Davey Havok

David Paden Marchand (born David Paden Passaro, November 20, 1975), known professionally as Davey Havok, is an American singer and musician who is the lead vocalist of the rock band AFI, the synth-pop band Blaqk Audio, the hardcore punk band XTRMST, and the new wave band Dreamcar.

Among various other ventures, he performed lead vocals for Son of Sam's debut album and for fictional band My Purple Agony in the animated series Harvey Girls Forever!.

Havok is an outspoken advocate of the straight edge lifestyle and veganism.

Havok was born David Paden Passaro, in Rochester, New York on November 20, 1975.

He is of Italian ancestry.

When Havok was age 5, his father died, and he and his mother moved from Rochester to Sacramento, California to be closer to family.

His mother remarried and Havok took on the surname of his stepfather (Marchand), and was enrolled in Catholic school through eighth grade.

The family moved to Ukiah, California in the late 1980s, where he graduated from Ukiah High School in 1993.

Following high school, Havok attended University of California, Berkeley.

Following his sophomore year, his career with AFI started, and Havok did not return to the university.

Havok and his friends, Mark Stopholese and Vic Chalker, decided to start a band in high school, but they did not own or play any instruments.

Stopholese suggested that Adam Carson might be able to fill the role of drummer because he owned a drum set.

That band became AFI.

After high school, the band broke up when its members left for college.

Havok attended UC Berkeley.

There, he began writing lyrics that later appeared on AFI's first two albums.

After gaining some popularity in their absence, AFI played a show at the Phoenix Theater for several hundred fans.

Following the positive reception, they decided to reunite and record an album.

In 1995, Answer That and Stay Fashionable, the band's first album, was released on Wingnut Records and in 1996, Very Proud of Ya was released on Nitro Records.

In 1997, the band released Shut Your Mouth and Open Your Eyes.

The next release was the A Fire Inside EP, which features covers of "The Hanging Garden" by the Cure and "Demonomania" by the Misfits.

In 1999, the band released Black Sails in the Sunset, which was the first album to include the current line-up: Havok, Carson, Hunter Burgan and Jade Puget.

In the fall of 1999, they released the All Hallows EP.

In 2000, they released The Art of Drowning to fair record sales.

The group had toured with another band, Samhain, on their reunion tour; Havok later joined three members of Samhain and recorded an album under the name Son of Sam.

In 2000, when Michale Graves had left the Misfits, Havok was approached by Roadrunner Records to be the lead singer of Misfits.

However, Havok told an interviewer that he never would leave AFI as it was his own band.

AFI continued to tour for a few years and released a few EPs along the way.

In 2000, Havok formed Son of Sam alongside the 1999 reunion lineup of Samhain.

This lineup released one album Songs from the Earth in 2001.

In 2003, Sing the Sorrow, the band's first major label release, was released, achieving platinum status in the U.S. and Canada and Gold in Australia.

On June 6, 2006, Decemberunderground was released on Interscope Records, again achieving platinum status in the U.S. and Canada and Gold in Australia.

AFI's DVD I Heard a Voice – Live from Long Beach Arena was released on December 12, 2006, containing a live concert from Long Beach Arena from September 15, 2006.

This DVD was released as a CD-version in November 2007.

On August 14, 2007, Havok's electronic side project with AFI guitarist Jade Puget, Blaqk Audio, released their first album, titled CexCells.

AFI's eighth studio album Crash Love was released on September 29, 2009, and Burials was released on October 22, 2013.

Decemberunderground achieved double platinum status in 2013, having sold more than 2 million copies worldwide.

In late 2016, AFI released a series of teaser videos featuring song clips and backwards audio, eventually revealed to be promotion for AFI (also known as The Blood Album), released on January 20, 2017 via Concord Music Group.

In 2022, AFI had the Bodies tour.

For the 20 year anniversary of Sing the Sorrows, AFI performed the album in its entirety on March 11, 2023 at a sold out concert in Inglewood, CA.