with Key Lime Pie Records as they called it and they recorded their first split 7" EP called Dork(Go below to see the cover of Dork). They decided to put Adam on the cover looking like a dork. After much thought, Vic left the band after about 8 months. So they replaced Geoff Kresge in Vic's place. After a while, AFI had to go to College. So, they all went their seperate ways and went to College and Geoff went to some band in New Jersey. About 2 years later, on Christmas break, they decided to play a show, and they played their first show back at The Phoenix Theatre. Then, AFI decided to come back as a band because people were actually recognizing them. So, AFI released their first full length album with Nitro Records called Answer That and Stay Fashionable in 1995. The album contained two original songs from their EP Dork. The two songs were Ny-Quil and Self Pity which were both re-written by Mark. Vic, the original bass player for AFI actually played guitar in Answer That and Stay Fashionable on the song Ny-Quil. Then about a year later in 1996, AFI decided to make another full length album with Nitro called Very Proud Of Ya. The album contained their first single He Who Laughs Last which they made a music video later on. Then about another year later, they decided to make another full length album with Nitro called Shut Your Mouth and Open Your Eyes. That album had people in shock when they first heard it because it was truly hardcore that contained non-stop yelling and screaming with Davey's angry voice! Then about 9 months later, AFI wanted to release another EP but with a different record label. They released the EP with Greenday's Billie Joe Armstron's record label called Adeline Records. Adeline was not a very big record label, but, AFI wanted a change then from releasing another album with Nitro. So they released the EP. It was called A Fire Inside EP. That was another album pretty much like Shut Your Mouth. It contained the songs 3 1/2, Over Exposure, and 2 covers by The Cure and The Misfits. They covered The Hanging Garden by The Cure, and Demonomania by The Misfits.