Jade Puget: AFI, Creating Their Signature Sound & Surviving Mainstream Success

Summary

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HardLore Podcast: Jade Puget (AFI) - Creating Their Signature Sound & Surviving Mainstream Success

Release Date: July 2, 2026
Host(s): Colin Young & Bo Lueders
Guest: Jade Puget (guitarist, AFI)
Special Co-Host: Alec Favor

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Episode Overview

This special, in-depth episode marks the HardLore podcast’s long-anticipated interview with Jade Puget, guitarist and principal songwriter of AFI. Building on HardLore’s past episodes (notably the acclaimed Davey Havoc two-parter), the hosts journey through Jade’s life—from his punk childhood in Ukiah to AFI’s creative evolution, underground cred, and mainstream breakthrough, exploring everything from writing methods and ethics to the realities of enduring mainstream success and backlash. Jade opens up about his upbringing, AFI’s rapid transformation, creative highs and challenges, and current passion projects, all delivered with characteristic humor and warmth.

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Table of Contents

• Early Life, Punk Roots & Hardcore DNA
• Vegetarianism, Straight Edge, and Early Bands
• Redemption 87, Berkeley, and AFI Origins
• Joining AFI & Defining the Band’s Sound
• Black Sails, All Hallows, and Art of Drowning
• Sing the Sorrow: Artistic Leap & Mainstream Shock
• Decemberunderground, Backlash, and Industry Realities
• Later AFI, Writing Methods, and Punk Legacy
• Bird Legs, Current Projects, and Reflections
• Rapid Fire: Tour, Food, and Hardcore Favorites
• Notable Quotes & Moments
• Selected Timestamps

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Early Life, Punk Roots & Hardcore DNA

[04:09 – 08:38]

• Upbringing in Ukiah, described as rural, poor, "wine and weed country—Emerald Triangle."
• "Essentially white trash," he jokes, but music was always around thanks to his mom’s piano and Motown/classical records.
  • "My earliest memories are sitting there listening to her play classical music... that was my first awakening to music." (Jade, 04:29)
• First musical purchases: Men at Work, Stray Cats.
• Skateboarding and punk: Totally overlapping cultures—“no one I knew skated and didn’t love punk, and vice versa.”
• Introduced to punk via Sex Pistols, and stories of forbidden hardcore (Minor Threat as “skinhead music”).
  • "I was willing to risk getting skinheads to listen to this music because this sounded very cool." (Jade, 08:00)

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Vegetarianism, Straight Edge, and Early Bands

[13:52 – 18:38]

• Straight Edge: Jade embraced it in ‘87 after discovering Youth of Today via the “Way It Is” Revelation comp.
  • "That comp was like, oh, all these bands… really put me on the path." (Jade, 15:00)
• Listening to contentious bands without caring much about lyrics: “We were about listening to music and skating."
• Vegetarianism came much later, after joining AFI—"I wanted this message to be cohesive."
• Perceptions of straight edge and vegetarianism within the band—non-judgmental and respectful to individual choices.

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Redemption 87, Berkeley, and AFI Origins

[18:55 – 25:46]

• Moved to Berkeley for UC Berkeley (degree in "social theory"), met future punk/hardcore luminaries (Rancid, Green Day).
• Joined Redemption 87 at friends’ urging, though his roots were in pop punk (Loose Change) and Bay Area weirdness.
  • "There was a super beautiful melodic part and then like this insane blast beat thing." (Jade, 19:56)
• Attended and played shows at legendary venues, witnessed early Green Day and Rancid— "you knew that this wasn’t just another local band."
• On Redemption 87’s “All Guns Poolside” album: Admits he played it safe, but found the collaboration memorable.
  • "I was a little timid in my writing… when I joined AFI, I didn’t have that same mentality." (Jade, 22:19)

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Joining AFI & Defining the Band’s Sound

[29:03 – 36:03]

• Lived with AFI just as a “college grad with no prospects” before being invited to join.
  • "We just banged out songs. The day I joined, we started writing Black Sails." (Jade, 32:25)
• Immediate songwriting chemistry with Davey—never once in 30 years have they fought while writing together.
• Explains “grommet” status—AFI were “the younger, less good at skating” kids in town, originally seen as “posers.”
• Outlines how he brought compositional and cinematic ambition to the band (e.g., “Malleus chorus”).
  • "That record [Black Sails] was… easy—it just felt new and exciting and fun." (Jade, 33:01)
• Guitar talk: E minor and the “zero fret”—his signature chordal DNA.

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Black Sails, All Hallows, and Art of Drowning

[36:16 – 61:29]

• Black Sails: AFI’s pivot—“I didn’t want to mess up the band, so I just wrote honestly.”
• All Hallows: Intended as “an exercise in fun,” not label-mandated. Re-used songs originally slated for "Art of Drowning."
• Art of Drowning: Collaboration with a “metal guy” producer, ultimate remix by Andy Ernst for authenticity.
  • “Gang vocals as melodic hooks”—AFI innovated on tradition, taking influence from Rancid but creating their own style.
  • "I thought that was always an important part of what we did—those melodic gang vocals." (Jade, 60:04)

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Sing the Sorrow: Artistic Leap & Mainstream Shock

[73:08 – 90:45]

• Major-label leap: Working with Jerry Finn and Butch Vig, unprecedented co-production.
• "The label didn’t need two massive producers for us, but it spoke to what they thought of the demos."
• Pre-production focused on drums, with both producers being drummers themselves.
• Jade led the way on electronics, pulling from VNV Nation, EBM, industrial, and his early programming: "All the production, all the electronic parts—yes, that’s me."
  • “That part [Death of Seasons]… what if we do kind of a VNV Nation, EBM industrial thing?” (Jade, 84:08)
• Breakout singles ("Girls Not Grey," "Leaving Song Pt. II") chosen by radio, not the band; “Leaving Song III” still hidden, but influential.
• Video moments: Recreating hardcore culture on MTV/TRL, tributes to his influences ("I wanted to immortalize" the gas mask/HC aesthetic—94:20).

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Decemberunderground, Backlash, and Industry Realities

[101:20 – 122:03]

• Surge in mainstream attention—Ms. Murder becomes a generational hit, but Jade/dave both voted to leave it off the record!
  • "He puts the machine behind you, you’re unstoppable." (Jade on Jimmy Iovine, 101:43)
• Industry politics creep in: Singles dictated by Interscope/label, e.g., Missing Frame sacrificed for Snow Patrol at Top 40.
• Backlash: AFI faces “pariah” status for breaking through—a mix of mainstream fatigue, homophobic pushback, and scene snobbery.
  • "There was a backlash… people at shows started chanting 'old stuff.'” (Jade, 120:14)
• Emotional honesty about success: “We only ever did what we did since day one... it just happened to dovetail with what people liked.”

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Later AFI, Writing Methods, and Punk Legacy

[122:13 – 153:34]

• Burials: A dark, creatively important record, written after a tough period for Davey—"We had a great time together writing, but there was some lowering clouds over us."
• Blood, Bodies, and Silver Bleeds The Black Sun: Self-producing, pushing boundaries, real punk spirit in method (spontaneous, one-take performances).
  • "If you can’t move with the times, you’re just going to be like a bitter thumb." (Jade on streaming, 144:01)
• No one Underground hints at a new, more aggressive era—he reveals an entire deathrock-influenced batch of unreleased material is ready.
• Writing: Jade is relentlessly prolific (120+ songs for Decemberunderground!), works every day in-studio, and believes best takes are raw first takes: "When he's doing something for the first time, that's when he's really bringing it."

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Bird Legs, Current Projects, and Reflections

[163:58 – 165:30]

• Bird Legs: Jade’s return to straight hardcore, debuting on influential Revelation Records ("for me, very cool... synonymous with hardcore").
• "Sat down to write hardcore for the first time since '95… it was a new genre to me."
• Openness and respect: Understands why fast/hardcore AFI can’t really return ("if we did it, it’d be whack, just a pale version of what exists… If we are to make aggressive music, it has to be new and cool.")

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Rapid Fire: Tour, Food, and Hardcore Favorites

[167:18 – 174:39]

• On-tour meals: Oatmeal, gluten-free bread, Amy’s vegan meals, Chipotle ("I’m a purity man—rice, cheese, beans.")
• Decaf coffee: Doctor-ordered (“my wife is a really good cook, but on tour I’m a simple guy”).
• Hardcore Mount Rushmore:
  • Punk/Hardcore: Suicidal Tendencies (“Self-Titled”), MDC, Black Flag (“Nervous Breakdown”), Fear (“The Record”), Dead Kennedys.
  • NYHC/Capital ‘H’ Hardcore: Youth of Today (“Break Down the Walls”), Agnostic Front (“Victim in Pain”), Cro-Mags (“Age of Quarrel”), Earth Crisis (“Destroy the Machines”).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On classical roots:
  “My earliest memories are sitting there listening to her play classical music. That was my first awakening to music.” (04:29)

• On punk & skateboarding unity:
  “Not a single skater didn’t listen to punk, and not a single person that listened to punk didn’t skate.” (06:30)

• On discovering hardcore:
  “That comp was like, oh, all these bands… really put me on the path.” (15:00)

• On “Black Sails in the Sunset”:
  “That record was… easy—it just felt new and exciting and fun.” (33:01)

• On songwriting partnership:
  “Dave and I… in 30 years, never had a fight while writing.” (33:29)

• On melodic gang vocals:
  “We didn’t invent it, but the way we did it... I think we were kind of the only ones to do it [that way].” (60:11)

• On authentic change:
  “There’s a difference between change and evolution, we always say on this program.” (64:53, Bo)

• On the pressure of success:
  “It’s the stupidest thing you can do as a songwriter—try to write a hit.” (100:20)

• On writing speed:
  “120 songs written for Decemberunderground… we’re very prolific.” (111:49)

• On critics demanding old AFI:
  "If we ever put out a new Art of Drowning, that would be whack… a pale version of what exists." (166:01)

• On streaming:
  “It’s like getting angry at a rain cloud… would I like it if people went to buy CDs? Sure. But it just is. If you can’t move with the times, you’re just going to be like a bitter thumb.” (144:01)

• On Jade’s Les Paul:
  “My original… was my black Les Paul standard… played every single part of Black Sails and Art of Drowning… stolen from a storage space.” (175:24)

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Selected Timestamps

• Ukiah & punk origins: 04:09–07:13
• Skateboarding/punk culture: 06:19–08:38
• Straight edge/vegetarianism: 13:52–18:03
• UC Berkeley & Redemption 87: 18:59–22:37
• Joining AFI: 29:03–36:03
• Black Sails writing: 32:24–36:03
• Signature sound/guitar method: 35:23–36:03, 39:20–42:51
• Art of Drowning & gang vocals: 59:48–61:29
• Sing the Sorrow leap: 73:08–90:45
• Mainstream breakthrough/backlash: 99:22–120:14
• Songwriting evolution: 127:16–129:39
• Bird Legs & hardcore resurgence: 163:58–165:30
• Hardcore & punk favorites: 172:47–174:39

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Tone & Style

Engaged, thoughtful, deeply personal, and full of dry wit. Jade’s recounting is honest and unpretentious, often self-deprecating but always passionate; hosts marvel at his recall and guitar wisdom, while maintaining a relaxed, “deep-cut” tone that’s equal parts music-geek, scene-history, and backstage tour bus banter.

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For New Listeners

If you love punk/hardcore history, insightful creative banter, or want to understand how a band survives—from sleeping in squats to headlining arenas—this episode is essential. Full of technical insights, scene lore, gear talk, tour tales, honest reflections on success, and heart.

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[HardLore Podcast, July 2, 2026 — Episode Guide by Podcast Summarizer AI]

Transcript

[Jade Puget]

You're in your apartment alone. Then you hear something. You think, was it just the storm?

[Bo]

You realize you're not alone.

[Jade Puget]

Your living room is not safe with Unhinged, the new immersive game experience brought to you by Netflix. To make it out alive, you must answer the phone. The question is, when your phone rings, will you answer? Tap the banner to play Unhinged now only on Netflix. This summer, serve up the cookout classics, Kraft Mayo and dressing. Toss green salads with delicious ranch dressing or zesty Italian. Serve smooth, craveably creamy potato salads with mayo. We all know it's not a cookout without Kraft.

[Bo]

Hey, everybody, thanks so much for joining us this week for this unbelievably special episode with the great Jade Puget from afi. This is poetry in motion here. This is nine months in the making. This is the next chapter of this saga that we started last year with the two part Davey Havoc episode. And now we get into this amazing three hour chat with the man who defined the AFI sound. This episode was actually recorded back in May, so this was one of the first ones we did. And we've been saving it for this very special week. And here it finally is. Jade is a hardcore kid through and through. Even at 52. And while I feel many weeks, it takes, you know, 10 to 20 to 30 minutes to warm up with our guests, Jade gets right into it in a way that very few ever have. I had so much fun watching this back. I hope that you all enjoy it. If you love the Davey episode, you will love this. If you love afi, you will love this. If you like hardcore or punk at all, you will love this. Let's get into it. Foreign. It's hard Lore time. How you doing, Beau? What a beautiful day we have on the show this week. First, let me introduce my special guest co host. To my left here is one of my best friends in the universe, Holy Blade vocalist, God's hate bass player. Twitching tongues Bass player. Eventual other things as well. Father of two, Alec Favor all the way from Pasadena. Thank you. And to my right, God, what a day. From Ukiah, California, and one of the greatest bands of all time. One of our favorite bands here on this program, which is well documented, one of our favorite riffers ever. His left hand, unbelievable. His right hand, unbelievable. AFI guitar player, Jade Puget. How are you, Jade?

[Jade Puget]

Thanks for having me.

[Bo]

What an honor. Thanks for being here.

[Jade Puget]

Yeah.

[Bo]

In the Valley we may cut this, so let me know. But there's a moment that we cut from the Dave episode where I ask him if he Lives in the Valley. And he goes, I don't live in the Valley. Jaden lives in the Valley. I shouldn't say that. I don't know where Jade lives.

[Jade Puget]

I mean, the Valley is a big place. It's not like, oh, he lives in the valley. As if anyone would come bother me.

[Bo]

Anyway, I've never seen you around.

[Jade Puget]

Yeah, yeah, I mean, I live in Woodland Hills there. I mean. I mean, Woodland Hills is a big place.

[Bo]

I'll see you at the Topanga Mall sometime, hopefully, you know.

[Jade Puget]

Yeah, I don't spend much time there either. See, I'm good.

[Bo]

Oh, wow, you're doing great, man. Let's take it back to the beginning here. Let's fire up the flux capacitor, go back in time. Tell us about growing up in Ukiah and finding Punkin Harbor.

[Jade Puget]

Growing up in Ukiah, it's a rural place, not unlike where we are now. It's wine country and weed country, Emerald triangle kind of situation. You know, growing up in the 80s, extremely poor, essentially white trash, you might say. Discovering music in general or discovering music into.

[Bo]

Into how that correlates to punk and hardcore.

[Jade Puget]

Well, it didn't correlate right away because, you know, the first things I discovered, my mom was playing, you know, like every mom was playing Michael Jackson, Prince and Sade and guitar there and soul music and, you know, Motown and a lot of classical. She was a classical pianist and composer. Even though we were poor, she always had a piano. And so I would. My earliest memories are sitting there listening to her play classical music. And that was my first awakening to music and where I felt something you enjoy really young. Yeah, I was probably like two or three. But I remember sitting on the couch with my legs like straight out because I was, you know, two year old and starting to feel something from this pieces of music, classical, because it's such a. Another. Such a fundamental emotional aspect of classical. And I still love it to this day just because it was like such a. The beginning of my musical whole.

[Bo]

And it is the DNA of like everything. Yeah. You know, so you like it in some way, whether you know it or not.

[Jade Puget]

So from there, you know, I just did what every 80s kid did and listened to what was on the radio. And the first thing that I got for Christmas was like minute work, business as usual, which still is like banger banger, no skips. A really great. I wouldn't say underrated because it has hits on it, but the songs that aren't hits are underrated. That's a great album. And then Stray Cats Shake, Rattle and Roll had such problematic songs of sexy in 17, but, you know, I love that Stray Cats from there. It wasn't until sort of middle school where I started hearing about punk and discovering punk. And that's what led me on the path that put me on this seat right now.

[Bo]

And is skateboarding a big part of that at any point?

[Jade Puget]

Back then, skateboarding and punk were inseparable.

[Bo]

Okay?

[Jade Puget]

No one I knew, and I knew everyone that skated in my town because there was only a few of us. No one didn't listen to punk, and

[Bo]

no one didn't listen to punk.

[Jade Puget]

No. No. Not a single skater didn't listen to punk, and not a single person that listen to punk didn't skate. Like, I didn't know anyone that, oh, I listen to punk, but I don't skate. We all did both things. So to me, it was kind of the same. I discovered skating probably, like, a few months before I finally discovered punk. Although I had the Pistols. I had Sex Pistols, never mind the Bullocks, like, a lot of people did. And I got the other Sex Pistol stuff. Great rock and Old Swindle, which was not good, and the Sid Vicious solo record, which is not good at all. But I was down because I'm like, this is. I'm trying to find my way.

[Bo]

Yeah.

[Jade Puget]

And this is the only thing I knew. Punk was Sex Pistol. I don't think I knew about the Ramones at that point. It was just like, this is the thing that is.

[Bo]

This is punk and this is skateboarding.

[Alec Favor]

Yes.

[Bo]

Is this when you invented the Muhammad Ali?

[Jade Puget]

The Muhammad Ali, yeah.

[Bo]

Can you describe that to me?

[Jade Puget]

I don't even remember what it is. I haven't even heard of this. You must have went very deep for that.

[Bo]

I don't know.

[Alec Favor]

He does this.

[Jade Puget]

He'll get lures you don't even know about, remember? In fact, there's only one piece of footage of me skating, even though I skated for a long time and I posted it on my Instagram. You can find it.

[Bo]

Is it like a regular ollie? But I don't remember Muhammad Ish in some way.

[Jade Puget]

It's some Muhammadan element to it. I don't know. I think it was May. Like, I don't know. That's. Now I got to go ask.

[Bo]

We'll check it out.

[Jade Puget]

I'll go ask some people.

[Bo]

Did you know that fem from Ukiah had a baby and named him Jade?

[Jade Puget]

Oh, man, this is like some nard wire level fem, AKA Aaron Fimber, is like, my best friend, and I Discovered skating with him. So he was like. He and I, I. We were each other's only friend. We played Dungeons and Dragons.

[Bo]

Hell, yeah.

[Jade Puget]

And we skated until I found the other people that did these things in my town. It's just him and I. I did not know that, but that is actually flattering.

[Bo]

Pretty cool.

[Jade Puget]

He turned it. He became a hippie, which is cool. Yeah. But he moved to Oregon and became a hippie.

[Alec Favor]

It's one of the many routes. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Jade Puget]

I mean, there's worse things you could do.

[Alec Favor]

100. Yeah.

[Jade Puget]

So, yeah, when in middle school, I finally started hearing about real punk. Real punk. I mean, Sex Pistols is real punk, I guess. But, you know, there was. I. I've told the story. There was a kid in my science class, an older kid, who told me about Minor Threat, and he's like, there's a band called Minor Threat, and it's skinhead music. And if you're not a skin, you can't listen to it because they'll beat you up. And I was like, damn, did you shave your head? Well, I was like, you know, I'm willing to risk getting. Getting skinheads to listen to this music because this sounds very cool. Like a forbidden music with only skinheads. I didn't really know what a skinhead was, but I never. I didn't hear Minor Threat at that time. I only heard of Minor Threat, the mythos of.

[Bo]

Yeah, you get killed if you are. If you're not bald.

[Jade Puget]

And a similar thing with Suicidal Tendencies. There's a dude. We were skating one night, and this dude kind of appeared out of the shadows that we had never seen before. And he was from down here. And he's like, yeah, you guys listen to punk? Like, you heard of Suicidal Tendencies? I'm like, no, sounds cool.

[Bo]

Yeah.

[Jade Puget]

He's like, yeah, they're like, basically a gang called the Suis. And, like, yeah, if you try to, like, go to their show, it's basically over for you, you know, you'd be lucky to survive.

[Bo]

And I was like, whoa, that's awesome.

[Jade Puget]

Like, what are they playing? And so I know that was another one. I was like, I got. I gotta find out about this band.

[Bo]

When does the guitar enter your life?

[Jade Puget]

That was much later. Well, I guess everything seemed.

[Bo]

It's very fast.

[Jade Puget]

It was really like this, but it seemed like way later. So I finally started hearing punk and hearing some actual punk music. And one of the first things I did hear was the first Suicidal records, which to me is still my top five, like, masterpiece. Another no skips Everything on that record is amazing. Songs about, you know, I shot Reagan. I mean, I saw your mom and your mommy's dead. Just like stuff that, you know, everyone, you know, hated Reagan. Yeah, all the punks hated Reagan. So speaking to me, and after that, I kind of finally, I met these kids, including Nick 13, who I'm still friends with to this day. Met him, met all the dudes, and they had a punk house that we all just stayed at and, you know, had circle pits in the living room and listened to punk and went out and skated streets and, you know, skate and destroy. 80s style. And cops hated us. Everyone hated us. Jocks hated us, Metalheads hated us, Hicks hated us, Girls hated us. But it was like, it was cool, you know, I kind of wanted to be hated. I reveled in being hated. Yeah, I tried to do everything that was as counter and outside the norm as possible, and the consequences were that we were pariahs. But it was okay.

[Bo]

Who cares?

[Jade Puget]

Who cares?

[Bo]

Speaking of that house, let me know if these words mean anything to you. Uh oh, Dudes all rockabilly. Dude got hair like my dad.

[Jade Puget]

Yeah, that's. I think, yeah, that's somebody who was clowning. Nick 13, he had some good ones. He was, I just.

[Bo]

Rockabelli.

[Jade Puget]

Yeah, Rockabelli. That was my next door neighbor in the trailer park we lived in. Jason Burns. I used to drive to. He used to take me to junior college in the back of his mini truck. He had a blue mini truck. And. And I mean, he'd like pick me up at 8 in the morning. I'd be in the back, freezing cold, and we'd stop. There's a bunch of reservations out there. So he'd pick all his Native American friends up and they'd all cram in the front. I'd be like, in the back, and he'd be playing like paperboy and like 90s rap. These huge speakers in the back of his mini truck, just rattling the whole thing.

[Bo]

And did his truck have a name?

[Jade Puget]

Probably yours did.

[Bo]

It's your car had a name.

[Jade Puget]

All my cars as a youth had a name, but there was a mini truck called Sudden Impact, and it had bed dance.

[Bo]

Okay.

[Jade Puget]

Or you make the bed as on hydraulics. The truck went up and did all kinds of stuff. So we got my friend Spanky back there and we did the bed dance on them, and he's like rattling around in there. So mini truck culture was a big thing.

[Bo]

Okay.

[Jade Puget]

In Ukiah. Understood, like, for sure.

[Bo]

So when do you start taking guitar seriously?

[Jade Puget]

My dad had A Les Paul studio, and he had bought it. And he was kind of like getting deep into, like, addiction and stuff. And he just was like. He turned his life around. I mean, he's like an amazing guy now, but at that time it was, you know, it was pretty dire. And he's just like. I don't think he. He didn't think he was going to play it. And he knew that I was interested because my stepdad at the time had a guitar and he wouldn't let me touch it, but he'd, like, show me stuff on it, but then wouldn't let me play the guitar. And I was so curious about guitar and really wanted to know how to do it. And I had no guitar of my own. And so my dad gave me that Les Paul. And that allowed me to join my first band or start my first band with Nick 13. And that was really important. If I hadn't got that guitar, I don't know. And I got, like, a little PV combo amp that kind of like, I played those two things for the next. I still have the guitar, but I played those two things for the next several years. Every band I was in, PB and the Les Paul.

[Bo]

We'll talk about those bands in a second. When did Vegetarianism and Straight Edge into your life?

[Jade Puget]

Straight edge. Early probably 86, 87, I guess.

[Bo]

Damn.

[Jade Puget]

Yeah, we knew Minor Threat, but back then it was like all these bands with messages like Dead Kennedys and Minor Threat, bands with Political Message or sort of bands like Fear, which we love, had kind of a counter, very un. PC message. We didn't take it that seriously. We just ran for the music, you know. So I was hearing about Straight Edge, but it wasn't like, oh, I need to become Straight Edge. And even people in my town, like, listen to Screwdriver, but didn't really even think about. Like, my best friend Sean Travis, who's black, listened to Screwdriver, and no one really cared about the lyrics.

[Bo]

You can't tell him not to, you know, it's like, no.

[Jade Puget]

I mean, obviously.

[Bo]

Yeah.

[Jade Puget]

And he. He wanted. I was in a band with him for many years, Loose Change, and he wanted to cover a screwdriver. And I was like, I can't do that. No. And so, like, you know, just goes to say that people didn't really listen to the lyrics. We were about listening to the music and skating. It wasn't until the Way It Is compilation, the Revelation compilation that came out in 80.

[Bo]

That's awesome.

[Jade Puget]

87, 88.

[Alec Favor]

87.

[Jade Puget]

And it was like, I Mean, that had all these bands I'd never heard before. I never heard Youth Today. I never heard Sick of It All. Never heard Bold, Never heard Gorilla Biscuits, had War Zone. And it was not only discovering really, the youth of today stuff really put me on the. The path of being. Coming straight. So 87 was when I really was like, this is it. But also putting me onto this music that I didn't even know existed. We didn't know what was going on in New York. Yeah. Like, I knew the Bad Brains and Chromax somehow. We had Age of Quarrel, so we knew Age of Quarrel, and we loved that. But as far as we knew, that was just another punk band. It could have been like Black Flag. We didn't know there was the scene happening. And that comp was like, oh, all these bands. And we. Because Nasio's on that comp.

[Alec Favor]

Yeah.

[Jade Puget]

Which is not a Harker band. We're like, oh, Nausea's just the same as. Nausea is great.

[Bo]

Great, man.

[Jade Puget]

I was just listening to some crust punk today, so.

[Bo]

So you find this comp and you're like, okay, this is me now.

[Jade Puget]

Yeah. Because I had my threat. Speaking about straight edge. And then when Youth today, you know, physically strong, morally straight, positive youth. Youth Today. I was like, the two things kind of. It's like, okay, now I have to get real about this.

[Alec Favor]

And was Unit Pride. Those guys? Were those. Was that part of your circle? Immediate circle?

[Jade Puget]

No. Like, I didn't meet the. I didn't meet Eric until much later, like in the mid-90s, because we didn't even know about Gilman street at that point. Wow.

[Bo]

Like, you guys were so in your own world over there.

[Jade Puget]

Yeah. And the only way you knew about shows was the pink section of the San Francisco Chronicle, which had Bay Area venues, but it didn't have Gilman street, because that was like a, you know, indie collective kind of thing. So we didn't even know it existed until years later. But.

[Bo]

Wow.

[Jade Puget]

So, yeah, straight edge 87, which would

[Bo]

turn out to be an important year for you, numerically.

[Jade Puget]

Yeah.

[Bo]

What about being vegetarian?

[Jade Puget]

That also came way later. Not until I joined afi, because those guys were all vegetarian at the time. And even, you know, when I'm like, Dave wasn't vegetarian when I. Even when I moved to Berkeley. He was right before he went vegetarian. So, yeah. It wasn't until I joined the band where I was like, you know what? I need to try this out. I need to see what this is about. Because I'm in this band now, and I want this Message to be cohesive. Yeah. And it wasn't. I was just like, I'm gonna try it. I'm not. I don't wanna be phony with it. Because Straight Edge is something that is so deep within the core of my being. Like, I wouldn't consider drinking. Like, I don't even. Wouldn't even think about it. Like, I would pick up a brick and smash myself in the nuts either. Like, it's just something I don't even think about doing.

[Bo]

Well said.

[Jade Puget]

And not to judge anyone else, but this is just like. It's so part of me. Whereas vegetarianism was something like, it's the right thing to do, don't get me wrong. But I was like, let me try this out and see if this is for me.

[Bo]

Is there any contentions about you not being vegan in the inner. Inner band? Contentions?

[Jade Puget]

No. Because Adam's not vegan.

[Bo]

Okay. So he's still outnumbered a little bit.

[Jade Puget]

And Hunter is vegan. Hunter.

[Bo]

So it's.

[Jade Puget]

Yeah. Hunter is actually more OG than even Dave. Yeah, Hunter is. I don't think he's been vegetarian his entire life and then vegan for a very long time.

[Alec Favor]

Is there, like, an unspoken. There's bands out there that are not Straight Edge bands, but everyone in the band is Straight edge. Is there any kind of, like, unspoken idea of that being a part of afi, even. Even. Not necessarily, like, out in the open, but, like, the core of the four of you?

[Jade Puget]

No, because Adam always drank.

[Alec Favor]

Okay.

[Jade Puget]

He hasn't. He's been sober now for many years, but. And Hunter actually never did anything. Hunter and Dave have never taken a drink or done anything their entire life. Whereas I, when I was young, because I was a feral white trash child, I experimented. It wasn't until, like, you know, really committed.

[Bo]

You don't invent the Muhammad Ali so.

[Jade Puget]

Exactly. I mean, come on. I had to get the. The inspiration.

[Bo]

Exactly.

[Jade Puget]

Probably drinking some, like, country club 40s or something.

[Bo]

Redemption 87.

[Jade Puget]

Yes.

[Bo]

Let's talk about it. How does that come to be? And how do you meet those guys?

[Jade Puget]

I met Eric. He was working at a record store in Berkeley. So I moved to Berkeley in 94 to go to the university there. Dave was already living there, going to Berkeley, and he actually. He and I actually had a class together, his last, because he dropped out to do afi, and his last semester was my first. And so we had a class together, but he introduced me to Eric, and later on, Eric at Starter Redemption. I think, like, Lars and Timmy Chunks were kind of like the first. Lars and Rancid were like, the first, and Eric started that band, but then there was a dude named Scotty who was playing guitar. And then Scotty went away or, I don't know, left. And they were looking for a new guitar player. And Nick, 13 and Dave were both telling Eric, like, you should consider Jay. Like, he's a great guitar player. And at the time I was playing pop punk and Loose change, you know, like, that was my thing. But they're like, you know this guy. Because I loved hardcore too. I had for years now.

[Bo]

Was Influence 13 a hardcore man?

[Jade Puget]

No, but it was a weird thing where it was like we were really influenced by like, Jawbreaker and Sam I Am, but also by like Capital's Casualties and dri. So there was like this super beautiful melodic part and then like this insane blast beat thing. And this was like, you know, 91.

[Bo]

Sure.

[Jade Puget]

But those would be like, together. It was a weird band.

[Bo]

So is redemption 87 like the first hard, proper hardcore band that you end up playing in?

[Jade Puget]

Yeah.

[Alec Favor]

Wow.

[Jade Puget]

There was this exchange student that moved to Ukiah from Germany named Stefan, who was a drummer, and he was obsessed with hardcore and he loved Mad Ball and all this stuff. And so we tried to start a band in that style, but it was like we had like, one rehearsal, so it wasn't really. Didn't have a name. Yeah.

[Bo]

Okay. Do you remember a naked guy moshing for redemption 87 in Hagerstown, Maryland?

[Alec Favor]

Whoa.

[Jade Puget]

I remember the show in Hagerstown, Maryland, but I don't remember a naked guy. I hope that wasn't me. No, no.

[Bo]

It couldn't have been good. By the time you joined Redemption 87, you already graduated UC Berkeley with a degree in sociology.

[Jade Puget]

Yeah, social theory.

[Bo]

Social theory. What did. Do you have any internal social theories about Bay Area hardcore in the mid-90s?

[Jade Puget]

I probably come up with a sort of theoretical framework for that scene, but it would be very interesting.

[Bo]

Okay.

[Jade Puget]

But that was a great scene. I mean, when I went to school there, I was way more interested in going to shows than going to class. So that early to mid-90s barrier scene, Gilman street and all those. All those clubs in. In San Francisco and, you know, Rancid had just started and we're kind of a local band still, but so good

[Bo]

and about to explode.

[Jade Puget]

About to explode. But I remember going to see them even before Lars was in the ban and they were already. Just knew or something about them was so powerful. Like, I saw them, there was like, you know, probably 40 people there, but it was like it just had something A band that you knew. Same with Green Day. Because Green Day was also a local band that my first band opened up for Green Day and they were the local band that would be supporting. Like, A Bad Religion came through. Green Day would be the support band. Same with Green Day. You knew that they were going to. This wasn't just another local band that there's something there. But so like Rancid and swinging utters and AFI screw 32, all these, like, local bands. A really, really strong scene.

[Bo]

So All Guns Poolside. That would be the only record you played on how. How collaborative was that?

[Jade Puget]

It was. Ian, the bass player wrote some songs and I wrote some songs. So we kind of were separate. And I. I'm kind of rueful about that record because I felt I was a little timid in my writing on that. Like, you know, I'd be writing Black Sails, like, only a couple years later.

[Bo]

Yeah.

[Jade Puget]

But that record, I just. I don't know, I. I was too worried about stepping outside the box. So some of the stuff I've. You know, it was a little too on the nose hardcore when I could have injected something more interesting into it. So I'm not that happy with my contribution to that record. But it's a good record.

[Bo]

It is.

[Alec Favor]

It's. So I was. I. I'm a big Redemption fan. I listened to it again recently for the first time in a while. I hear a lot of obviously, like, Youth of Today. Like, Eric sounds just like Ray. Like, he sounds more like Ray than Ray does, you know, and it's awesome. I love his voice. But musically, like, obviously there's Youth of today. But I also. I do actually hear, like, it's like, weirdly Bay Area punk, not necessarily like youth crew 88 100. And I think that those elements are actually, like, make it more unique. You know, it's not right down the middle.

[Jade Puget]

It isn't. And even the first record, especially, yeah, it's a weird record.

[Alec Favor]

It, like Spidey song. Spidey Song is like kind of a crazy song. All.

[Jade Puget]

A lot of those songs are weird. They sound like hardcore. The. The song structures. And I think it's because, you know, Timmy, who is in Token Entry and then Lars, you know, like, there's just the. The different disparate songwriting. It's a very weird record.

[Alec Favor]

It's melodic in a way that Youth of Today.

[Bo]

Right.

[Alec Favor]

Never was.

[Bo]

And.

[Jade Puget]

But Eric. Eric was a huge. Obviously a huge Ray Capo fan or a huge. Like, he went there as a kid, like, you know, stole his mom's credit Card or something and went to New York and stayed on those guys couches in like the mid-80s and was really in that scene. And obviously he took a lot of

[Bo]

influence from that and nobody has done it better, you know, no one's done

[Jade Puget]

Recapo except for Ray Cappo.

[Bo]

Better than. Yeah, exactly. I. But I do think like the black sales ness of some of those parts is in there.

[Jade Puget]

There's a.

[Bo]

There's some. There's. The jade is in there growing.

[Jade Puget]

The jade was a little trepidatious to come out, sure. But I'm just happy that when I did join AFI that I didn't have that same mentality. Even though it was more high stakes. Like there was not very many stakes with. With redemption 87. But I still was like, I just better play some like, you know, E minor, go up to the octave, the minor two and then I'll hit the tritone and you know, like the hardcore chords.

[Alec Favor]

7, 5, 8.

[Bo]

Right.

[Jade Puget]

Yeah.

[Bo]

What's better than that? Nothing's better than bread and butter, baby. How early do you become aware of AFI as abandoned as people or from the same town?

[Jade Puget]

So I knew them from the get

[Bo]

go, just straight up.

[Jade Puget]

Yeah, they were. They were kind of. We. We kind of viewed them as grommets, like kind of posers because they were younger than us and they weren't as good as us at skating. Like they had their own little crew that. That were like. None of them were very good and we were like much better and we just felt like more advanced than them. So we were cool with them, but they were kind of grommets to us.

[Bo]

Grommet is an interesting way to put it.

[Jade Puget]

Yeah.

[Bo]

Was there ever a feeling that you would end up in the band someday?

[Jade Puget]

No.

[Bo]

Did you want to?

[Jade Puget]

No. I did almost go on tour with him as a merch guy and then their guitar player I think had like a. Something weird with me. Like I don't know if he was. Cuz there was a little bit of competitiveness like with my first band and Jeff Kresge, who was the bass player for afi, was actually in my band first and left.

[Bo]

Yes.

[Jade Puget]

My band to join them. And so. And it was. There was like a little bit of. Of gentlemanly tension there. And so anyway that led him to kind of putting the kibosh on me being in the AFI camp early on.

[Bo]

So. Billy, you're like it. I don't need that. No, I'm doing other stuff.

[Jade Puget]

I mean, I wasn't doing much stuff.

[Bo]

This is an interesting question. I'm curious to hear the answer. When was your first plane ride?

[Jade Puget]

My first plane ride was the aforementioned trip to Hagerstown, Maryland. Oh, wow. I'd never been on a plane until Redemption did one tour, and it was like, three or four shows on the east coast, and that was my first time on a plane ride. Did you have a good time on the plane?

[Bo]

Yeah.

[Jade Puget]

Only thing I remember is being on the taxiway, and we're about to take off, and then when it started accelerating, I was like, oh, my God, we're going so fast. This is crazy. It's so, so powerful. Yeah, I still remember it because, yeah, I didn't know what it felt like to accelerate in a plane. And so, yeah, it was cool. I mean, I got to go on a plane for the first time. I mean, we never had money growing up, so I couldn't have been on, like, gone on a plane.

[Bo]

Hagerstown, Maryland.

[Jade Puget]

Unthinkable. Yeah.

[Bo]

So how was that? Any. Any fond memories from that tour other than this naked guy? You don't remember?

[Jade Puget]

It was killer.

[Bo]

Yeah, I don't know.

[Jade Puget]

I don't remember the naked guy. I mean, that's a memorable event.

[Alec Favor]

Who were the shows with, if you remember?

[Jade Puget]

Blade Crasher In My Eyes? I think there might have been, like, a rotating cast of bands I hadn't heard of, like, kind of smaller local bands. We flew to New Jersey and stayed in Tim from Ensign's, like, basement and just played some shows, played at a skate park, and it was great. I mean, I was. I was young, and I didn't. You know, I just wanted to play shows, and so. Yeah, so that was.

[Bo]

And that was the only tour you ever did with them?

[Jade Puget]

Yeah, Della Tour there. We did. I mean, we played a lot of shows, but it was drivable stuff.

[Alec Favor]

Did you ever come down. Down here?

[Jade Puget]

Oh, yeah. Okay. We came down here with H2O when Mackie was playing drums for him.

[Alec Favor]

Oh, sick.

[Jade Puget]

And Isaac was doing merch. And I was just like, Isaac Mackie from CRO Mags. And they had Mackie set up sideways on stage. And I was like, you know, to me, it was like, damn, this is like, legendary right here.

[Bo]

So to you, Jade Isaac from Crown of Thorns doing merch. That meant something to you? Yeah. That's so cool.

[Jade Puget]

I was like, yeah. I mean, it was all kind of sort of these dudes from these bands that I was probably the same age, essentially, sure, as them. But to me, it was like these legendary characters.

[Bo]

But it's like, this is how we feel about guys, you know, We Feel this way about guys all the time. So it's cool. Just. Yeah.

[Jade Puget]

I mean, if I. I've never met Ray Capua. If I saw him, I'd be like, damn, that's right, Cap. You know how I feel about it.

[Bo]

Let's talk about from your perspective, joining afi. How does that happen? Why is it the right time? Why are you the right guy to. In your mind?

[Jade Puget]

You know, I've thought about this a lot because I wouldn't. Who knows what I would be doing. I wouldn't be here. Unless you guys wanted to talk to like a social theorist or a bomb or something. I don't know. Yeah, I was living. Everyone lived in a squat. We call it a squat. It was essentially a squat where you had to pay rent. So it was kind of even worse than a squat. At least not a squat.

[Bo]

Not even pretty squat.

[Jade Puget]

Yeah, pay squat. They were going on tour. AFI and Dave lived in a room we called the Clayvet because it was like a cave mixed with a closet. It was this tiny room that was like probably about this wide and maybe that long.

[Bo]

Okay.

[Jade Puget]

And that's where he lived. And we all. And they all lived in the house. And so he let me stay in there and I had. Basically, they were on tour for six weeks and I'm like, I have six weeks here and then I'm on the street and I have no options. Like, I wanted to be an author. Like, I graduated from Berkeley and I. I was going to go to grad school at Yale because they had a program where if you, if you graduated from Berkeley, if with good enough grades, you would get accepted automatically. I just didn't want to face the real world and I could get student loans. So I was like, I'm going to go to grad school and just put. Put off becoming a real person as long as I can.

[Bo]

But a lot of people choose that life.

[Jade Puget]

Yeah.

[Alec Favor]

You know, my wife did for a long time.

[Bo]

She just finished.

[Alec Favor]

She just finished college.

[Jade Puget]

Yeah.

[Alec Favor]

Well, two master's degrees later, that's cool.

[Jade Puget]

I mean, I wish I had my master's degree. I kind of regret.

[Bo]

You don't need a master's degree.

[Jade Puget]

I don't need. I don't even need.

[Bo]

You made one, you know.

[Jade Puget]

Yeah. But you know, it's just, it would be cool.

[Alec Favor]

I know.

[Bo]

I feel the same. I've never done a lick of post high school education, so I always look at music like lifelong musicians who finished college and it like blows my mind.

[Jade Puget]

Yeah. I can kind of rub it in the other guys faces because they all dropped out of college to do afi, so they did the hard work, and I, like, finished my degree and then slotted in at the right time.

[Bo]

You came in college grad and created the AFI sound?

[Jade Puget]

Yeah, I just was, like, in. Living in Dave's room in my cap and gown, wearing it every day.

[Bo]

How does it. How does it happen? How does the conversation go?

[Jade Puget]

So, like I said, they're on tour. I'm living in his room. I have to get out when he comes back because there's not enough room in the clay, but for two people. And so I'm like, all right. I don't know what's gonna happen with me. I got no prospects. I got nowhere to live. I don't have anybody in my family with money that can help me out. I'm just like, you know, I'd be on the streets.

[Bo]

Yeah.

[Jade Puget]

And he comes home and he's like. Takes me out to the balcony. He's like, hey, man, we just, like, kicked out our guitar player. Would you want to play guitar for afi? And it was crazy because I didn't. That was not even a possibility or a whisper on the wind that something like that was going to happen. You know, I didn't know they were going to kick him out or they were going to ask me, and they didn't have. I was the only guy that they considered, so they weren't thinking about asking, you know, trying me out or something, so.

[Bo]

And this is just from, like, knowing you for this long and having faith in what they know you can do.

[Jade Puget]

Yeah. They always, I guess, love my guitar playing. I don't know why, but they were like, you're a great guitar player and songwriter. Because I wrote all the songs in, like, in Loose Change, and it wasn't the same style, but, you know, so they knew I could write. And so.

[Alec Favor]

Yeah.

[Jade Puget]

And that day we started writing Black Sails, like that very day.

[Bo]

You came with the Malleus chorus.

[Jade Puget]

Yeah. So that was still sitting on the balcony. I went and grabbed my acoustic guitar, and I was like. I had this part that was kind of like. I think I've been listening to Call My Brothers, you know, the Ignite album?

[Bo]

Sure.

[Jade Puget]

And I'm like, got a little part here.

[Bo]

Okay.

[Jade Puget]

And we just put it together. Yeah.

[Bo]

Unbelievable. The band changes overnight. The songs become compositional and cinematic.

[Jade Puget]

How.

[Bo]

How natural is this record for you to. To write just this first one? Does it write itself in a way?

[Jade Puget]

Pretty much, yeah. I just knew that AFI was an established band and they had three records out already, and I didn't want to come in. And now I was going to be the songwriter, essentially. I mean, Hunter wrote too, but the guy that kicked out was. Had written all the songs on the previous record. And I don't want to like, ruin the band. Like, if I came with some whack songs, I could ruin these dudes livelihood in their band. You know, it wasn't much of a livelihood at that point, but, you know, so.

[Bo]

But they're already on nitro at this point, right?

[Jade Puget]

Yeah. And you know, they're doing well and they're touring and they can tour all over. They might not draw a lot of people, but they're a successful enterprise. So I don't want to come in and be responsible for the downfall of this band, so. But I didn't let it get in my head about it. We just wrote. I think part of it is from day one, Dave and I were such good songwriting partners. And to this day, we've never in 30 years had a fight. We've never had an argument while we're writing. And we've spent countless years together in a room writing music at this point. And we just get along so well, and we're so on the same page that it made it really easy for me and for him too. And we just like, that record was. It just was easy.

[Bo]

It's, It's. I mean, it's. There's definitive, like, well documented proof of like, how lucky you guys are to have found each other. Was there a, like, riff or song that for you was like the single kind of Holy shit moment of like, okay, this is working. And it's. And it's awesome.

[Jade Puget]

Everyone was kind of cool and different. I mean, you know, like a song like Prayer Position, that's a hardcore song, straight up. The whole song is a hardcore song. And so we were both huge hardcore fans, obviously, and. And so I'm like, oh, we can do hardcore. And it sounds killer, but it doesn't sound like everything else. It sounds kind of like our version of it. And then like strengthly winning with the first song and the record. Like, I remember we went and saw the Deftones at the Phoenix Theater and we're driving home and I was thinking about, like, would be a good intro for the record. We just started kind of going back and forth and we came home and just ran up to the room and wrote that song. And like, it was just like that everything we did just felt new and exciting and fun. I didn't think that, like, we're writing the best songs ever or like, this is going to be a great record. Or this is going to be anything. It was just right. This fun. The school.

[Bo]

Cool, man. What is your favorite fret?

[Jade Puget]

I mean, there's some. There's different frets that kind of have their own magic.

[Alec Favor]

Yeah.

[Bo]

I love.

[Jade Puget]

I mean, it wouldn't shock anyone to know that I'm E minor guy.

[Alec Favor]

Yes.

[Jade Puget]

I mean, E minor.

[Bo]

You're kind of the king of E minor.

[Jade Puget]

E minor is the king of chords.

[Alec Favor]

Yeah.

[Jade Puget]

Because you got the low E minor, which is the heaviest chord in standard tuning.

[Bo]

Right.

[Jade Puget]

And then you got the octave up here.

[Bo]

Beautiful.

[Jade Puget]

And going back and forth between those things. I mean, you've heard me do it a million times. If you listen to. Oh, and it's. It's because I love that chord. And so the zero fret.

[Bo]

Okay.

[Jade Puget]

Or the 12 or the 7, 7 zero fret of the seventh fret got to be the best.

[Alec Favor]

I love it.

[Jade Puget]

Yeah, I love it.

[Bo]

It surprises me the fact that zero is your favorite. It surprises me how much restraint you have to not just throw a big breakdown. And sometimes, you know, well, there's.

[Jade Puget]

There's some big break. There are early on, but are there.

[Bo]

Is that something you fight, where you're like, I can't do that?

[Jade Puget]

I did kind of think. Because at that point, I had been listening to Harcourt for a long time and do the whole kind of Earth Crisis Snap Case, which I loved.

[Alec Favor]

Yeah.

[Jade Puget]

But I felt like an afi. It sometimes felt token to do it. Like there's a song, Porphyria.

[Alec Favor]

Yeah.

[Jade Puget]

On that. That has a big hardcore breakdown, essentially. And it just felt like we go back to this well too many times. It's going to be like, here's AFI kind of ripping off hardcore and doing like a pastiche of hardcore. I didn't want to be that guy.

[Alec Favor]

Did it already feel like by the time you joined that you. Not to say that you're past hardcore, but, like, did it already feel like it's too late to do those things?

[Jade Puget]

Kind of. Because that mid-90s era of hardcore was kind of the last era where I was fully, like, tapped in. And I continue even to this day to listen to hardcore, but I don't have my finger on the pulse. And I kind of didn't because I was touring constantly and doing afi, so I just. I couldn't go to shows all the time. So, yeah, that. That kind of mid-90s period, which was a great period, that was kind of like my last heyday of being fully immersed.

[Alec Favor]

You've been touring with Sick of It. All as much as you did.

[Jade Puget]

Did it feel like. Yeah, I love Sick of It All. I was fully immersed in Sick of It All. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But you know, like the. The life on the Reps tour was like Sick of It all hot water music. Yeah.

[Alec Favor]

They were in their like fat record bag at that. At that time. So they were like a little bit more.

[Jade Puget]

That pre Fat Records record. 90 99, I think that was maybe the first.

[Bo]

That might have been when.

[Alec Favor]

Yeah, I think it was like Built to Last was the last one. Not built.

[Bo]

The last might have been fat.

[Alec Favor]

Right. Maybe that's 97.

[Jade Puget]

No, I don't think Built A Loss is on Fat Rack. I think the one with the red cover was on. Was the first one on Fat Wreck.

[Alec Favor]

Right. That might be 99, I think.

[Jade Puget]

I mean, I love those guys. So many things. My first time getting to go to Europe was because Sick of It all took us. They didn't need to take us. They didn't need AFI in 99.

[Bo]

How was that?

[Jade Puget]

Awesome. I mean, no one cared about us, but it was killer. And then taking us out on that life on the ropes tour was killer. Going to Japan for the first time. Sick of it all on 9 11, no less. We're literally.

[Bo]

I mean, good place to be. Yeah.

[Jade Puget]

It was scary though, because we couldn't get home.

[Alec Favor]

Yeah, you got stuck.

[Jade Puget]

Yeah, we got stuck.

[Bo]

Oh, that sucks.

[Jade Puget]

And we had worse places to be stuck. Yeah, it was cool. But it was also like, they're from New York and so they're freaking out.

[Alec Favor]

Yeah, true.

[Jade Puget]

And so it was just weird.

[Alec Favor]

Yeah, totally. It was weird.

[Jade Puget]

Yeah.

[Bo]

So on Black Sails, this begins, like I said, like Dave said, the AFI sound, as it is known today. They've octaves and dark chord voicings. Where does that, like harmonic language come from? The way that you play and the way that you write riffs. Doesn't sound like anything.

[Jade Puget]

Doesn't sound like anything good.

[Bo]

No, that's not true.

[Alec Favor]

It's the six string bar chord.

[Bo]

Yeah, you're.

[Jade Puget]

That is something that. Yeah, a lot of this stuff, you know, I don't know. I think a lot. I remember writing those songs like in the squat. And I was trying to make up new stuff, new techniques, because I'm like, I wanna. I want this. I don't want to sound like obviously my last band or any of the bands I've been in, because it wouldn't make any sense. And I only know how to be me. I've never had lessons, so I don't know theory or technique other than my own. So I was just putting like, you know, in prayer position. When it has the breakdown part, it's like a clean guitar.

[Alec Favor]

Yeah.

[Jade Puget]

Like I'm just like putting my fingers places and seeing what sounds.

[Bo]

It's just instinct.

[Jade Puget]

Yeah. And some of that stuff, like the inverted chords and like, it's just. I started being like, okay, I like this. I mean, I was a good guitar player at that point, but I was just stretching and being like, I want to do stuff. I want to put my fingers in places they never been.

[Bo]

It's every little boy's dream.

[Jade Puget]

Yeah.

[Bo]

What. What's your rig like? At that time?

[Jade Puget]

I inherited the previous guitar players gear because he was like. When they kicked him out, he's like, I'm done with music. I don't want any of this stuff. I'm not playing music ever again. And he hasn't.

[Alec Favor]

Oh, wow.

[Jade Puget]

Wow. Which is crazy because he was a good songwriter. I love that record before Me.

[Alec Favor]

That's a great record. Yeah.

[Jade Puget]

And he just went to Harvey Mudd for Mathematics, like Higher Math.

[Bo]

So he wrote Single Second and then never wrote a song again.

[Jade Puget]

Yeah.

[Alec Favor]

Third Season.

[Jade Puget]

Yeah.

[Alec Favor]

It's crazy.

[Jade Puget]

And the A Fire Inside ep, which has like.

[Alec Favor]

Yeah.

[Jade Puget]

Overexposure. I mean.

[Bo]

Yeah.

[Jade Puget]

And he just apparently he said like kind of leading up to him being kicked out, it was getting kind of sour on the band. And he said, like, the next AFI record, I'm going to write something that's going to be so bizarre that no one's going to want to listen to it. And I always thought like, damn, I wish I knew what that was going

[Bo]

to be because I bet you give him a call.

[Jade Puget]

Cool.

[Bo]

Give him a call. We can make it happen.

[Alec Favor]

I was curious about the way you play and I think it's more obvious on the next lp. But a thing that is interesting about the Bay Area is there's like a strange amount of rockabilly psychobilly bands from there.

[Jade Puget]

Yeah, I guess you're right.

[Alec Favor]

And I wonder because there's a lot of hammer ons and a lot of like interesting picking. Like I remember I saw Viva Hate with Sigovadol and I remember just thinking like, all these bands are from the same area. They all the same people. Like, what is informing that playing?

[Jade Puget]

I don't know. I never really thought that I sounded like anyone or anyone like that.

[Bo]

That's the thing.

[Alec Favor]

Well, you know, I'm not saying that you necessarily. Yeah. But it's just like there's like a weird through line that is. There's like maybe a shared influence somewhere down the line. Like maybe I'll like Johnny Marr or something like that.

[Jade Puget]

But, I mean, I wasn't. I was not. Certainly not advanced enough to know anything about how Johnny Mar was playing early on, you know.

[Alec Favor]

Yeah.

[Jade Puget]

And like, things like playing all the strings, that was just something I came up with. Like, I'm the only guitar player, so I. How can I make the guitar sound the biggest? It could be playing all the strings all the time and then, you know, playing open, like, pedal tones.

[Alec Favor]

Yeah.

[Jade Puget]

Like, I didn't know what a pedal tone was, but I'm like, if I only play one note on this riff, it's going to sound thin. And I'm the only guitar player, so I. What if I just put this open string with it? And so it's just kind of dumb logic, but it kind of. Those things became my thing. And then the inverted power chords or triads, those kinds of things are just shit. The sound.

[Bo]

That's the best. Those are the best.

[Jade Puget]

Yeah.

[Bo]

That's the good shit. That's how you also. You trick them in the thinking it's more complicated than it is, you know.

[Jade Puget]

Yeah. Like Fall Children. The intro, that's just, you know, it's. Yeah, exactly. Just move your fingers in kind of a logical way, using triads, and you get something cool.

[Alec Favor]

You really.

[Bo]

You really do. How do you look back on Black sails now after 27 years of. Of songwriting in this band?

[Jade Puget]

I love that record. It was definitely such a pure record because we weren't trying to do something. We weren't trying to be good. We weren't trying to impress anyone. We weren't trying to sound like anyone. We're simply two guys. I mean, all four of us, obviously, but Dave and I, we would kind of start the song, write the parts to it, and then we take it and work it out as a band. But it's just two guys kind of like learning how to work together. So there's like nothing more pure than that expression of songwriting.

[Bo]

And then, man, you just never stopped working together.

[Jade Puget]

Yeah. For better or for worse right now.

[Bo]

For better, for better. Next up would be the All Hallows ep.

[Jade Puget]

Yeah.

[Bo]

Speaking of fall children room that is like the go to. Oh, this Guitars and standard. Okay, let me check it out.

[Jade Puget]

You know, riff guitar should always be in standard.

[Bo]

Agreement. Agreed. This is a standard. This is a room of standard guys. Yeah. Tell me about the. So the All Hallows EP was described as an exercise in fun and in punk and just wanted to do a Halloween record.

[Jade Puget]

Yeah. And I remember when you interviewed Dave, he was talking about how we wrote those songs for that ep, which isn't totally true. Like, we wrote. We were basically starting to write what would end up being Art of Drowning. And so that was totally Immortal and Boy Destroyed the World were songs that we had written for the next record.

[Bo]

Wow.

[Jade Puget]

And then the idea of doing this EP came up and we're like, oh, let's use. We got these two songs, new songs. Let's put them on there. And then we wrote Fall Children for it, obviously, and then did the COVID And yeah, it was fun. It was like, you know, Dave talked about how the label. Of course.

[Bo]

Yeah. Do you want to. Do you want to get into frustrations there?

[Jade Puget]

I mean that, like, we always talk about this as a band. If we ever were to tell the whole story of that. And probably the best of it was all of us.

[Bo]

Yeah.

[Jade Puget]

Because we all have our own perspective. And it was the shittiest thing I've ever experienced as a musician or in the industry.

[Alec Favor]

Yeah.

[Jade Puget]

All of us. And I mean, we ended up in a good place eventually, so that's important. But it was a shitty experience and a learning experience. And realizing not everyone is on is doing this for the love of the music and doing it. We came from punk and hardcore was about community and everyone was lifting each other up. And it wasn't a zero sum game where of like, you got something, that means I didn't get it. So, like that. That sucks because you got that thing. It's like, oh, cool, you got that thing. Maybe now you can put me on and like, you know, we're all helping each other, all lifting each other up. So that experience was kind of making you realize, though, we're in a different game now. This isn't about Gilman Street. This isn't about the hardcore club. This is about big corporations and lots of money.

[Bo]

Right. Even when in the things like the All Hollows ep, it's like, all right, we get it. We're getting to do this fun thing that they're not psyched about and it just happens to pop off and do really well. And now it's a great idea.

[Jade Puget]

Well, even Black Sails, we did that record. And then we hear back through the grapevine, like, you know, the guy who runs our label doesn't get it. He doesn't like it. And so. Or like, I'm already starting off this journey with the band being like, well, this sucks.

[Alec Favor]

Yeah.

[Bo]

If you don't like this with the helmet.

[Jade Puget]

If our label isn't like, It. What does that mean for us?

[Bo]

Yeah.

[Jade Puget]

Do they. Are they not gonna.

[Bo]

So weird.

[Jade Puget]

Support it? And then the next thing we do is kind of like we basically have to talk them into doing it. And yeah, both those things speak for themselves. And we're. People still are listening to that shit today, so there must have been something there.

[Bo]

There sure is.

[Jade Puget]

Did not see on either one of those records.

[Bo]

So. And Boy who Destroyed the World being in Tony Hawk is legit responsible for people finding Punk and Harcourt in the first place.

[Jade Puget]

You know what's cool about that is that is slowly over time crept up to be one of our most popular songs.

[Alec Favor]

That's it.

[Jade Puget]

And it's got to be just because of Tony Hawk.

[Alec Favor]

Does this.

[Bo]

Did this feel like a timeless special batch of songs at the time or was it just like, eh.

[Jade Puget]

Like Total Immortal and Buddhist for the World were like the two new songs that Dave and I just wrote. I remember Going Down. I had the. And the guitar part in the verse and I called him on the. On the house phone. I'm like, hey man, I'm coming down. I got a new thing. Because I was now living in the squat above him on the next floor.

[Bo]

Oh, coming down. Literally, I'm coming downstairs.

[Jade Puget]

Yeah, I'm coming downstairs. That's how it was. Because we all. All four of us lived in that house. And Nick 13 lived there too. And two of the guys that went on to be in the Nerve Agents, Tim Presley and Andy Grinelli and then another dude who was in Ceremony. Like, so all these people just lived in this house. All these musicians. And so yeah, I call them on the phone. I had a riff, I'd be like, come down to your room or come up to my room. And I just go. I remember sitting there writing Totally Mortal and those things. So we just like banged him out and you know, half an hour, you

[Bo]

don't even think about it.

[Jade Puget]

Yeah. Because we were just on back then. I knew that no matter what I played, Dave was going to come with something great. Like I just had. We had the most faith in each other. It was. That's a great feeling when you're writing with someone. You're like, it doesn't matter what chord progression, what riff I play. This dude is going to elevate it with what he does.

[Alec Favor]

It's so cool. Because I think about that too now when I have two songs that I really like. Being afraid to burn them on something like a 7 inch. And you had no hesitation of doing that, which is. Which is awesome.

[Jade Puget]

I still feel that way I'm very much of the mindset that always put your best foot forward because if you're like, man, I'm save these songs back because they gotta be on something special. Maybe that something special never happens. Or maybe those songs putting them out now is what you know. Something happens with those songs because you put them out now they're going through the same thing. Always put your best stuff out because plus you might, by the way, you might write something way better. Instead of holding those two back, you might two that are way better.

[Alec Favor]

I'm so scared.

[Bo]

I'll never do that same. Never. Pardon this interruption. I need just two minutes of your time to tell you about the incredible sponsors this week. First up, please welcome back my favorite beans in the world, Timeless Coffee. Baby, if you make coffee at home, you best be sure to make it timeless. Timeless is a legendary Bay Area hardcore vegan owned coffee shop. That's right. Beans, cookies, cakes. If you live in the Bay, you can get the craziest custom cakes you've ever seen. You can get any of these in 10 ounce, 2 pound and 5 pound bags. You want them a little more frequently? Subscribe and save. And then save even more. With Code Hard Lore, you're gonna get 15% off site wide. I drink a pot of Timeless every single day. Which in a way makes every day timeless. I mean, in celebration of this episode, why don't you try the Black Sails Dark roast Or for Neurosis coming back, try the Doorway Espresso blend. It's delicious. Head over to timeless coffee.com right now and use Code Hard Lore. Jade Being one of my favorite riffers of all time, this episode is also appropriately brought to you by Dunnable Guitars. That's right, the custom guitar of your dreams. Or a beautiful guitar made in a factory. Either way, Dunnable makes my favorite guitars on planet Earth. And you know, if you've heard me talk about Dunnable before, you know that I tout the tune low play slow aspect of it where the 25 and a half inch scale allows for better tuning stability for lower tunings, but they rock just as hard in E flat. And Dunnable right now is offering you 15% off a guitar. It's out of control. Everything else in the world is more expensive right now except for a Dunnable. So build it or buy it. Dunnable's got your back. Visit dunnableguitars.com using code hard lore and nothing feels better than a Dunnable in standard tuning. Playing this riff. Back to the episode when do you do this? The Afi Danzig Samhain tour that was 99. How cool was that?

[Jade Puget]

It was crazy because I think it was right when we finished the Sick of It all tour, which is a long ass tour, grueling. And we got the call from our booking agent. Stormy shepherd was like, hey, do you want to do two weeks with Danzig and Sam Hain? And we're like, yeah. So we basically drove from the end of Sick of It all tour to Detroit to start that tour. And it was like, yeah, it was a trip, man. It was definitely like a culture shock because, you know, the people at a Danzig Sam Hain show are different just in general to the people we usually

[Bo]

play to, but exposing them to black sails at all hollows, they were going. Finally something else for me, you know?

[Jade Puget]

Yeah, a lot of hick accents, you know. Detroit. I remember being backstage in Detroit and like, Coldest Life is from Detroit, right? Oh, yeah. I think some of those dudes were there. They're very nice dudes. Very, like, scary. Like, oh, my God, like, you know, Detroit. The, like, Detroit Tigers logo on the face. Yeah, like face tattoos, especially giant face tattoos, was not a thing back then. And I was just like, damn, these dudes are hard. But yeah, it was cool. Like, Danzig is very, you know, it's not like he was chopping it up with us backstage, you know, Like, I remember we played in Portland, actually, the place we AFI just played in Portland, like a few weeks ago.

[Bo]

But that's cool.

[Jade Puget]

Yeah, but he had like, we. We couldn't have a dressing room because he had all the dressing rooms because. And he had this line of girls that were like, in. In line to go see him. And it was all girls. And our dressing room was the, like, sort of the front area. And so they were all lined up in our dressing room. And it was just like, we're trying to get changed to go on stage. Weird. But. And then another. We were playing in Denver, and this was at a time when I think there was some drama between Jerry only and Doyle and Glenn. And it was when Jerry and Doyle were wrestling.

[Bo]

Oh, yeah. At wcw.

[Jade Puget]

And the WCW was in town at the same night in Denver. And we had heard like, through the roadies or something that, like, they had called down to the venue we were playing at and basically, like, we're gonna come down there and it's gonna be on or something. It was like everyone was tripping because they were like, there's gonna be like 100 professional wrestlers showing up to try to, like, kill Danzig. And, like, it was like a weird show. But then I saw Goldberg.

[Bo]

Oh, he came.

[Jade Puget]

We left the venue to drive to the next show, and we stopped to get gas.

[Bo]

And this is Pete Goldberg.

[Jade Puget]

Yeah, I went in. I mean, I don't know much about wrestling, so, But I went in and I recognized him. He was in line in the gas station that we stopped at.

[Bo]

Massive guy.

[Alec Favor]

Yeah.

[Jade Puget]

And I'm like, that's fucking Goldberg. And I never ask anyone for autographs just because I don't care, but I was the only one in the gas station. I'm like, no one's gonna believe me. So I'm like. I asked him to, like, sign an autograph just so I could go show the guys that came. Goldberg was in there. The other thing that was funny from that tour is we were. We never let Dave drive the van because he sucks at driving. He's a terrible driver. He's probably better now, but he was not better than.

[Bo]

He was.

[Jade Puget]

Less better then.

[Alec Favor]

Did he load out at all?

[Bo]

Yeah, he loaded out.

[Jade Puget]

Very helpful.

[Bo]

Really?

[Jade Puget]

Oh, yeah. Dave was never. He. He's always down. He's never going to, like, do that. No.

[Bo]

And he's a strong guy, so you'd

[Jade Puget]

hope he's the strongest guy probably in the band, so. Wow. He was always a thousand percent down to help in any way. I mean, he used to sing this end of the last song. He jumped off stage and run to the merch booth to sell the T shirts.

[Bo]

Yeah.

[Jade Puget]

You know, like, he was real one. He's down. Down for the cause. But for some reason, we needed to move. The Danzig people told us we needed to move our van. We had a van and trailer, and his bus was like this. And for some reason, Dave was the guy that was doing it, like, and I was directing him. I don't know why I wasn't driving, but. So he's trying to maneuver the van and trailer, which is weird, way beyond his skill set, and he just starts firing straight back towards Danzig's bus. And I'm like, stop. And he slams on the brakes, like, literally inches from Danzig's bus. And the curtains open. It's like this angry Danzig face, like, peering out, mean, mugging us. And we're like, oh, man, that's it.

[Bo]

Sorry, Dan.

[Jade Puget]

We're off the tour. Like, there's no way.

[Bo]

Wow.

[Jade Puget]

We're out here fucking around in the parking lot.

[Bo]

Was this. Were you. Were you part of the thing where Macho man was trying to kill Doyle? Was this. Was this something?

[Jade Puget]

No, but I know someone that was there when he was saying. What was he calling Him. He didn't know Doyle's name or he had heard it wrong.

[Bo]

Was he saying Dale or something?

[Jade Puget]

Yeah. Where's Dale? Yeah. And he. He went back to the green room, started pounding their bruise and no one wanted to tell him no.

[Bo]

Yeah.

[Jade Puget]

Why?

[Bo]

How could you tell?

[Jade Puget]

And then he was on the side of the stage while they were playing. Mean mugging, Pound of Bruise and like, that's got to be a frightening.

[Bo]

That's so cool.

[Jade Puget]

We. We did a press junket. We got nominated for a VMA in 2003 on Sing the Sorrow. And there was a press junket. Like basically all of the press and all of the acts that got nominated in the basement of Radio City Music hall. They can set up tables and places for people to get interviewed. And we were down there and just like all these famous bands and it was cool. It was like, got to meet Duran Duran and like all the. And my brother had a big mohawk at the time. He was our tour manager and Macho man camped him was like, nice hair, brother. I was like, this is cool. This is the best thing that happened today.

[Bo]

And this is Smith.

[Jade Puget]

Smith, yeah.

[Bo]

Legend.

[Alec Favor]

Yeah.

[Jade Puget]

Smith is truly a legend.

[Bo]

He's awesome.

[Jade Puget]

Like, he's known. He's probably known more than I am.

[Bo]

You think so?

[Jade Puget]

I mean, in like, maybe for like fans. Not sure.

[Bo]

And you, Kaya for sure, right?

[Jade Puget]

Kaia for sure. He's known. Like, everyone knows I love Smith.

[Bo]

I already love him.

[Jade Puget]

I mean, he's got an R. Kelly tattoo.

[Bo]

Damn.

[Jade Puget]

Before R. Kelly got. Yeah, unfortunately for Smith, post piss.

[Bo]

Pre.

[Jade Puget]

I think it was pre piss.

[Bo]

Oh, okay.

[Alec Favor]

Okay.

[Bo]

So he's fine.

[Alec Favor]

He's good.

[Jade Puget]

Yeah. It's like, he's good. R. Kelly with a cell phone, like, is super crude, like hand done. And he's R. Kelly saying bitches, you tweaking.

[Bo]

Did you know that after the piss thing happened, R. Kelly sold. He had one of the like legendary neve consoles and sold it to 311. He was licky. Liquidated after the piss. And now it's in North Hollywood.

[Jade Puget]

He liquidated and then liquidated this damn.

[Bo]

And then liquidated after the piss. Art of Drowning. Speaking of piss. Speaking of art of drowning. We already know you've been riding it. Because now we know total immortal and voyager of the world. We're supposed to be on it. Is the goal with Art of Drowning. Okay, this worked. Let's keep it going.

[Jade Puget]

There was no goal. Once again, like, we were really just punk kids doing whatever, you know, no plan ever in place. It was strange because Dexter Decided we needed a producer for some reason and put us with this dude who didn't get it at all. It was just weird. His name was Chuck Johnson. He's like a metal dude. He had long hair. It was just strange. And we recorded at Fantasy Studios in Berkeley where they recorded like all the Credence Clearwater Bible stuff. And it was a legit studio and we were used to just, you know, you go in and do it in a week kind of thing with Andy Ernst. Yeah. Who is a legend. Recorded like Rancid and Green Day and like just all these legendary East Bay bands. And he was so good.

[Bo]

And it's not like Aradrani sounds wildly different than any of that.

[Jade Puget]

Partially because we. They had it mixed and it sounded like. And we went and had Andrew mix it. So there was a continuity there. At least for that.

[Bo]

There you go. But yeah, I can hear him in it, you know.

[Jade Puget]

Yeah, totally. He was like, you know, not many people know how to. That aren't from punk or Harcourt know how to mix gang vocals.

[Alec Favor]

That. Yeah.

[Jade Puget]

And I've experienced this with like amazing world class producers. They just don't understand it.

[Bo]

Yeah.

[Jade Puget]

You got to know that world. And Andrew was so good at. That's why the gang vocals. And those two records sound so good. And ones before that too. Because he just knew how to do it.

[Bo]

And you guys. The gang vocals in AFI are so particular because of the melody.

[Alec Favor]

Yeah.

[Bo]

And because he's. Dave is up here. So it's like everybody's got to be up there. So you got like singers doing gang vocals.

[Jade Puget]

That is one thing I think that we kind of maybe did. We didn't invent it, but doing it the way we did it. I think we were kind of like one of the only ones to do it. Because gang vocals were usually like hard shouting. And then like it could be a call and response. But it wasn't. We were doing like the full melody. The hook of the.

[Bo]

As if. So the misfits, like woes. How those were always big and kind of gangy. You're putting words in that.

[Jade Puget]

Yeah.

[Bo]

Which is not easy to do.

[Jade Puget]

No. And like you say, you know every melody that Dave writes is. Is basically a high B. Yeah. Which is a semitone under a high. Which is like, you know, soprano level shit. And luckily I have a high range which I got from destroying my voice singing backing vocals on AFI before I was in the band that you did. So I could hit those notes. And Adam has a really high voice too. So kind of like, you know, Queen how the drummer is like, has a crazy high voice. So not that we were Queen, but. But yeah. I thought that was always an important part of what we did was those melodic gang vocals. And then Dave, like, we do a hook and then Dave would come up with a response that was also a hook, maybe even a bigger hook. And that was kind of like a good formula we had.

[Bo]

Yeah. Big time. I mean, that's all. Art of Drowning is like, big time. That where it's.

[Jade Puget]

Yeah, but you know who did that? Not exactly the same way, but was rancid.

[Bo]

Yeah, big time.

[Jade Puget]

Rancid. The big gang vocal chorus hook thing. Like they.

[Bo]

Everybody.

[Alec Favor]

The boys.

[Jade Puget]

And then live all three of the dudes across the front singing those. Like it was so powerful.

[Bo]

Sounding perfect.

[Jade Puget]

Like they might have invented that because they were. I don't remember anyone else doing it like that.

[Bo]

Something I forgot to ask about. Why are you and Hunter credited in John Williams score for the 1998 movie Stepmom with Julia Roberts and Susan Sarandon?

[Jade Puget]

Where's my royalties?

[Bo]

Did you know that?

[Jade Puget]

No.

[Bo]

It says you played violin on the score for Stepmom.

[Jade Puget]

This is like you did some. Even Nardoir would be like, what?

[Alec Favor]

Like.

[Bo]

And this is not true.

[Jade Puget]

I definitely didn't do it. And nor have I ever even heard Hunter 2.

[Bo]

Hunter's on there.

[Jade Puget]

Damn.

[Bo]

I know something happened. There's a different. There's a different Hunter Burger JP In John Williams Orchestra.

[Jade Puget]

Yeah. There's some fan that has, like, my jadepugit. Gmail.com.

[Bo]

no.

[Jade Puget]

And I tried to, like, tell Google, like, there's no way there's another Jade Puget on this earth. That's too weird of a name for there to be another one. So can I just have this? Because clearly someone has it. That's not. It's a nefarious character. And he's like, I don't care about you.

[Bo]

Come on. Zuck or whoever owns Google. So. Days of the Phoenix.

[Jade Puget]

Yes.

[Bo]

A live staple of 25 years now.

[Jade Puget]

Yeah.

[Bo]

One of the defining AFI songs. Kind of the. The blue. This is like kind of the blueprint for Sing the Sorrow even. Do you remember how that song came together? Because it's. It's different for the band and for music.

[Alec Favor]

Yeah.

[Jade Puget]

It was like a rock song almost, in a way. And that's actually. Hunter came up with a chord progression for that. He's basically. You know, I got these chord changes and then I just, like. I played that intro riff and, like, just started putting my thing on it. And they've put the lyric on it. Put the vocal on it, and it just kind of came together easy. And it was different. I mean, not as different. Like, Morningstar for us was really like, yeah, the departure. Because in my mind, that was the God, call him Sick today of that. But it went even farther. And we almost didn't put that on the record because we're like, this morning star. Yeah. We're like, this is too far. Like, it's got the violin or it's got the cello in it. Like, we just can't. This is too crazy.

[Bo]

But then you go so much crazier, and in just a few years.

[Jade Puget]

I know, but at that time, and I remember even God called Sick today, I wrote that song and. And brought it to rehearsal. And Hunter's like, no, this is, like, too crazy. You know, Dave's, like, screaming in that song, even though it's slow.

[Alec Favor]

Yeah.

[Jade Puget]

But Hunter's like, we can't do this

[Bo]

because we're a hardcore band.

[Jade Puget]

Yeah. Basically, we don't do, like, ballads. And I was like, I kind of fought for it.

[Bo]

Lord, do you ever do ballads? You know?

[Jade Puget]

Yeah. And then it became, you know, like, it became fun to do them and, like. And Morningstar was even farther down that road where all of us were kind of like a little bit like, I don't know. But we just did it anyway.

[Bo]

And isn't that so funny to look back at? And now it's just like. Yeah, it's just. It's just a great song, you know?

[Jade Puget]

Yeah. To think that anything you do is going. Unless you, like, really do a departure, that's ridiculous.

[Bo]

There's a difference between change and evolution, we always say on this program.

[Jade Puget]

Yeah.

[Alec Favor]

I wonder about Days of the Phoenix. When you are recording, how conscious are you of too many guitar layers? Because you. Because you are the single guitar player.

[Jade Puget]

I never really thought much about it. I did think in my playing to try to write parts that were gonna sound good live and sound big. Early on, I read this quote from one of the Beatles where it was like, basically, when they did sergeant Pepper, it was like, let the studio be the studio. Let the live be the live. Like, don't hamper what you're doing. And something that's going to live on forever because you're worried about how it's going to translate at some show in this intimate thing. Yeah. Yeah. And you're gonna be like, what? I have a cool part, but I better not put it on there because I can't play it live.

[Alec Favor]

Yeah.

[Jade Puget]

It's like, just do it. Just go all the Way out. And so I always kind of had that idea.

[Bo]

Is 6 to 8 about gambling?

[Jade Puget]

It is about tour.

[Bo]

Tour.

[Jade Puget]

Because we'd always go out for six to eight weeks. Oh, yeah.

[Bo]

One of my sources told me something about rolling dice for sleeping spots.

[Jade Puget]

We did that, I don't think has anything to do with that song. Unless there maybe is a reference. Because it is about two.

[Bo]

It says throw the bones.

[Jade Puget]

Okay, then, yes. That is not about gambling. That's only about gambling for beds.

[Bo]

Okay.

[Jade Puget]

Because, you know, you get to the hotel and at this point, we were. We were staying in a hotel, which was great. That was a good step up. Because my early touring was before I got an afi. My first tour was you stopped the van and you just stop the van, turn off the key, and then that's where you're sleeping. Like, literally.

[Bo]

Yeah.

[Jade Puget]

Dark. Just upright sleeping. And then you wake up in the morning and turn the van back on and keep going. So we're staying at hotels now, so it's like this is. Is like maybe.

[Bo]

Congrats.

[Jade Puget]

Yeah, thank you. But we didn't only have one room, of course. We wouldn't have, like, our own rooms. And it would be in some absolute hotel, of course. But we would roll dice when we got there to see who got the bed, and we'd play threes away. So.

[Bo]

And then you wouldn't continue to gamble with the dice after?

[Jade Puget]

No, because It'd be like 4 in the morning. I was so tired and just destroyed.

[Bo]

Not. Not gamblers.

[Jade Puget]

We did gamble. I mean, Smith was really the one.

[Alec Favor]

He.

[Bo]

Legend.

[Jade Puget]

Yeah, he was like. He was the. You know, we played Vegas. You come down, you thought, he's supposed to fly out and go home. And you come down, he's still there, like, wasted at the. At the table. So, yeah, that's.

[Alec Favor]

He's.

[Jade Puget]

That's more Smiths.

[Bo]

Does the sudden commercial success and attention from labels and managers as a result of this record in particular come as a shock? Because it's like, when you look at this in Black sails, it's like two halves of one identity.

[Jade Puget]

It's because labels being what they are, they're looking for the next big thing. They're not really even caring about your music. They saw we had slowly just been building this big underground following. And especially, I think when we did Warp Tour, the first time we did the whole Warped Tour was on Art of Drowning. And we were like, every year, at least back then, there would be, like, the one band who was like the hot band who was just killing it on Warp Tour. We Were that band that year. And so I think people saw that. And then they started coming to our shows, kind of starting to chase us. And they saw like. I remember we played at. It was called the Palace. You remember the. It was on Vine. It's called something else now. It used to be called the Palace. We. We played a show there and everyone came out, all the label heads. And it was a crazy show. And the crowd was singing so loud that like you couldn't hear us. It was like some Beatles. But they were singing like the words and like so passionate. And all the labels were like, okay, we gotta have these guys.

[Alec Favor]

Yeah.

[Jade Puget]

And so that's really what it was. They saw probably the dollar signs, not the passion.

[Bo]

They didn't hear, hey, this record.

[Alec Favor]

Yeah.

[Bo]

Is awesome. It also sounds a lot like this one that we ignored.

[Jade Puget]

Yeah. I mean, you listen to Art of Drowning. You're not thinking like here's a huge commercial sounding band because it's not super

[Bo]

out of character from. From what you were doing. And they don't. None of them knew what was about not to happen.

[Jade Puget]

No. I think they just saw the potential. Maybe if they could steer us the right way.

[Alec Favor]

Right.

[Jade Puget]

You know, get us in there with like some songwriters maybe or. I don't know what. What the plan was.

[Alec Favor]

I think a crazy thing that we left out is that this is only like a year after Black Sails. Right. How much. How much time was there between the records?

[Jade Puget]

Yeah, I think it was one year.

[Bo]

That's crazy because all House was same year.

[Jade Puget]

All how also came out between those two.

[Bo]

Yeah.

[Alec Favor]

That's insane.

[Bo]

Imagine doing that now.

[Jade Puget]

It's great when you're young man. And in fact, that's Sing the Sorrow. Could have been a year later too. Because it was written. It was just all the. That went on.

[Alec Favor]

Yeah.

[Jade Puget]

That caused it to not come out to 2003. Because we were done with that. Done writing it by 2002. When we were in the studio in 2002. So. Yeah.

[Bo]

Which any delay in that probably helped the timing.

[Jade Puget]

Yeah. Like I say, where we ended up is in a good place. So maybe if we wouldn't have had that experience and it came out earlier, maybe we wouldn't have caught the zeitgeist or whatever.

[Bo]

You never know.

[Jade Puget]

Indefinable thing you have to do to

[Bo]

who knows that you did. Whatever it is can't be defined. What is it about Art of Drowning that made it kind of the last predominantly fast AFI record that was just natural progression.

[Jade Puget]

I mean they're Art of Drowning and Black Sails May seem similar, but there is a progression there. It's like Dave is singing more. Not quite as screaming and everything. Screaming and, you know, like Days of the Phoenix, things like that start coming in. And like, ever in a day, it starts being different things in there. And when we wrote that next record that was written by the. Before all that major label stuff started happening. So that didn't inform it. No, like, that. If that would have come out on Nitro, it would have been. Still been Sing the Sorrow, that same record. So, like, that progression was just happening naturally within us. I think we were like. You know, when you play hardcore and aggressive music, eventually it's like you sit down to write the same song again. You can't do it. What else can I do?

[Alec Favor]

Yeah.

[Jade Puget]

You know, some people, they do that their whole lives, and they are fulfilled by that. And that's great. Like, I applaud that. But some people, sometimes to your detriment, you want to change a lot. And we've changed a lot. And sometimes to our detriment.

[Alec Favor]

Well, they're the two. The two B sides from. I know we're getting a little head, but Sing the Sorrow that are probably closer to Art of Drowning the Synesthesia and Reaver's music.

[Jade Puget]

Yeah, Reaver's music and now the World were the two that were closer to Art of Drowning and Synesthesia, actually, I think was one of the last songs that were possibly the second to last song written for Sing the Sorrow. Really? Yeah.

[Alec Favor]

So those weren't written for Sing Sorrow.

[Jade Puget]

The other two, I think they're written in some kind of, like, in between. Yeah. State or. I was. I remember we were on tour in Scotland, and I wrote now the World, like, at some shitty club. And it was like. Before we started really writing Sing a Sorrow, the first song I wrote for Sing of Sorrow was when we were on tour in Europe with the Offspring. And I wrote Dancing Through Sunday. And I was thinking, like. It was weird. I was thinking, like, man, I'm not gonna write melodic like, the last record. I'm writing some hard. Like, as if the last record was, you know, was. Was like some radio.

[Bo]

And you brought up this song, this solo.

[Jade Puget]

Where. Where.

[Bo]

How. Why. How did you. Where was this hiding? And, like, why have you never done it again? Basically, I've written some. There are solos, but this thing is different.

[Jade Puget]

Yeah, I mean, I just freestyled that solo in the studio, so it wasn't really. Every time I played it in rehearsal, some different thing. And so in the studio, I just kind of, like, went off.

[Bo]

You're like Cyclops. You took off the ruby quartz and let the beam last.

[Jade Puget]

Yeah, yeah. I mean, I didn't think at the time that that would come to be such a thing, but that probably, like one of the. One. One of the things I've written musically that people bring up.

[Alec Favor]

It's crazy. Yeah.

[Bo]

And like, you technically didn't even write it. You just played it.

[Jade Puget]

Yeah. Which is the best way to do it.

[Bo]

That's the best way.

[Jade Puget]

If you think about stuff too much, you start getting. It gets too technical or it's just not melodic enough. It doesn't tell a story. Like, I like solos that tell a story. Like, sure. Slayer, angel of Death. That tells a story. That solo. It's like it has a plot to it, you know, like, that's the kind of solos that I like.

[Bo]

Is that a Hanneman solo? Taylor?

[Jade Puget]

It's both of them.

[Bo]

Oh, is it both?

[Alec Favor]

Oh, right.

[Bo]

It's Hannah and King.

[Jade Puget]

Right.

[Bo]

That's a Hannah King.

[Alec Favor]

He just goes.

[Jade Puget]

That's why it's so cool. Because they go back and forth and each one gets crazier and crazier. It's like they're completely.

[Bo]

And you can tell their phrasings even if you've never heard Slayer.

[Jade Puget]

Oh, yeah.

[Bo]

You'll listen to that and go, I think that's Hanneman.

[Jade Puget]

Oh, definitely. Especially by Season the Abyss.

[Bo]

Oh, yeah.

[Jade Puget]

Because then Carrie King really kind of like his. His guitar playing becomes so much different than Hannah.

[Alec Favor]

Yeah.

[Bo]

Where Hanneman's just.

[Jade Puget]

Yeah, he is. Yeah, exactly.

[Bo]

It's the chaos.

[Jade Puget]

Yeah.

[Bo]

R.I.P. dude, tell me about working with Jerry Finn and Butch Vig on Single Sorrow.

[Jade Puget]

Yeah. First time working with real producers, which is crazy because we still had that mentality of just, let's go to Art of yours and record the new record and in a week and we're done. And once we signed to a major label, it was like, no, why don't you. You know, let's get you in with these guys. And our. The guy that signed us, Lukewood thought, you know, I think Dave probably probably covered this, but he was talking about how this is going to be a special record. What if we had two amazing producers? Because it's not very often done. Because it is crazy. I. I mean, I don't. Yeah, it's pretty crazy. And Butch, I don't think has ever co produced anything. He didn't need to. And Jerry either at that point. And so we met with Butch first, actually, and it sucked because he had Bell's palsy at the time. So, like, half his face was like. Was, like, paralyzed. But we demoed with him, and we actually did a song first. We met with Mark Trombino, who did Clarity.

[Alec Favor]

Yeah. And Bleed American.

[Jade Puget]

And Bleed American. Like, two of my favorite records.

[Bo]

Masterpieces.

[Jade Puget]

Simply. I like, push for that because I love those records so much.

[Bo]

Yeah. And American sounds.

[Alec Favor]

It's like the heaviest pop record ever.

[Bo]

And they were Dreamworks as well, right?

[Jade Puget]

Yes. But this was possibly pre that. But anyway, I love those, especially the programming that Trombino did. And that was one of the reasons, because I was really getting into electronic elements.

[Bo]

Yeah.

[Jade Puget]

You bring that into our music. I'm like, well, this dude gets it because listen to the stuff he did on Clarity. It's so killer. And he just, like. I don't know. It was weird. He didn't really. It just felt like his heart wasn't in it. But we recorded some songs that have never made it. That would have been for Sing the Sorrow, like, some really good one that's, like, really fast and sounds more like Art of Drowning, even.

[Alec Favor]

That have not been released as Never been released.

[Jade Puget]

Never been heard by anyone but us. And it sucks because, like, one of them would have been, like, one of the best songs in Art of Drowning.

[Bo]

Wow.

[Jade Puget]

And then another one that's like just a really cool, weird, almost like, at the drive in aggressive, screamy kind of thing. And then we went in with Butch and demoed again. And demoed that same song again with Butch, the fast one. So there's two versions of it, one with Butch producing it, which is cool. And then we got Jerry on board.

[Bo]

Legend rp.

[Alec Favor]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Jade Puget]

I mean, Jerry is like.

[Alec Favor]

Did you talk to Green Day beforehand about him?

[Jade Puget]

No, I think that we. You know, it's weird. I don't think we even really met with him. Him and Butch came out. We played in Ventura, and him and Butch came out to see us play, and it sucked because, like, Nick 13 was there, and Jerry said something, and Nick 13 was gonna beat his ass. And I'm like, dude can't beat his ass. Like, this is a dude. First of all, it's Jerry Finn. And second of all, we're gonna work with this guy. But I love Nick. I mean, he probably had reason. You know, Jerry is a very snarky guy.

[Bo]

So isn't it interesting to think that, like. So you are the quarry was a year after or. Sorry, yeah.

[Alec Favor]

Yeah.

[Bo]

A year after seeing the Sorrow, and Jerry was probably showing him Sing the Sorrow in that same time. And he was probably like, turn this off.

[Jade Puget]

Turn this off.

[Bo]

I like the melody.

[Jade Puget]

When we did December Underground because Jerry and Joe. Joe who? Joe McGrath, who was the engineer who I love. I talked to him last night. They both went to England to do the. The next Morrissey record together. And we're living in a house out in the middle of nowhere with Morrissey. And they had all kinds of great Morrissey stories from living with him and doing a record with him.

[Bo]

But was that ringleader?

[Jade Puget]

Yeah, yeah, that's.

[Alec Favor]

God, that sounds like a Jerry record to me.

[Jade Puget]

Yeah, yeah.

[Bo]

And they had any of Morricone on that. So they engineered that crazy session that didn't really make it at all to the record.

[Jade Puget]

Yeah, Jerry was really getting. He didn't want to be known as the pop punk guy. He didn't want to be known as the Sum 41 Blink Guy, you know, because he thought, I have a lot more to offer. I mean, I became aware of him from him mixing Dear you, which is incredible, One of my favorite records of all time. And they mixed Out Come the Wolves and, like, produced, which is like the

[Bo]

best sounding thing ever.

[Jade Puget]

So I think his Bonafides, plus he's an Oxnard guy, and Oxnard punk, you know, like bands like Aggression and those kinds of bands that we love those bands growing up. So we didn't really need to meet with him. We already knew. And obviously Butch, his resume speaks for itself. So, yeah, it was cool.

[Bo]

I mean, this record is not just like a collection of riffs, you know.

[Jade Puget]

Yeah.

[Bo]

Whereas, like, hardcore music and punk music are collections of riffs that you throw some vocals over. It's like, it's such a monumental undertaking that it's. It's like, prophetic even, that the label was like, you might want to massive producers for this because it's like, what you have is insane. And they kind of heard that before

[Jade Puget]

you did it seemed like, yeah, I guess. And I think obviously those producers signed on based on the demos for the record. And Butch, once again, and Jerry didn't need to. Even if it was just one of them, they didn't need to do afi. We were still kind of an unknown band. We were an underground band at that point. And the fact that they would put their egos aside together to work on this record.

[Bo]

Crazy.

[Jade Puget]

Speaks to how much. How highly they thought of what we were doing.

[Alec Favor]

Yeah, yeah.

[Bo]

I mean, it is. It is a monumental, timeless, like, objectively impressive collection of songs. So great job.

[Jade Puget]

Thank you.

[Bo]

Pre production, you said you did demos with Butch. You did demos with other guys. Did they. Did you thoroughly pre produce the record with the both of them as well,

[Jade Puget]

it was pretty short. It was like maybe a week and a half or something. And a lot of it. Because they're both drummers. Jerry and Butch.

[Bo]

Yeah.

[Jade Puget]

They, like, really were beating up Adam about it because they're just drummers, and so they're like kick patterns and like, this and that. I remember that being a lot of the pre. Production and drums, like, dialing in drums. Yeah. Because they just, like, that was. And it's smart because I've had so

[Bo]

many questions about that, because Reavers and Synesthesia and now the world is like, that's Adam's bag. The rest of the record is, like, uncharted territory for him.

[Jade Puget]

Yeah.

[Bo]

So I imagine Butch just screaming at him from behind him, oh, my God. Getting through this thing.

[Jade Puget]

Butch has probably never screamed at anyone in his life. Okay. He's, like, Midwestern, like, nicest dude.

[Bo]

Oh, see?

[Jade Puget]

I don't know.

[Bo]

That's awesome.

[Jade Puget]

Yeah. Like, Butch is, like, so nice. It wasn't that Adam was not playing well. It's just like. It's a different magic stuff. Yeah. Yeah. And like, they just. Because I think, really. Because they're drummers. They. That was their slant. Plus, we're doing drums first.

[Alec Favor]

Yeah.

[Jade Puget]

So drums have to be ready first.

[Bo]

Totally.

[Jade Puget]

And we're doing them in the big room at. At Cello, you know, like, where Frank Sinatra recorded and stuff. So we got to get this right. And then we recorded the rest of it in Studio B where they recorded the Smiths, and they recorded, like, Pet Sounds and stuff. So. Yeah, that was cool. Just in, like, Tom Petty and Courtney Love were recording in there, and we're recording. So it was like this, like, chaotic scene in the hallways. It was. It was pretty fun. But. Yeah. So Pre Pro was relatively short. I remember the only real. We had already written the songs. Like, we're a band that comes in ready. And the only thing we really changed was on the song of Paper Airplanes, there used to be a different chorus. It was, like a halftime chorus. And so we're playing through the song, and Butch and Jerry are like. I think Jerry was like, is that, like, the best chorus that you got? You know, I don't know. The song is good, but is that the best chorus? And I was like, okay, we'll write a new one. So I go, dave, come on over here. We. We went over in the corner and wrote what is now the chorus in, like, three minutes.

[Alec Favor]

Yeah.

[Jade Puget]

And we're like, okay, this one. This is now the chorus. And they're like, okay, cool.

[Bo]

And like, without that note, would that song have been the same? Probably.

[Jade Puget]

No. And I heard. I went back and I found an old practice tape from, like a rehearsal. And the chorus wasn't as good.

[Alec Favor]

Wow.

[Jade Puget]

So that was a good note.

[Bo]

Produced.

[Jade Puget]

Yes.

[Bo]

Production. The electronics on this record.

[Jade Puget]

Yeah.

[Bo]

Is this all you?

[Jade Puget]

Yes.

[Bo]

So the Mortal Kombat part in Death of Seasons.

[Jade Puget]

Mortal Kombat? Come on.

[Bo]

I said that is.

[Jade Puget]

Okay. I mean, I don't take offense, but, you know, like, I come from a background of listening to, like, industrial music. Even in the 80s.

[Alec Favor]

Yeah.

[Jade Puget]

And Dave too. And at this time, in the early 2000s, there was the scene out of Europe that was like EBM music and future pop. Like bands like VNV Nation. I don't know if you, like, know this. This music Pop Sigma Berserk. It was basically aggressive but melodic, purely electronic music. Kind of like industrial meets trance. And we fucking loved it. And there was also bands like the Faint, of course, which we loved, that were big at the time, and the Electro, Clash, all that stuff. But I just was. Black Audio had started before we started writing things around.

[Alec Favor]

Oh, really?

[Jade Puget]

Yeah, it just took us a long time to put a record out. But 2001, there's even a. A little short interview Dave and I did in rolling stone in 2001 where we mentioned the fact that we're doing it. So I had started programming and so I was getting really into making electronic music, listening to it. And I'm like, what if I, like, brought that into this? Like, how could I do that? And so I did the intro miss area with the big, you know, all the layers and stuff. And I remember I brought it into Jerry and Joe and those. They're like old school record dudes. And I had like a hundred tracks, just the electronic stuff. I'm like, okay, can we get this put into Pro Tools is 100 tracks. And they're just like, dude, what are you talking about? Get out of here with that. And I'm like, no, this has to. This is the song. We got to do it. And so I was able to talk him down and get them to. They were definitely a little trepidatious about that because, you know, like Death of Seasons, that. That part it used to just go. It was like the first verse and I was like, what if we do kind of like a VNV Nation, EBM industrial thing? It just like all the music just stops and it becomes a completely different genre.

[Bo]

And it's. And that it stands out so crazy on the record. Yeah, that it becomes this timeless moment.

[Jade Puget]

Yeah.

[Alec Favor]

And it's only Circle Pit on the record too, which is awesome.

[Jade Puget]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Bo]

What toys are you learning programming on?

[Jade Puget]

I started out with Sony Acid, which was a looping program, and then I immediately got Fruity Loops. One was still called Free Loops.

[Bo]

Now it's FL Studio.

[Jade Puget]

Yeah.

[Bo]

Soldier boy, Tell them. Was recorded on.

[Jade Puget]

Yeah. It's funny, like, my idea of. Of what's now FL Studio is still. To me, I'm baffled that people make records on it because it still seems like a toy to me. Because my idea of what it was is like calcified in 2001 as this kind of silly toy.

[Bo]

Sure.

[Jade Puget]

But then I went on to, you know, reason, and then.

[Bo]

Are you like an Ableton guy?

[Jade Puget]

No, I've been Ableton for many, many years.

[Bo]

But are you doing all that in computer or you do have a bunch of devices you're twisting?

[Jade Puget]

I was slugs. I would say sit in the lounge of the studio and on my laptop and be working programming stuff or. And we were staying at the all in laptop. Yeah.

[Bo]

Wow. So the death of Seasons. Mortal Kombat. Part non derogatory. Do you know what? What was that? Fruity Loops.

[Jade Puget]

Yes.

[Alec Favor]

Wow.

[Bo]

We got to get on Fruity Loops, dude.

[Jade Puget]

It's crazy. If this was 2001, I'd be like, fruity Loops is the best program ever.

[Bo]

Ableton's just too many shapes, you know, I can't do all these shapes.

[Jade Puget]

Ableton is simpler looking than Free Loops to me.

[Bo]

Or I'm a logic. If it's not so I don't understand

[Jade Puget]

Logic seems not enough shapes.

[Bo]

That's what I like.

[Jade Puget]

It needs more shapes.

[Bo]

I need zero shapes.

[Alec Favor]

GarageBand, we need to go down.

[Bo]

That's the thing. Yeah, there you go. That's why we like logic.

[Jade Puget]

That's like Eric ozane is on GarageBand.

[Bo]

Exactly.

[Jade Puget]

The worst sounding demos you ever heard.

[Bo]

So. How did you say it? Miseria, Missouri. I never know how to say it. I'm just saying. I've been Saying Miseria, Cantare, MO Canteri for 23 years.

[Jade Puget]

Area. Cantare.

[Bo]

That one.

[Jade Puget]

It's a little Italian on it.

[Alec Favor]

Yeah.

[Bo]

Okay, sorry. So you. When I said Mortal Kombat, you didn't like that? If I say Terminator 2 to this, is that an intentional connection?

[Jade Puget]

In retrospect, that does sound like I ripped it off from Terminator 2, but I didn't. Or Terminator 1 actually, because that was. Yeah, it's the Terminator thing. That wasn't my slant, but I Could see how one would think that, but

[Alec Favor]

14 year old me thought that. Yeah.

[Bo]

And I was like.

[Alec Favor]

And I loved it.

[Jade Puget]

Cool.

[Bo]

Yeah, same. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Jade Puget]

I mean maybe it was one of those things where I thought I was being original, but in my mind, because I loved when Terminator 1 came out in. In the theaters. I got the Nikes that he had when he went in the store and they showed his feet coming down. Yeah, that scene. I went and got those Nikes cuz I was a breakdancer. I was like, I gotta have these shoes.

[Bo]

Were you aware of CM Punk using the song as his entrance music when he was in Ring of Honor at the time?

[Jade Puget]

Yes. Not just. People had told me about it and I.

[Bo]

Do you think it was cool or were you like.

[Jade Puget]

Yeah, well, I knew he was straight edge. I was like, okay. The one straight edge repping wrestler is doing afi. That's cool.

[Bo]

That is objectively cool.

[Alec Favor]

Yeah.

[Jade Puget]

You can't. You can't hate on that.

[Bo]

And now he just brought that back for the main event of WrestleMania where

[Jade Puget]

he paid tribute to Bo, which is very cool.

[Bo]

Did you watch it?

[Jade Puget]

Yes.

[Bo]

How cool was that?

[Jade Puget]

Very cool. I mean, on many levels.

[Bo]

Yeah, on many levels indeed. Leaving song two ended up being a single against your will in a way.

[Jade Puget]

Yes.

[Bo]

But you. It's the first like actual song on the album, so you have some faith in it.

[Jade Puget]

You know, I didn't want that to be the first actual song. I remember having. We were in the mixing studio having a discussion about sequencing and I'm like, why don't. Why wouldn't we put like Dancing through Sunday as the first song like. Or Death of Seasons, like get it started with something, you know, Ms. Area is kind of slow, it's not really a real song. And then just come out of the box like with something fast and aggressive. And I get it now, but at the time I still had that old school mentality. It's like, let's come out with something fast as the first song.

[Bo]

It is such a like weird and I mean this in a good way song. Musically it is like riff wise what he's doing vocally, there's a bunch. It's crazy. I don't. That's something that like no band can ever sound like that again, you know. So it is wild that that ends up being the like runaway single for the record.

[Jade Puget]

And especially because K Rock chose it and their whole job is to know what is gonna work on the radio and for them. There were so many songs that were melodic and more radio friendly than that one for airplanes. Yeah. Or just.

[Bo]

I mean, Silver and Cold then was completely black.

[Jade Puget]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Bleed Black was supposed to be the next one.

[Alec Favor]

Okay.

[Jade Puget]

That was supposed to be single number two.

[Bo]

And Girls Not Gray was single.

[Alec Favor]

Always single one. Yeah.

[Bo]

Crazy. Did you hear the Leaving Song three that me, Bo and Jordan from Two Minutes Late Night did?

[Jade Puget]

No, but I wrote us. Dave and I wrote a song a couple records ago called Living Song 3. It never came out. I want to hear yours, though.

[Bo]

There's still time. It's. It's the same thing.

[Jade Puget]

It's.

[Bo]

It's one played like Synesthesia.

[Jade Puget]

Oh, okay.

[Bo]

It's just. It's fun, but it's fun.

[Jade Puget]

Maybe you just played it like a half step down.

[Bo]

No, it's like fast. It's like a fast version of one.

[Jade Puget]

That's cool.

[Bo]

Seb from Regulate sings. It's awesome. Finishing this record, hearing this record. How do you feel about it? How does the band feel about it? Management, A and R and all that?

[Jade Puget]

This was probably the last record where we writing it. And everything felt complete freedom with no pressure. Because like I said before, when we were writing this record, we were still just that underground band we had. No one was sniffing around. We were just writing songs with no expectation other than just write the best songs we can. And so, yeah, there was no baggage. The baggage all came later and we were proud of it. I remember the two presidents, co presidents of DreamWorks, Mo Austin and Lenny Wonker, who were like the dudes that signed Prince and Michael Jackson and Simon and Garfunkel, like, these old dudes, really cool dudes. But, like, that's where their pedigree was. Yeah. And they came to the studio to listen to it. I remember standing there and they like, we're at the board and they're playing Leaving song too. And I was thinking, like, what are these dudes thinking of this shit? Yeah. They're like, especially that song back.

[Bo]

That song is so crazy. Yeah. Compared to all other music. But. But I. But it's saying. I think about Young, me hearing it and just being like, I don't know what this is, but I like what this is.

[Jade Puget]

My wife was just telling me a couple days ago about when, like, the video came out, how she was like, everyone at her school was like, damn, like, what is this song? What is this video?

[Alec Favor]

It was the coolest thing I'd ever seen. Like, first of all, you know, you go to show seeing Moshing, it's not. There's no immediate cultural reference that my parents could ever possibly be Exposed to where they would see that. So it was. It was just like, strange to see it on, like, trl. People moshing. Yeah, I mean, it's awesome. It was the. Just the coolest.

[Jade Puget]

You know, the. The part with the gas mask. That was when I saw Earth Crisis for the first time in, like, 94, 95. I just kind of heard about them. Just got. I think it just. It was a Destroy Machines tour, I guess, And I went to see them, and it was this level of straight edge that I hadn't witnessed before. It was like people wearing gas masks inside the club. The construction gloves, chains, all this. I was like, this is so cool. Like, straight edge. Like, neck, straight edge tattoos. Like, I never, you know, people didn't have.

[Bo]

When did you get the straight. Is that a straight edge belly rocker?

[Jade Puget]

Yeah, that was 92. So very early. Yeah.

[Bo]

Good for you, man.

[Jade Puget]

Yeah. To have a tattoo that big and a straight edge tattoo in 92 was like. That's was pretty early.

[Bo]

You said TRL. Can you tell me about doing TRO with Three 6 Mafia?

[Jade Puget]

Three 6 Mafia was the MTV New Year's party.

[Bo]

Okay, can you tell me about that experience? Because it sounds funny.

[Jade Puget]

It was powerful. A powerful experience. Yeah. We go. They didn't tell us this, really, beforehand. So we go to the kind of dress rehearsal, which is the same day as the 31st. We go down there, Times Square, and they're like, oh, you're gonna be doing this with three Six Mafia? And we're like, okay, cool. And I'm a hip hop fan, so I wasn't like, you know, fuck that. And they're like, okay, we want to have a part where you guys are like just kind of jamming on an instrumental thing, and they're like rapping over your music. And I was like, okay, now this is getting kind of. Kind of dicey because we got to make up something on the spot. A piece of music on the spot that's going to be played on mtv. No time to figure it out. Well, anyway, one of the guys was like, hey, Lead Lee guitar. I'm like, yeah, what's up? He's like, play that Twilight Zone. And I was like. I was like, okay. He's like, yeah, play that Twilight Zone. So I started playing something like doo doo doo doo kind of riff, I think. I'm like, this can't be what he means. And he's like, yeah, the Twilight Zone. That's what it was. So if you listen to it, that's what I'm playing. I'm playing that Twilight Zone. And they're like rapping over it.

[Bo]

Play that. That Twilight Zone. Yeah, dude.

[Jade Puget]

Which is sweet. Cuz that was his idea of like what a rock band should be playing. That Twilight Zone riff.

[Bo]

That Twilight Zone type. That's awesome. Let's go back to the Leaving Song two video in the making of that. Can you walk us through that day and what that experience was like?

[Jade Puget]

It was pretty exciting. Mark Webb, who directed, we first linked up with him on the Days of the Phoenix video, which was. He was just like a unknown young director who obviously went on to do very big things. So that was the next. The second time we worked with him and just we wanted to. We grew up in this hardcore culture that we wanted, you know, it wasn't like we wanted to profit off the back of it. We just wanted to show people how rad it was.

[Alec Favor]

Yeah.

[Jade Puget]

Like I say the gas mask thing, like, that made such an impression on me. I wanted, like, immortalize it. Yeah. Like, here's this culture that is so cool, like, like how cool this is. And so. And we knew tons of dudes from the Bay Area and then, like, dudes from Philly and all these people came to be part of it. And two things. One major part of that day was this. The first time I ever discovered flat irons. Like, I was in the. The makeup tent and she had this thing. I was like, what is that?

[Bo]

This changed your life for a while.

[Jade Puget]

It was life changing. This was one of the most watershed moments of my life. She's like, it's a flatiron. And this is. Let's not forget, this was, you know, like the beginning of my space era.

[Bo]

It's up there.

[Jade Puget]

And I was like. And I had, like this kind of curly, kind of shitty. It wasn't curly, but, you know, very thick, unruly hair. And I was like, all of a sudden. So I kind of. Like, the rest of the day is kind of like a blur because you're

[Bo]

just thinking about the possibilities.

[Jade Puget]

Like, how do I get my hand? I try to buy it off her and she's like, no, I can't sell it to you.

[Bo]

But these are very common, sir. You can find them anywhere.

[Jade Puget]

So that was cool. And then. And then at the time, Hunter was dating Zooey Deschanel.

[Bo]

What?

[Jade Puget]

And so he brought her down. So she was like, backstage in our trailer. So it was like, this is elf time. What the.

[Bo]

Yeah, that's literally Elf's elf time.

[Jade Puget]

He went to visit her on the set of Elf. Wow. Yeah. And so she was backstage.

[Bo]

Did they meet when he played bass on the Stepmom 1998 soundtrack with John Williams.

[Jade Puget]

You know, like, I did my violin part and I think she might have came after that, you know.

[Bo]

Up, man.

[Jade Puget]

Yeah.

[Alec Favor]

That's crazy.

[Bo]

Wow.

[Jade Puget]

Yeah. So that was an interesting.

[Bo]

Was she a big AFI head?

[Jade Puget]

I don't think so. You know, it's weird. I don't want to, like, talk about Hunter's private.

[Bo]

Sure, sure.

[Jade Puget]

But this is all, you know, it's known. Yeah, I think he was like one of those. This is my number one celebrity crush is the way that, you know, because I remember he used to have, like, on his laptop, like, a big picture of her. And it was like the thing that happens to.00001% of people where they somehow end up dating the celebrity person that they've always had the crush on.

[Bo]

That's crazy.

[Jade Puget]

I don't know how he did it, but yeah. So she was there.

[Alec Favor]

It can be done.

[Jade Puget]

It can be done.

[Bo]

This is why when your partner asks your celebrity crush, you shut the fuck up. Okay? There's a. There's a chance you get Hunter.

[Alec Favor]

I see mine every day.

[Bo]

That is true.

[Alec Favor]

Shannon Sausman from, oh, 40. 40 days. 40.

[Jade Puget]

I hope I'm not speaking out of turn here, but that was also Adam.

[Alec Favor]

Really?

[Jade Puget]

Celebrity crush? Yes.

[Alec Favor]

I see her almost every day at Intelligentsia.

[Jade Puget]

I saw her. The one time I ever saw her in LA was also at a coffee shop.

[Alec Favor]

Yeah, she loves her coffee.

[Jade Puget]

And I don't think Adam ever saw her. Yeah, they say that about her.

[Bo]

They really do, man.

[Alec Favor]

Wow.

[Bo]

So you need to cut that.

[Alec Favor]

Yeah.

[Bo]

No.

[Alec Favor]

My Shannon Wolf.

[Bo]

You want to know?

[Alec Favor]

No, I'm joking. I tell her every time I tell

[Jade Puget]

her mine was Winona Ryderson.

[Bo]

Oh. I mean. I mean, whose isn't?

[Jade Puget]

I mean, if you're.

[Bo]

This day.

[Jade Puget]

If you're an 80s kid, you know.

[Bo]

Of course I was after that. And I still can't believe she's the

[Alec Favor]

only one who was nice to Lucas, you know?

[Bo]

Amen.

[Jade Puget]

That's where I first discovered her. So pre Beetle. It wasn't Beetlejuice like a poser. It was Lucas, her first role.

[Alec Favor]

I loved her, Lucas.

[Bo]

She's unbelievable. To this day, we don't know if

[Jade Puget]

you're watching some, like two dudes who can recognize. She wasn't supposed to be. Sorry. Spit. She wasn't supposed to be cute. And Lucas, she was supposed to be the dork. That was not what anyone. Who anyone would be interested in. And the fact that you and I had this foresight, this Vision.

[Alec Favor]

We all feel like Lucas.

[Jade Puget]

Yeah.

[Alec Favor]

There's the jock with his cool girlfriend. And then you got the girl that actually cares about it.

[Jade Puget]

Well, he. Lucas didn't want her either.

[Alec Favor]

That's true.

[Jade Puget]

And let's just be clear that I am now married to a woman who was far more beautiful, far more amazing than Winona Writer could ever be. So I was just a young, stupid kid when I discovered Winner Writer.

[Bo]

Sure.

[Jade Puget]

I'm a smart man now.

[Alec Favor]

What am I? Shannon.

[Bo]

Yeah.

[Jade Puget]

I love her so much.

[Bo]

Yes. I love her, too.

[Alec Favor]

She's wonderful. I love you.

[Bo]

I have a wife as well. She's the best. She knows that. So 2003 happens. Single sorrow comes out. You have this whirlwind few years. What is the response to this? Like, what are these next few years of touring? Like?

[Jade Puget]

I mean, the response was insane. It was.

[Alec Favor]

Yeah.

[Jade Puget]

I mean, I know we did. Oh, some works who were on that. And so those were, like, our peers at the time.

[Bo]

Yeah.

[Jade Puget]

And I remember people just, like dudes in bands that I never met, like, coming up to me being like, dude, that new record, like, what the man and I never, you know, experience. It's like such a good feeling to know that people that do the same thing as you are being affected by your music like that.

[Bo]

I mean, it's an unfairly good thing, you know, to this day. So it's. It's just life changing overnight.

[Jade Puget]

Yeah. I mean, having being on mtv, you know, I think it was like the number came at number five record in the country. And going from being an underground punk man to that on the next record and having that kind of success. Yeah, it was crazy.

[Bo]

And now you have this pressure for the first time to follow it up.

[Jade Puget]

Yeah. No one was pressuring us. It was just this thing.

[Bo]

Internal.

[Jade Puget]

Yeah. And I knew even at the time, the stupidest thing you can do as a songwriter is try to write stuff. Try to write a hit or try to write something that caters to radio or MTV or. But you can't escape it once it happens. You can never put the toothpaste back in the bottle. You can't ever go back to that person you were before. That happens because it just. It's there. Sure, we had hits.

[Bo]

He did.

[Jade Puget]

We had a big record. So you cannot not think about that.

[Bo]

Yeah.

[Jade Puget]

And it definitely.

[Bo]

And it's. When is there outside pressure to. To think about that or do that?

[Jade Puget]

No, not at all.

[Alec Favor]

Like, really?

[Jade Puget]

R.A. guy who was amazing and still a friend to this day, he really never. And you know, now Dreamworks gets sold to Interscope. And now Jimmy Iovine is recharged and he is like, he wants hits.

[Alec Favor]

Yeah.

[Jade Puget]

He doesn't give a shit about afi. If you're not bringing me some hits. You know, this is what I'm about. And hip hop was very much the culture there at the time. Rock was not. Yeah, so there was that. It was like dreamworks was like this family, this warm, supportive thing. And Interscope was very much like, you better produce, you better come with it, or, yeah, we don't. You know, you're not our friend.

[Bo]

And even when you. You did produce, did it still feel

[Jade Puget]

weird in what way?

[Bo]

Because, like, Ms. Murder is the biggest hit of the. Of the band's career.

[Jade Puget]

Yeah.

[Bo]

Do you feel supported by Interscope after that?

[Jade Puget]

Yeah. Like, Jimmy, to his credit, he's a very smart record dude and he picked that song. Like we went to his office and we were listening to the record in his office and he's like, Ms. Murray's like, that's the one doing that one. And when he puts that machine behind you, it's like, it's kind of what are you? Unstoppable.

[Bo]

Yeah.

[Alec Favor]

That was my big question about this. This record, December Underground, is how the process of. Obviously Ms. Murder, huge single, Love Like Winter makes sense as a single. And I think was the missing frame, like a non video single.

[Jade Puget]

Yeah, it was unfortunate. First of all, Dave and I didn't want Ms. Murder on the record. Yeah, we were both like. Because we were democracy when it comes to voting songs on the record. And he and I both voted for that one not to be on the record. Just straight up, which was stupid. But we didn't. We're just like, it's fine.

[Bo]

But you did the same thing for Rabbits of Roadkill, which became a hit on its own.

[Jade Puget]

That one should have been on the record. There's definitely. Yeah. Like the song who Knew? Should have been on Black Sales. Yeah. And there's definitely something that could have come off Black Sales to put that one on there, because that was better than some stuff that was on there, in my opinion.

[Bo]

Hold on now. I wouldn't have taken anything off, but you can add.

[Jade Puget]

I.

[Bo]

It still exists, though. It's not like it's not out there.

[Jade Puget]

But if we're just talking about quality of song, I feel like that then

[Bo]

we have to go back and talk about synesthesia.

[Jade Puget]

I voted for that to be on there.

[Bo]

Okay. That's a relief to hear.

[Jade Puget]

It should have been on there.

[Bo]

I think it's the greatest B side in the history of music.

[Jade Puget]

Well, thank you.

[Alec Favor]

The history of music.

[Bo]

Yes. Dude. Period.

[Jade Puget]

I think.

[Alec Favor]

I think 100 words might be.

[Bo]

That's a great song, too.

[Alec Favor]

I love that song.

[Bo]

But that one I understand because that it's. Is more in line with what was happening on the record.

[Jade Puget]

And we had the Simon perfect.

[Bo]

Yeah.

[Jade Puget]

We need 100 words and the sound perfect. But 100 words has Michael from Steel Panther singing backing vocals.

[Bo]

Which, like.

[Alec Favor]

Why?

[Jade Puget]

Because it's crazy. Because we love to see. It was called Middle School at the time.

[Bo]

Yeah.

[Jade Puget]

We used to go see it. And he's like, such a nice dude and such an amazing singer. We're like. We need really great singers to sing.

[Bo]

Is he doing it yesterday?

[Jade Puget]

Yeah.

[Alec Favor]

Oh, that.

[Jade Puget]

You can hear his voice.

[Alec Favor]

Yeah.

[Jade Puget]

Too. And he sang on a couple songs on Sing the Sorrow.

[Alec Favor]

Wow.

[Jade Puget]

And it was so funny because we were like, all in the booth together just, like, looking across at him and singing these backing vocals. But he's fucking great. I love him. He's.

[Bo]

That's crazy.

[Jade Puget]

So killer.

[Bo]

But Synesthesia. It doesn't sound like the record. And I. And I think that makes sense to not put it on the record.

[Jade Puget]

Yeah.

[Bo]

But God damn, it's so good.

[Jade Puget]

I agree. A lot of fans agree, too. I mean. But it did. That's probably the reason why others in the band didn't vote for it because it was more like a Art of Drowning type song. But what would you kick off?

[Bo]

I wouldn't kick off.

[Jade Puget]

You had. You would have to kick off.

[Alec Favor]

Why?

[Jade Puget]

What would I kick off? Because that was just how we decided how many songs were going to be on us. You decided what would you.

[Bo]

But that's crazy. You don't have to. There's no rules.

[Jade Puget]

Well, this. What do you think? History tells us we would have to kick something off.

[Alec Favor]

So here's the problem with kicking the song off is sometimes when I listen to Sing the Sorrow, I can't wait

[Jade Puget]

to get to the B side.

[Alec Favor]

Because I. It's when I love a B side. The B side of the record.

[Bo]

Oh, yeah.

[Alec Favor]

I know. It's a good record.

[Bo]

Yeah.

[Alec Favor]

And I guess there's nothing when you

[Bo]

get to track six and you're like, here we go.

[Alec Favor]

Yeah.

[Bo]

Then you're good. But Reavers and Synesthesia. If I wrote those, not only would they be on Sing the Sorrow, they'd be on every album.

[Jade Puget]

That's a good idea. We should just put our biggest songs on every album. No one's done.

[Bo]

No one's ever done it.

[Jade Puget]

You cracked the code.

[Bo]

Come on, man.

[Alec Favor]

But with. I dug up like an old tweet. And it was just a screenshot.

[Jade Puget]

It's not about Hitler,

[Alec Favor]

but it was a screenshot of my Apple music. And it was Summer Shutter.

[Bo]

Ah.

[Alec Favor]

And I. And it was something to the effect of why wasn't this lead single off December Underground?

[Jade Puget]

Well, going back to that, what you said, it's like, so we do Miss Murder.

[Bo]

Yeah.

[Jade Puget]

Huge song. Number one for five weeks.

[Alec Favor]

Yeah.

[Jade Puget]

We do love, like, winner. It's, like, retired at TRL, which means you've been in the top 10 so long that they retire your song.

[Bo]

Oh, that's cool.

[Alec Favor]

Yeah.

[Jade Puget]

I mean, we didn't really. TRL wasn't right. Our demo, but it was, like, for AFI to have done something, like, pretty sick. TRL was like, the pinnacle of popular music. Popular music.

[Bo]

Yeah. It was making the taste for the United States for. At least at the time.

[Jade Puget]

Yeah. Young kids.

[Bo]

Yeah.

[Jade Puget]

You know, so latchkey kids. Which meant. Yeah. And we had to go to TRL several times.

[Bo]

Yeah.

[Jade Puget]

And, you know, do that TRL thing, which is weird and uncomfortable. Like Nick Lachey and. And his wife. Not wife at the time, but, you know, now. Wife.

[Bo]

Sure.

[Jade Puget]

And just people looking at you like they don't know who you are.

[Bo]

Carson Rock with afi.

[Jade Puget]

Carson was killer.

[Alec Favor]

Yeah.

[Jade Puget]

Carson was cool. Yeah. Like, because we would talk to him because we did two VMAs, and we also did. We played the Movie Awards. It was like, us, Christina Aguilera and Narrows Barkley, which is really cool. So we would talk to Carson on the red carpets and stuff. And he was always, like, very cool. And not. He didn't seem like a phony. He seemed like a real dude.

[Bo]

That's awesome.

[Jade Puget]

Yeah.

[Alec Favor]

So the nail polish was legit. Okay. He's one of us.

[Bo]

He was rocking with Summer Shirt, even though it wasn't a single.

[Jade Puget]

But so when the third single came around, you think, okay, we have these two massively successful songs on a massive, massively successful album. Why no video? It's like, they thought we could cross over to pop top 40, and so they picked Missing Frame. We had no power in this shit.

[Alec Favor]

That would have been. To me, that's the other song.

[Jade Puget]

Yeah. So they're like, okay, we're gonna cross this over to top 40. Which is crazy, because when you cross over to top 40, that's a whole nother insane level of success. Because when you're talking about alternative radio, you might, like, the top song might have got, like, 2,000 spins.

[Alec Favor]

Sure.

[Jade Puget]

At top 40, you're getting tens of thousands of spins.

[Alec Favor]

Yeah.

[Jade Puget]

So they're you know, they saw the potential. But remember Snow Patrol? That band Snowball?

[Bo]

Yeah.

[Jade Puget]

So they were an Interscope band too. And at the time they had a song. Yes.

[Bo]

Grey's Anatomy. Yeah.

[Jade Puget]

And it was like. Maybe it was. Maybe it was that song. It was some Snow Patrol song that was. Came out the same.

[Bo]

It had to have been that one. I don't know.

[Alec Favor]

They have another one.

[Bo]

No, that's Jason.

[Alec Favor]

Okay, then.

[Bo]

Yeah, that's Jason.

[Jade Puget]

Cars Chasing cars.

[Alec Favor]

They have another song.

[Bo]

We're all chasing Cars.

[Jade Puget]

But they. They were trying to decide do we push AFI missing frame to top 40 for snow patrol.

[Bo]

You got Snow Patrol.

[Jade Puget]

And they chose Snow Patrol.

[Alec Favor]

Wow.

[Jade Puget]

And it killed the rest of that record because then they're not going to spend the money on the video.

[Alec Favor]

Yeah.

[Jade Puget]

Which is just dumb. It's just chosen other songs. Show Summer Shutter.

[Bo]

Yeah.

[Jade Puget]

That would have made sense. That could have been.

[Alec Favor]

It's under three minutes.

[Bo]

But Missing Frame does have the. The big fire inside me.

[Alec Favor]

Yeah.

[Bo]

He finally says.

[Jade Puget]

I know. He said it.

[Bo]

Yeah.

[Jade Puget]

I wanted to say Davey Havoc in a song. I mean, that's what the fans been waiting for.

[Bo]

100.

[Alec Favor]

Dude.

[Bo]

I didn't know I wanted 311.

[Alec Favor]

Does it.

[Bo]

You can do it too. So Butch heard demos and declined to work on the album.

[Jade Puget]

Yeah. And to his credit, he heard early, like the first round of demos.

[Alec Favor]

Okay.

[Jade Puget]

And this record was not easy to write. It was the first.

[Bo]

And this is the. Is this the first time you experienced that?

[Jade Puget]

Yeah.

[Alec Favor]

Yeah.

[Jade Puget]

And it was shocking to me and. And very uncomfortable and strange because Dave and I had just always. I mean, I have this idea.

[Bo]

It's done.

[Jade Puget]

Yeah. And it's not like we were butting heads or anything because we never have. But it was just like, for whatever reasons, all these factors of success, they just. They taint things in a way that you can't get back to that pure place. So we were just. It just wasn't flowing and it was like. And partially. He had. You know, he had surgery on his voice after Seeing Sorrow. And so I think his mentality was a little different too. It was like, I don't want to. I gotta be careful. I can't write a part like that that's gonna put me back in the hospital if I'm doing Death of Seasons. And obviously if you're a singer and you're looking at maybe I can't ever do this again. If I hurt my voice again, it's gonna really inform.

[Bo]

Yeah. But then the record opens with Kilcostic and he's.

[Jade Puget]

Yeah.

[Bo]

The Whole thing.

[Jade Puget]

So, you know, and that's why he.

[Bo]

And he did say, like, I up.

[Jade Puget]

And he had surgery again. So, you know, so that was part of it. He. His mindset had changed a little bit. And so, yeah, we did these first round of demos. It was like, there was some good songs on there. Like, I think Kill Caustic was one of them. And Kill Caustic, actually a version of that we wrote on Sing the Sorrow and demoed with Mark Trombino. That.

[Bo]

That's a hardcore song.

[Alec Favor]

It's a skink part.

[Jade Puget]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Bo]

The whole song.

[Alec Favor]

Yeah,

[Jade Puget]

yeah. I mean, that's still like, you know, hardcore influences coming in. Yeah, yeah. And so those demos, they're. You know, I'm not surprised he said no, because, you know, I would have said no, too. We got there.

[Bo]

But you did get there. You certainly did. The prelude track, one of my sources revealed that it might have been inspired by 50 Cent. Is that possible?

[Jade Puget]

No.

[Alec Favor]

Is your source of GCJ, the strings aren't. Yes.

[Jade Puget]

I mean, now that you say it.

[Alec Favor]

Yeah.

[Jade Puget]

No. But funnily enough, I don't. Dave might have mentioned this.

[Bo]

Yeah. Because I brought up 50 cent when he. When he mentioned Jimmy Iovine.

[Jade Puget]

Yeah. The way he told it, though, was that maybe Luke asked him, but Luke actually called me and was like, jimmy has this idea that you guys should. And you and 50 Cent should do a song together. And I was like, dude, I would

[Alec Favor]

love to know what. That's. What that would be.

[Jade Puget]

I know.

[Alec Favor]

If you had to.

[Jade Puget]

It was forced to do it. I mean, how could it not? You already have the rift. Yeah. I mean, I was ready to go.

[Bo]

Twilight Zone. Is it true that over 120 demos were made for this record?

[Jade Puget]

Yes. What? Not. No, not 120 demos. 120 songs were written.

[Bo]

120 songs were written.

[Jade Puget]

Yeah. Dave and I have never had a problem writing a shitload of songs. Like, we're very prolific.

[Bo]

Prolific.

[Jade Puget]

That doesn't necessarily mean anything if the songs aren't great.

[Alec Favor]

Yeah.

[Jade Puget]

But we can write some songs. Crazy. And I'm like, I write every single day to this day. I write just because I love doing it. I'm in my studio writing every day, so it's not that hard.

[Bo]

I'm jealous, man.

[Alec Favor]

I have a question about this, about this era. Kind of the space between Sing the Sorrow and December Underground. There was, like, a mall emo explosion that you always seemed to.

[Bo]

Outside of.

[Alec Favor]

And a lot of these bands, like, this is. I'm not counting, like, third bands like Thursday or anything like that in this. But like, Thursday, My Chemical Romance, Fallout Boy, they all have people that were in hardcore or used to have hardcore bands. Did you ever have any, like, kinship with these other bands? Even though there's nothing really similar about you guys?

[Jade Puget]

Not really. I mean, we never really cross paths. I mean, when we were on Warped Tour on Art of Drowning, Jeff Rickley came up to me. I didn't know who he was. I heard of his band. He's like, I am in a band called Thursday. And this. We just put this record out. It was full collapse. And he gave me CDs, like, will you listen to this? And, like, tell me what you think and that. So that was the only time I'd really crossed paths with any of those dudes at that point. Like, My Chemical Romance, actually, after their first record, our. And our guy Luke came to us and was like, hey, there's this band My Chemical Romance from New Jersey. And I think they're really good and they're writing a new record. And I think if, like, if you guys want to create your own label, like an imprint.

[Alec Favor]

Oh, wow.

[Jade Puget]

And sign this band. We'll back you. Like, DreamWorks will back you and you could. And at that time, first of all, not to say Michael Morans had had any interest in that.

[Bo]

Right.

[Jade Puget]

This was just his idea.

[Alec Favor]

Right.

[Jade Puget]

And he was, like, in contact with them. And at that time, we're like, we're so busy doing our own. Just like, how can we have a label.

[Bo]

Yeah.

[Jade Puget]

And be signing bands? You know, obviously, in hindsight. But yeah. So that was the only time we really sort of crossed paths with them. So to your point, there were other bands that probably fans put us all together, but 100, but we didn't like this. I knew the Thrice guys. I'd met them and they were really nice. And we actually ended up taking Thursday and, like, Code and Cambria on tour on Sing the Sorrow and those. Dude. Everyone was like. Like, those Thursday dudes are so fucking cool.

[Bo]

Yeah.

[Jade Puget]

You know?

[Alec Favor]

Yeah. I was wondering because even from the outside, as a fan, you guys were still a hardcore band to me, whereas those bands couldn't be any farther away from hardcore in my mind. But I always wondered, like, if you guys felt like you were on an island, because it kind of seemed that way a little bit.

[Jade Puget]

I don't think we thought of it in those terms, but in our minds, we were still Gilman Street Berkeley band and that was not that other stuff, you know, Even though we probably weren't that. But in our minds, it's hard to divorce yourself from.

[Bo]

Well, you still are that. Whereas, though, all those bands started new bands.

[Alec Favor]

Exactly. You know, like members of the movie life. Yeah. Not AFI is still a hardcore band. It's still these same guys, you know.

[Jade Puget]

Yeah. So in our mind, I don't know who we thought. We probably thought our peers were like, Snap case and. And stuff, you know, like, that's. We kind of thought we were at the Drive in because, you know, at the drive in and AFI were friends early. Early on. Like, AFI took at the Drive in out, like, maybe even before their first record or right after their first record. So, like, those are the bands that we thought we were kind of aligned with.

[Bo]

The bridge of Miss Murder. When you're doing that, are you just doing a fun E Minor thing or are you going, this is a slight allusion to Fall Children.

[Jade Puget]

A minor thing. A minor Apologize with the open a string pedal tone. So a similar concept. And yeah, it's got the tritone, it's got the flat 5 in there. So one wouldn't be a layman such

[Bo]

as myself hears that and goes, he's doing the thing, man. Yeah, he did it on purpose.

[Jade Puget]

Didn't do it on purpose because if. If I. If someone would have said that, it would have been like, okay, I'm doing something else.

[Bo]

Oh, wow. Okay, good. I'm glad I waited.

[Jade Puget]

Yeah. Because, yeah, it's too late to change it now, unfortunately. But. But yeah, that's just because, like, those are the things I like to do. I mean, you know, that's a hardcore thing. Hitting that note, that. That blue note. There's two notes that are hardcore. The minor 2 and the flat 5. If you took those completely out of hardcore at least, like old school hardcore, it'd be punk.

[Bo]

Yeah.

[Jade Puget]

Like, those are the two. In my mind, those are the two chords or the two notes, the two intervals that create the sound of hardcore.

[Bo]

The minor charity.

[Alec Favor]

Yeah, I gotta find out what those are.

[Bo]

I gotta learn those.

[Jade Puget]

Well, let's see.

[Bo]

Here we go. Well, that's in. I think that's in a standard.

[Alec Favor]

Standard. Standard.

[Jade Puget]

If you got something I need, I'll show you what I'm talking about. So basically, let's say we're in my favorite. You know, we're in the seventh fret, my favorite. So punk. Punk chords would be like, you know.

[Bo]

Sure.

[Jade Puget]

But if you do. Ah, that's the minor two.

[Bo]

Oh.

[Jade Puget]

And then the flat five.

[Alec Favor]

Okay.

[Bo]

That's Harpo music straight up. Yeah.

[Alec Favor]

Those are the two chords, flat two.

[Bo]

Yeah.

[Jade Puget]

So this and.

[Alec Favor]

Okay.

[Bo]

Yeah. Oh, yeah, no, I know them.

[Alec Favor]

Okay.

[Jade Puget]

Otherwise, those are.

[Bo]

I know that guy.

[Jade Puget]

Diatonic chords. I'm not a theory guy. I just know from picking up.

[Alec Favor]

This is like new math and old math.

[Jade Puget]

Yeah, right, right.

[Bo]

Yeah.

[Jade Puget]

You add those two, that's hardcore. Obviously, a lot goes. More goes into it, but from purely just a guitar playing perspective, those are the two most important notes.

[Bo]

Unbelievable. Thank you, Taylor.

[Alec Favor]

Thank you.

[Jade Puget]

This is production.

[Bo]

Yeah. This record comes out, you've got these two wildly successful singles. You're doing a bunch of touring on it. You're playing arenas in some places. Yeah. Some places. The tour ends here with a massive show. Right. And then how are we feeling after that?

[Jade Puget]

To be honest, it got a little weird at the end. There was things, I think, in retrospect, that were starting to happen in a grassroots way that only later at the time, I kind of got an inkling of him. But I think there was, like, a backlash starting against afi because we had become that band that was so successful and people wanted to hate us.

[Bo]

Yeah, sure.

[Jade Puget]

And I also think there was a thing, the way Dave looked. There was a homophobic aspect to it, and there had been for a long time. It just gave people another lever to hate us.

[Bo]

Yeah.

[Jade Puget]

And there was this other weird thing where you notice on this record is the first time Dave is screaming in this different way.

[Alec Favor]

Yes.

[Jade Puget]

Not the whole time, but he has this different screaming voice. And that was a product of him exploring ways to scream that wasn't going to destroy his voice and ways that he could be aggressive without, you know, putting him back in the hospital. But at the same time, Screamo was a thing. And I think people thought we were trying to jump on that bandwagon. They went, oh, you kind of sound like these other guys. And is it a coincidence that now that is big and you put out a record where your singer is doing that thing, even though it's totally not what was happening and the last thing they would ever do in a million years. But I think people. It was. That was another thing. People were like, oh, AFI is on the bandwagon now.

[Bo]

Yeah.

[Alec Favor]

And they didn't hear the five records before that.

[Jade Puget]

Well, you know, there's no.

[Alec Favor]

It's a different kind of scream.

[Jade Puget]

But, yeah, there's no logic to it.

[Bo]

Yeah.

[Jade Puget]

And people would be fans that came on board from MTV that just heard us on Ms. Murder. They'd be like, oh, you should play the old. You guys used to be good. You were like a punk band. So all that kind of stuff. And I think it became like, kids at school, probably if you're wearing an AFI shirt. That's not like you might. People might close your. Yeah, I might talk to you. Because we were a mainstream band now, and so these kinds of things were happening that really were outside of us

[Bo]

or any outside of the music.

[Alec Favor]

But you felt it.

[Jade Puget]

Yeah. Yeah. Like, we did a big Australian tour at the end of that run, like playing arenas in Australia, and people started chanting old shit.

[Alec Favor]

Oh, my gosh.

[Jade Puget]

Yeah. And it was just like the first time that ever happened.

[Alec Favor]

Yeah.

[Jade Puget]

And once again, these people were not old school fans.

[Alec Favor]

No. Yeah.

[Jade Puget]

So it was like. It was completely token and ridiculous. It's like you come on board and you're immediately like an old school. Old school punk guy.

[Bo]

Yeah.

[Jade Puget]

And you're like 17, the ultimate poser.

[Bo]

Like, exposing. Yeah.

[Jade Puget]

So, yeah, I started noticing, like, what. What is this thing? And then only later did I kind of realize that. I mean, it's not hard to. To see the genesis of where, you know, you get too big and people are like, you know, you're not a cool band because, you know, you're playing with. With Christina Aguilera on MTV Movie wars and you're playing with three six Mafia on it, you know, like, pretty cool. Yeah. Which was cool.

[Bo]

Playing that Twilight Zone.

[Jade Puget]

Yeah. I mean, they just couldn't handle. I was playing that Twilight Zone. I mean, beyond there. So that led into kind of like a thing that we didn't realize was happening until later, but was happening at the end of that record.

[Alec Favor]

I bet it was very confusing because you never. It seems like you never approached writing music that way. So being perceived that way is probably a crazy feeling.

[Jade Puget]

Yeah. All the perceptions. I mean, yes, we were a mainstream band that was on TRL and all these things. That was true.

[Bo]

Sorry.

[Jade Puget]

But yeah, we didn't have a campaign. We were trying to get ourselves on there.

[Alec Favor]

Yeah.

[Jade Puget]

We only ever did what we did since day one, which is write the best songs we could write. And we just happened to what we were doing dovetailed with the zeitgeist of what people liked.

[Bo]

Yeah.

[Jade Puget]

Not many bands even get that opportunity. We were lucky.

[Alec Favor]

Yeah.

[Jade Puget]

But, yeah, so. So, yeah, it's. It was unfortunate, but I mean, we. I never take for granted the success we've had and how lucky I am. Every day I think how lucky I am to be able to have done what I've done. So that is a small price to pay for what I've been able to do in my life.

[Bo]

Do you decide to do Black Audio now as kind of like, okay, this was insane. We've been working on this thing for a while. Let's focus on this for a bit.

[Jade Puget]

It was finally we had a chance to do it because we'd been doing it. It would have been a band for six, almost seven years at that point. And so we finally had a chance after the Summer Underground touring cycle to like finally put this record out.

[Bo]

And does getting the electronics kind of really out of your system with Black Audio open up Crashlove to be a little more stripped down?

[Jade Puget]

No, it was interesting hearing Dave's take on it because we. We all have our own take on all. All of us in the band have our own perspective on how things happened. And going into Crashlove. The first day of writing that, Dave was like, we started writing at the Standard, the Hollywood Standard RIP he was. He was like, look, I don't want to sing way up here on this record. I don't want to scream. Like, I don't want to play fast songs. I don't want to play hardcore songs. Like, he was like, I want to do something else. And part of it, I think, was his voice. You know, he's like, it's coming off a second surgery. I mean, who wouldn't have.

[Bo]

Totally fine.

[Jade Puget]

That's like, I need. I don't want to lose this thing. That is the most crucial, fundamental part of my life.

[Bo]

Totally.

[Jade Puget]

Because I need. I'm pressured to play a hardcore song. So it wasn't like him and I sat down or the band and was like, let's do a stripped down rock record. Like, that's. That's the move, right? Because I love putting electronic stuff in. I love playing fast and hardcore. But I recognized that this was something that we needed to do to evolve in some way that made sense. And in retrospect, I don't know if I would have. AFI's not a stripped down band. Even Black Sail is not a stripped down record.

[Alec Favor]

No Dense.

[Bo]

And I would say even Crash Love is like riff wise. Not stripped down.

[Jade Puget]

It's not stripped down. But for coming off of production wise December Underground. Yeah, it's stripped down. Like me take just taking out the electronic elements, which I always love to me was. Is a hard thing because, you know, I naturally would have put that stuff in there and I probably would have tried to get Dave to could play some fast hardcore music. And. And if you would have heard his voice then that would have been a really terrible idea. So I think it was the record it needed to be. It wasn't the record that for career wise, that we should have made at that time. But it was the record probably that needed to happen.

[Alec Favor]

I think it's probably your, for me, the biggest grower.

[Jade Puget]

Yeah.

[Alec Favor]

Like any. Every time I listen to it, I like something knew about it and I don't know if that's maybe because I didn't listen to it as much at the time maybe. And just there's a new thing for me to discover every time. But there's something so cool about that record in that it. So many of the songs are like poppy in a way that certainly to Summer Underground wasn't. But it was like. I can't. I can't even really describe it, but there's just something cool about that record in terms of the guitar playing and sort of everything is weirdly up tempo. Right. And bright. Yeah, bright is a good word.

[Jade Puget]

Yeah. The tempo thing is interesting because I knew Dave didn't want to play fast songs and so I was pushing the tempo right to where it wasn't fast

[Bo]

because there's still some like. Yeah.

[Jade Puget]

And that was the fastest. Kind of like the fast Green Baby Please Believe. Yeah, that's the fastest song. Yeah, but in terms of.

[Bo]

Of single, you know.

[Jade Puget]

Yeah.

[Bo]

Banger.

[Jade Puget]

No, but so like I was trying to push the. Push the tempo.

[Bo]

Okay.

[Jade Puget]

As fast as I could without Dave being like, okay, you're trying to make me do this thing I told you I didn't want to do.

[Bo]

Okay.

[Jade Puget]

So we had a lot of kind of like mid tempo rocking songs. And I really disliked that record for a long time because of the bag with it.

[Bo]

Oh yeah, that's fair.

[Jade Puget]

And it wasn't just what we talked about. It's also. That was another really difficult record to

[Alec Favor]

make because you have these other parameters around it.

[Jade Puget]

It was just. We went in with this guy, Dave Bottrill first who did like Tool and all these were like, okay, this dude's rad. You know, obviously did Tool and it just was like a total like flail. Like he. I don't know, he's having like health issues or something. It just was like, did not. And so then we go in with Joe McGrath and that didn't work. And so then we go on with like. It's just as like. Like that just. It didn't feel like. It was. Just didn't feel good. And so it really painted my idea of that record and I just didn't. And then it comes out and commercially we go from then, you know, December was the number one record in the country. We sold a quarter million records the first week. And then to go from that to like the next record and have it be none of that.

[Bo]

Yeah.

[Jade Puget]

And only recently I re. Listen to that record for the first time, like, I don't know, six months ago in a long time. I'm like, yeah, this is actually not bad song.

[Bo]

Intro riff. Yeah. Is crazy.

[Jade Puget]

Yeah. Like.

[Bo]

And that's classic you to me.

[Jade Puget]

Yeah. That song is kind of a throwback to. You know, it's. It's in three, four. It's like, you know, is it three, four?

[Alec Favor]

Right.

[Jade Puget]

Can't remember. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, there's some. There's a little bit of throwback stuff on there. But, you know, it's interesting to think of if Dave had never heard his voice, our sort of trajectory would have been different. I think we would have evolved because we were already. You can see. Sing the Sorrow. We were already evolving that way because it wasn't as interesting to us to just do fast song after fast song after. Same screamy thing. But, you know, it could have been worse.

[Bo]

Yeah. Yeah. 100. It's still. I think it's awesome. I think I kind of coming around

[Jade Puget]

on that record now a little bit because it's my own baggage with that record.

[Alec Favor]

Yes. That has.

[Bo]

Which is fair.

[Jade Puget]

Yeah.

[Bo]

Did the response to it while touring match how you. The baggage that.

[Jade Puget]

Yeah, yeah. It was a very weird time in AFI's career. Like, first of all, our manager had booked us a tour based on December Underground. Let's go into these venues. Obviously, that makes sense. And it wasn't like they were empty, but it was, you know, it was a different reality.

[Bo]

Yeah.

[Jade Puget]

And we also shot ourselves in the foot by waiting so long to put out another record, which we always.

[Bo]

Three years.

[Jade Puget]

Three years. It's too long, man. It's like, it's. First of all, any fans that were. Came on board from Radio MTV are long gone.

[Alec Favor]

Yeah.

[Jade Puget]

Three years in a. Like, a young person's life is, you know, their whole life. You might be listening to a completely different genre of music three years later. So, like, that whole. All those people, those fans we made, almost all of them are, like, gone. And so it was a weird tour and having this thing hanging over us where we come out and where it's like not the same success. And ever since I joined the band in 98, it just been like this, right?

[Bo]

Yeah.

[Jade Puget]

Which is very unnatural for any band to be like that. So all I had known is this. And so all of that was just difficult. And then, you know, from there it just kind of like now on, we tour it's fucking incredible.

[Bo]

Yeah.

[Jade Puget]

And to think that at that time I thought, like, this must be over. This must be done. Like, how Crazy sucks, but this must be done.

[Bo]

Ridiculous.

[Jade Puget]

Yeah. And like, in a lot of ways, we're more successful now than we were ever.

[Bo]

Because you've hit this golden legacy status,

[Jade Puget]

you know, I think we got a little bit of that. Like a band like, you know, like the Cure. Yes. The Cure is just always gonna be a band that people love. And there's always gonna be some people that love afi.

[Bo]

And that's what you put the AFI or the Cure on a festival, somebody looks at the lineup and goes, oh, fuck you.

[Jade Puget]

I'm seeing the Cure.

[Alec Favor]

And the Cure is coming back. Every time the Cure comes back, they come back with a record that.

[Bo]

That is like, we have wild.

[Alec Favor]

Yeah. Like the new one's Insane Cure, self titled in 04. That was like. They. They came back and I saw that tour and I was like, why is this so good? They're an old band. Well, partially good.

[Jade Puget]

Robert Smith is somehow. He still can sing like that.

[Bo]

Yeah.

[Jade Puget]

And play like a three hour set. Very rare to. People have that kind of voice like crazy. You know that. And Dave, too. Dave's voice is stronger now. And I'm not just saying this because I'm his friend and I'm in the band with him. His voice is better now than it ever was. And whether he's singing something from Black Sails or singing something new, his voice is so, so strong. I don't know what happened.

[Bo]

He doesn't lose it anymore.

[Jade Puget]

No. Knock on wood. He hasn't blown his voice in 15 years.

[Bo]

Do you guys two. Do you do two on, one off? Two on, one off.

[Jade Puget]

Usually two or three on, which helps, obviously.

[Bo]

Yeah. But even that's a lot for what he's doing.

[Alec Favor]

It is.

[Jade Puget]

Because, you know, I. I'm the one that makes a set list. So I punish him with like, old songs and so he's, you know, stuff he doesn't want to play a couple. Yeah, good to know.

[Bo]

There's no. There hasn't been an LA date since

[Jade Puget]

we just announced the LA date.

[Alec Favor]

Oh, see, right. Yes. Santa Ana.

[Bo]

Come on, man.

[Jade Puget]

We tried to play la, but there's just no right venue. Like, where do we play?

[Bo]

What? Well,

[Jade Puget]

where do we play? The Shrine. It's not. I don't know, it's just. That room's not. The vibe isn't like, you know, I

[Bo]

mean, you would smoke the Palladium, but that's it.

[Jade Puget]

That last time we did two Palladiums. So we're gonna come back and just do the three palladiums.

[Bo]

Well, here's the thing.

[Alec Favor]

Exposition park outside.

[Bo]

That would be sick. Yeah, that would be sick.

[Jade Puget]

Well, we're kind of doing like an out.

[Alec Favor]

Yeah. You're doing at the observatory. Yeah.

[Bo]

Is the exposition does that's Sound and Fury.

[Alec Favor]

Yeah. Oh, I don't know.

[Bo]

And that's where it turns out.

[Alec Favor]

It's by the Natural History Museum. There's that big grassy area, I'm sure behind it.

[Jade Puget]

Yeah, I'm sure that they probably. We, like.

[Alec Favor]

Yeah.

[Jade Puget]

We explored so many different things. You know, like going back to the Forum, like, the Greek is weird because they have a DB limit and you have to play quiet. And it's seated.

[Alec Favor]

Yeah.

[Jade Puget]

Yeah. And then like, Hollywood Bowl.

[Alec Favor]

Nah.

[Jade Puget]

Yes. Same thing.

[Alec Favor]

That's for. That's for my. My mother in law.

[Jade Puget]

I mean, I love the bowl. The bowl is amazing ribs.

[Bo]

But maybe. I don't want to sit down. No, I don't watch that.

[Jade Puget]

You don't want to sit? Bite the bull.

[Bo]

I don't want to sit down. Yeah, it was. It was tough at the Forum. You were in pit.

[Alec Favor]

I. I'm surprised I didn't get kicked out.

[Bo]

The Sing the Sorrow anniversary show at the Forum. One of the best live events I've ever been to.

[Jade Puget]

Thank you 100%.

[Alec Favor]

How'd you do that?

[Jade Puget]

Yeah, man, it was some. I'm not like a hippie dippy guy, but there was some, like, magic in the air that night. I don't know what it was. And we didn't go in. First of all, we didn't want to do that because we're like, there's no way we could sell out the Forum. Or even. We're like, maybe we put enough people in there that'll look good. And then it sold out in, like, four hours. And we're like, yeah, Damn. And then, like. Yeah. Then it started getting exciting. And. Yeah.

[Bo]

I was gonna go to the. You are the Quarry Forum show. That didn't sell.

[Jade Puget]

Yeah.

[Bo]

Sing the Sorrow sold out the Forum. And it was. It was truly like, me, Bo, Alec, Nate, Mike, Brittie, whole squad. Just like, such a magical thing.

[Alec Favor]

It was when you guys popped out of the back.

[Jade Puget]

I.

[Bo]

The Living Song, Jerry sun montage.

[Alec Favor]

So incredible.

[Jade Puget]

We had to run off stage and run down there, down the thing. There's fans in there. Like, oh, really?

[Bo]

Yeah.

[Jade Puget]

Like, I thought there was.

[Alec Favor]

I assume there was, like, an underground

[Jade Puget]

tunnel, like the side where you go out into the lobby.

[Alec Favor]

Yeah.

[Jade Puget]

Dave and I were running down that to make it to the staging time, where people, like, there's a couple people just kind of wandering around there, like, because we were, like, running full speed.

[Alec Favor]

That's awesome.

[Jade Puget]

Yeah.

[Bo]

How special was that night?

[Jade Puget]

It was incredible. Yeah. I. And my son had just been born, like, literally, like, a week earlier. So it was like a weird time in my life and a magical, weird time.

[Alec Favor]

Yeah.

[Jade Puget]

And, yeah, it was cool.

[Bo]

This is Ryder.

[Alec Favor]

Ryder. Ryder. I did the Fury five in the pit.

[Bo]

You did? Yeah.

[Alec Favor]

A lot of people were mad at me, probably leaving song and other seasons.

[Jade Puget]

Someone had to represent.

[Alec Favor]

That's probably the last time I moshed, so.

[Bo]

So you could always do the Forum.

[Jade Puget]

Yeah. But you.

[Bo]

I mean, and, like, Chelsea Wolf played, Choir Boy played, Jawbreaker played. I think the show would have sold out regardless.

[Jade Puget]

Well, here's the thing. The show is an OC and it's announced.

[Bo]

Okay.

[Alec Favor]

That's not a December underground show.

[Jade Puget]

No.

[Alec Favor]

Right.

[Jade Puget]

It's our LA show.

[Alec Favor]

Right.

[Jade Puget]

Okay.

[Alec Favor]

That's what I assumed.

[Jade Puget]

For this tour that's on the new album.

[Bo]

It's gonna be insane. I can't wait.

[Jade Puget]

What do you guys want to hear?

[Alec Favor]

Summer Shutter.

[Jade Puget]

See, Dave is the. Dave's usually the stickler for all songs, and he doesn't like the lyric of the chorus.

[Alec Favor]

Really?

[Jade Puget]

And it's sourdom on that song for. Yeah, that's such a good. He just doesn't like under the Summer Rain. He thinks it's like, under the winter rain. Yeah. It's like, now it's. You know.

[Bo]

Yeah. But Summer Rain is a scary thing, you know, you don't want to be.

[Alec Favor]

That's hot.

[Jade Puget]

Yeah, it's just. He. You know, he just is like. I don't. I don't want to sing that. That's.

[Alec Favor]

I mean, that's fair. It's. It's such. It's like. Also. Is that song in drop D?

[Jade Puget]

Yes, that song.

[Alec Favor]

The shapes of that song. I tried to learn it.

[Bo]

Allison Chain.

[Alec Favor]

It's. It's a. It's a cool song to play.

[Jade Puget]

Yeah, it's a fun. The verse is a fun riff to play. Yeah.

[Alec Favor]

Yeah.

[Jade Puget]

Because it's all kind of like hammer on.

[Alec Favor]

Yeah.

[Jade Puget]

Like Quicksandy kind of.

[Alec Favor]

It's really. It's a really cool song to play on guitar, but. Yeah, that's. That's. That's one of them.

[Bo]

I'm thinking about what I want to hear.

[Alec Favor]

Yeah, me too.

[Jade Puget]

Sometimes I can get Dave to play Summer Shutter.

[Alec Favor]

Killing Lights.

[Jade Puget]

That one we play.

[Alec Favor]

You play.

[Jade Puget]

That one's fun. Yeah, that one's really fun.

[Alec Favor]

To love. I'm trying to think of more to some running around songs because I love that record Affliction. The end of Affliction.

[Jade Puget]

We have never ever played that song live.

[Alec Favor]

Really? The end of Affliction is because of the. Is it the Steel Panther guy doing the high?

[Jade Puget]

No, these three black women came in to sing that part. Like real gospel. Yeah, that part is. That's why it's incredible. So cool. Because.

[Alec Favor]

Yeah.

[Jade Puget]

We're like. It's funny. We were in the studio and I was kind of like directing them and we did like a pass and I'm like, let's do another one. And like kind of just give it like the full going to church thing. Yeah. She's like, oh, put some stank on it. Stank on it. Yeah, it's kind of despair factor. We just played that on the very last show. We played it like a couple years ago. Yeah.

[Alec Favor]

I want to hear Last Kiss.

[Bo]

Catch a hot one. Western six to eight. Despair factor.

[Alec Favor]

Smile.

[Bo]

Morningstar.

[Jade Puget]

We are. It's a smile. Probably not going to happen. Yeah. Synesthesia. We time I saw a video. We played it one time on tour with Rise Against.

[Bo]

That one's high.

[Jade Puget]

That's the thing. It's not like Dave doesn't like some of these songs. It's just like.

[Alec Favor]

Just too.

[Jade Puget]

That one is too numb to B.

[Alec Favor]

And then you can match his.

[Jade Puget]

Even if we. Well, see, it's the problem with me writing all the stuff into E minor too. A lot of things playing relies on that octave movement.

[Alec Favor]

Yeah. And no, I'm saying literally have a guitar on the side.

[Jade Puget]

But even if tuned down sometimes there's a couple times we've tuned down to see and it's still so high.

[Bo]

The muscle memory.

[Jade Puget]

A testament to how high he was singing back then. Like, I remember Dexter came to sing backing vocals on Black Sails and he's got a high ass voice. Yeah. And he was like, I can't do this. It's too high for me. Like he's saying above is. You know, it's like a soprano range.

[Bo]

I'll send you a set list.

[Jade Puget]

Okay.

[Alec Favor]

Wester's nice. We'll figure it.

[Jade Puget]

Wester. We play pretty regularly.

[Alec Favor]

Do you.

[Bo]

Okay. I haven't seen in so, so long.

[Alec Favor]

Narrative soul against soul. I wish I got one.

[Jade Puget]

Yeah, that one is another one. That's like dangerous for Dave to do.

[Bo]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's well documented at this point that Dave goes into a. It's a dark time. Post December Underground Pre Burials credits you in large part to getting them out of that funk and. And making Burials happen. We love this one hard record.

[Jade Puget]

Thank you.

[Bo]

We love it.

[Alec Favor]

It's. It. The production sounds hard, if that makes sense.

[Bo]

It's evil.

[Alec Favor]

Yeah.

[Jade Puget]

Yeah, it is evil. And it's like Dave was in such a dark headspace, and we wrote it in, like, such a sort of shitty environment. It just really bled into. Was really dark.

[Bo]

Yeah.

[Jade Puget]

I mean, we had a great time together writing, but that's fun to do.

[Alec Favor]

Yeah. You know.

[Jade Puget]

Yeah. But there was some lowering clouds over us the whole time. The rats in the walls, literally. Yeah.

[Alec Favor]

One of the greatest songs ever written on that record.

[Bo]

17.

[Alec Favor]

17 crimes.

[Jade Puget]

God, that one was cool. We were leaving for the day. I was packing my stuff up, and I just had my foot up on a stool with guitar not plugged in. I started playing those chords, and he just. We just did that front to back, like, on the spot. All the melodies, the whole thing. It was like. We wrote in, like, five minutes.

[Alec Favor]

What the F. I text my handle, my Twitter handle, and then 17 crime. There's like, 15 tweets where I was like, September of 2013 or something like that when it came out or something like that.

[Bo]

And that.

[Alec Favor]

A million tweets.

[Bo]

That's a song where if somebody's like, yeah, I don't know much. Like, later, afi, I'll send them that. Really. And they're like, I mean, I hope

[Jade Puget]

you Suffer is really the song that's become.

[Bo]

Yeah, yeah. I mean, that's a hit.

[Jade Puget]

17 crimes and I Hope youe Suffer, the ones that we play almost every night. Because those really just became as big as almost any AFI song when it.

[Alec Favor]

When. When the chorus comes back and I hope you suffer it, it's. Yeah, it's crazy.

[Bo]

Yeah.

[Jade Puget]

Yeah. We play that at festivals. Even though we're playing our most known songs. We'll play that at big festivals, too.

[Bo]

Well, at this point, you've been around for so long and you've experienced so much as a band that, like, you know who's coming to see you.

[Jade Puget]

You know, now there's some X factors. Like when we just last year played in Sao Paulo with System of a Down. I mean, that's crazy. We don't know who's coming to see us at that show.

[Bo]

Yeah.

[Jade Puget]

But at that. No one at that.

[Bo]

Play whatever the fuck you want.

[Alec Favor]

Yeah. When. When you have those kinds of support shows, what are you doing?

[Jade Puget]

We still try to play songs that people might know.

[Alec Favor]

Yeah.

[Jade Puget]

You know, sure. Like, what's the point of playing a deep cut?

[Bo]

But that's the Thing is, like, it's fun at this point. It's like, I'm going to see AFI time. I like it all.

[Alec Favor]

Yeah.

[Bo]

I'd like to hear it all.

[Jade Puget]

Yeah.

[Alec Favor]

That's an interesting dynamic as a person that's not the singer of a band. Like, there's so many songs you probably want to play that you can't.

[Jade Puget]

Oh, yeah. And it's hard, too, because I make the set list, so, you know, I'm playing.

[Alec Favor]

Music is fun.

[Bo]

Yeah.

[Jade Puget]

I'm so tempted to.

[Alec Favor]

Yeah.

[Jade Puget]

And Dave sometimes will. Will play ball. Like, we played Fall Children for the first time in 20 years on the tour at the end of last year. And he, you know, he didn't have to do that because that one is not only a song that he doesn't want to be the Halloween guy anymore.

[Alec Favor]

Right.

[Jade Puget]

But it's also incredibly difficult song for him to sing. Very dangerous.

[Bo]

Yeah, the chorus is way up. Yeah.

[Jade Puget]

He's screaming in a B. Yeah, That's a difficult note.

[Bo]

Yeah, that's up there, man. Damn. Where does Burials sit in your own kind of personal fi. Lexicon?

[Jade Puget]

It's definitely up there.

[Bo]

There's. It's a very. It's very triumphant in it. And, like, Crashlove is, like, weirdly, musically triumphant, but Burials is, like, spiritually triumphant.

[Jade Puget]

It was because Crashlove coming off the Darkness. Crashlove is a happy sounding record, but it's a dark time.

[Bo]

Yeah.

[Alec Favor]

You see them differently.

[Jade Puget]

Like, and to come back and not even. I didn't think we were going to be right at that point. And you know what Dave was going through, and I went up to visit him in Oakland and he's just like, do you want to. You want to write a record? And it was a. Totally took me out of the blue. I didn't think that was going to happen. And it's what he needed. And so it just was so rad that we were doing it again. So cool. It was never going to happen again at that point. And not only that, we were having fun doing it. We were writing good songs and. Yeah. So I have fond memories of that. And we wrote Extremist while we were writing that record just in between and recorded it because we were just like, hey, neither one of us has ever been on a straight edge hardcore band. That's crazy. Let's do one. And then.

[Bo]

So that was. That.

[Jade Puget]

That was right in the middle. That's cool of doing. Yeah. Burials.

[Bo]

And Burials is the first time where it's credited as all music by Jay Puget. Yeah, that's pretty Cool.

[Jade Puget]

Yeah. You know, you got to do what

[Bo]

you got to do.

[Jade Puget]

It's true.

[Bo]

Yeah.

[Jade Puget]

We share all the money.

[Bo]

Yeah, I know.

[Jade Puget]

But I don't take him. I don't take a dime more than anyone else.

[Bo]

Isn't it interesting to go back and look at album rollouts and it'll be like, this track was premiered by Spin.

[Alec Favor]

Yeah.

[Jade Puget]

Oh, like Fuse tv and like how

[Bo]

useless that is now in the streaming world.

[Jade Puget]

The things that were important back then that are so irrelevant and just the

[Alec Favor]

stickers on an album, that's one that

[Bo]

I always remember, and they're there forever.

[Jade Puget]

You don't take them off like street teams. Like street teams were crucial.

[Alec Favor]

Crucial. You had one. You still do.

[Jade Puget]

But, Yeah, I. I like label street teams.

[Alec Favor]

I was on the bridge nine.

[Bo]

I was on. We were on the sepulcher one.

[Jade Puget]

Nice.

[Bo]

In the mid 2000s. What are your thoughts on streaming?

[Jade Puget]

It's one of those things. It's like you can get angry at it. It's like getting angry at a freaking rain cloud. It's there and you can't do anything about it.

[Bo]

Yeah.

[Jade Puget]

Would I like it? People would be going to the store to buy the CD or the cassette or whatever. Sure. But what's the point of ruing something that just is. It just is. It's never going back.

[Bo]

Yeah.

[Jade Puget]

If you can't move with the times, you're just going to be like a bitter thumb, you know?

[Bo]

Thumb is so funny.

[Jade Puget]

Bitter thumb.

[Bo]

Thumb is crazy.

[Alec Favor]

Are you at Apple Music or Spotify?

[Jade Puget]

Spotify. Oh, I feel good about it, but I had the ipod till way late. I'd only listened to my ipod and, like, way.

[Bo]

You were analog, digital.

[Jade Puget]

Yeah. I'm like, I'm not gonna listen to streaming. Like, doesn't make any sense.

[Alec Favor]

I got an ipod. Snob.

[Jade Puget]

Yeah. I was like, I got all my music right here.

[Bo]

Why would.

[Jade Puget]

This is all stuff.

[Bo]

192 kilobytes, 192 songs on this thing.

[Alec Favor]

Crazy. Kids don't know about the MP3 CD.

[Bo]

No.

[Alec Favor]

Remember that?

[Bo]

Yeah.

[Jade Puget]

But, yeah, I mean, I, I, you know, like today I got on. I was listening to Dysphere and Nausea and Osaroten and. And Anti Semics. It's like I could listen to all this stuff right now. Very cool.

[Alec Favor]

Taylor just gave the. The horns.

[Bo]

You're a cool guy, Jade. The Blood album would be next. So Burials as a. An inner band triumph Universal puts out that record, right?

[Jade Puget]

Blood album?

[Bo]

No, Burials.

[Jade Puget]

Yeah. Which is public, maybe.

[Bo]

I think even so, whatever it is.

[Jade Puget]

Yeah.

[Bo]

It's on. It's on another major.

[Jade Puget]

It's on the Universal umbrella.

[Bo]

Very cool.

[Jade Puget]

Yeah.

[Bo]

How do you feel about it after? And then how do you approach starting the Blood album?

[Jade Puget]

It was almost like that record, Burials was the kind of start. We kind of had our nadir with Crash Love in a lot of ways. And it kind of felt like we're building back. Build it back stronger. And from there again, it was kind of like up.

[Alec Favor]

Yeah.

[Jade Puget]

It started going up again. And the shows were incredible. Like, on that. On that record and on Blood, the tour on that record was. It was just like I was kind of in shock that, like, how is this. This good? This long into our career.

[Bo]

Yeah.

[Jade Puget]

When. Especially when I thought maybe it wasn't going to happen again. It was just like. It was that again we play these songs and the place would go crazy and everyone's singing along. It was like 2001 again.

[Alec Favor]

Does it feel like a Before Burials and After Burials for you kind of

[Bo]

thing where there's ab.

[Alec Favor]

Yeah. Like, your part. Your time in AFI is split between these two.

[Jade Puget]

It was kind of like my time of the first two records. I was on, like, Black Sails and Art of Drowning was a thing.

[Bo]

Yeah.

[Jade Puget]

And then Seeing the Sorrow and To Summer Underground were kind of a thing. That was like the mainstream part of it. And then Crash Love was this weird.

[Alec Favor]

Yeah.

[Jade Puget]

Step trial thing. And then everything since then has been a thing.

[Bo]

Okay.

[Alec Favor]

Yeah.

[Bo]

So we're still in the post burial thing.

[Jade Puget]

3.0.

[Bo]

I'm loving the thing. The 3.0. John Carpenter's the thing. AFI is the thing.

[Jade Puget]

John Carpenter's the Thing. One of my favorite movies.

[Bo]

Same top four, Easy. And people hated it when it came out.

[Jade Puget]

Oh, man. Man.

[Bo]

You know, Losers Makes you sit. Makes you think. So by Blood album, you are producing AFI as well?

[Jade Puget]

Matt Hyde, Actually, I co. Co producer Matt Hyde was technically producer on there.

[Bo]

Okay.

[Jade Puget]

After that, it was kind of like even early on, I actually was extra producer on Sing the Sorrow.

[Alec Favor]

Oh.

[Jade Puget]

If you look in the credits early on, it started to be starting with Burials. Kind of like Gil Norton, who did like Pixies. Incredible producer. But it started to be. I got really good at demoing and so we would just go in the studio and recreate my demos. And I started to think, like, why are we paying? I mean, they sounded better. Sure. But we're still kind of idea wise.

[Bo]

Yeah.

[Jade Puget]

And production wise as far as, like, how the song.

[Bo]

They're not producing the songs, right.

[Jade Puget]

Yeah. It's like we're just redoing my thing, so why not? We're smart enough to do this, why don't we just do it ourselves? Like, we know at this point, if Adam doesn't know what a good drum set sounds like and Hunter doesn't know what a good bass tone is, then we're fucked. So I think we could probably do this ourselves. So, yeah, it just made sense.

[Bo]

Does this change the writing at all?

[Jade Puget]

No. Dave and I still do the same way. We did that on the balcony at the squat. We get together in a room face to face and just bang it out.

[Bo]

And do you feel like your freedom is back? Like it's from the pressures of December underground and the pressures of crashload.

[Jade Puget]

It's a sort of different kind of freedom. I still love. You know, I did this Bird Lady's records. I still love playing hardcore. And I love to hear you play hard. Let's say if I had totally my way, I would probably still be putting some fast, aggressive stuff in.

[Bo]

How fast would be PM?

[Jade Puget]

Probably 350.

[Bo]

350?

[Jade Puget]

No, you know, I'm maybe not.

[Alec Favor]

185.

[Jade Puget]

Yeah. Like 181. If I'm writing a fast language, they start at 181.

[Bo]

Okay, 181.

[Jade Puget]

I might go higher, I might go lower.

[Bo]

Okay.

[Jade Puget]

But I just like, for hardcore music especially, I like that tempo for a fast. Yeah, just for me.

[Bo]

I'm gonna try it tonight.

[Jade Puget]

Okay.

[Bo]

181.

[Jade Puget]

181.

[Alec Favor]

Marker's like 205.

[Bo]

Is it?

[Alec Favor]

Yeah, I think so.

[Jade Puget]

But yeah, it's a different kind of freedom. Like this. This last record, obviously, this sounds nothing like anything we've done, but it's coming from a place of stuff that I have loved since I was a kid and. And the freedom to go in a crazy different direction. That's a kind of freedom too.

[Bo]

Yeah.

[Jade Puget]

And not care. We thought no one was going to like this record. Like, me and Adam were talking before it came out. We're like, this is crazy, dude. Like, I love this record, but people are gonna hate it. Our fans are gonna hate it, but we don't care. We're gonna put it out. Cause we like it.

[Bo]

But I think with the newest one, it's like so crazy that it's like. It's pretty.

[Jade Puget]

It's.

[Bo]

It just might work.

[Jade Puget]

Exactly. The response was crazy. Way unexpected response of people loving the record. Probably because we went so far. We only went a little far.

[Alec Favor]

I don't know that you did it. It's. It's kind of like Sing the Sorrow or December Underground, where it. It didn't Feel unnatural.

[Jade Puget]

That's. Well, that's.

[Alec Favor]

Especially the. The post Burials, I think the la. The two records in between, at least to me, sonically kind of inform. Like, okay, this makes post punk thing make sense. Yeah, it's.

[Jade Puget]

It's extremely natural to us.

[Alec Favor]

Yeah.

[Jade Puget]

Like, we didn't go in trying to do a bit like a genre exercise or like, let's do like a kooky Bauhaus copy thing. Like, this is like Dave and I sitting down and writing the stuff that we love. And, you know, it seemed very natural to us. But from a fan perspective, especially someone that doesn't really follow closely to afi. Why. It could be shocking and being like, what the hell are these guys doing?

[Bo]

But it's not like you guys hide your influences on your sleeves, you know, or you're not. You've been very honest about the. That you love and like, post punk. He's wearing post punk shirts.

[Jade Puget]

In 1997, 25 years, we're going to be talking about the Kiran, Bow House and Susie and Killing Joke and all the stuff. We just never put it. We didn't. Never delved in as deeply as.

[Bo]

You never did it as a. As a full record.

[Jade Puget]

Yeah. Which is the crazy part. Yeah. Let's get into the stuff that we really love. Just like when I put that electronic part on Death of Seasons.

[Bo]

Yeah.

[Jade Puget]

It's like, what's this thing I really love? Let me put it into a song that.

[Alec Favor]

That lead. That main riff of 17 crimes that, like, descending.

[Jade Puget]

Yeah.

[Alec Favor]

That's like a Cure or Sisters of Mercy, kind of.

[Jade Puget]

That one is. If you want to talk about one thing that could be a signature. Me.

[Alec Favor]

Yeah.

[Jade Puget]

It's the high E pedaling and then playing on the B string. A riff like, I've done that.

[Alec Favor]

There's the Phoenix. Right. That's probably that one is.

[Jade Puget]

That one's more of like a triad, but if you go like so many, like, narrative. Soul and soul.

[Alec Favor]

Yeah.

[Jade Puget]

Later. That song. I'm doing a riff. I've done it, like, preposition the intro. Like, I've just done it a million times. That's kind of like. If you could say there's one thing that I maybe done too much.

[Bo]

No, keep it going. I think the newest. We'll go back and chat bodies in a second. But since we're talking about Silver Bleeds the Black Sun, I think it is my favorite record since Burials because of how crazy it is. And despite it being a big kind of creative departure, it's so easy to listen start to finish.

[Jade Puget]

Oh, thanks.

[Bo]

It pulls from all the unique things that you guys love. And it's your 12th album, so it's kind of like you've said all you have to say in this way. Let's do something else.

[Jade Puget]

I definitely felt with Bodies, if you start a continuum, that's crash love through Bodies. To me, those records have a lot of continuity. They're like alternative rock. There's a lot of different things that are in there, but you might say that's the basis to me, like, with Bodies, I was like, we've done enough of this. We've done this. We've done this thing.

[Bo]

Yeah.

[Jade Puget]

Like, we can't. And I even told Dave that when we started writing this new record, I'm like, we can't. I don't want to have anything that sounds like the last record or any of the last few records. We got to do something different, like whatever that is.

[Bo]

And were there still 60 songs, 120 songs written for this one?

[Jade Puget]

Yeah, but part of those are going to be the new record.

[Bo]

Hey, good.

[Jade Puget]

Because when we got towards the end of this, we started writing very much like this death rock, more aggressive punk, like 45 Grave, you know, Christian death kind of stuff.

[Alec Favor]

Cool.

[Jade Puget]

And it didn't really fit. Kind of like no. 1 underground, the last song.

[Bo]

Yeah, stuff like that. So that's a. That's a premonition of what's.

[Jade Puget]

Yeah, that was why we put it as the last song on the record. As like a. No one knows, as, like a hint. So, like. So we have this other record that's more like a death rock record that was written in the same.

[Bo]

This is breaking news.

[Jade Puget]

Yeah.

[Bo]

It's crazy.

[Alec Favor]

Is that recorded in the process?

[Jade Puget]

The full demos are done, and all the vocals are done and all the guitars are done. So Adam just has to get in the studio, and Hunter has to do his bass.

[Alec Favor]

But.

[Jade Puget]

Yeah.

[Alec Favor]

Is that how you do you record now? Is you. Because. Because the demos are so demoed.

[Jade Puget]

Yeah.

[Alec Favor]

You're able to do it backwards kind of.

[Jade Puget]

It's. I mean, it's great. Technology is, like, made it, like, behind the clock. This first single on a record, that song, I literally. First day we started writing the record, Dave sat down. I'm like, okay, let's write a song. This is gonna be the new record. And I literally put together a quick drum beat on Ableton Hit Record, and picked up the bass and started playing that bass line, and we just wrote the whole song through, and he. And I put Hit Record. He's singing because he had the lyric. He had lyrics written yeah, yeah. But he's making up the melody as he goes in real time. And that's what you hear on the final version. Yeah, he did one take and I did. And then I went back and did that guitar and made all that stuff on the spot. That's one take of me doing it like on the fly. So, like to be able to do that now. Yeah. And that's on your record.

[Bo]

Yeah.

[Jade Puget]

And that's your single. Like, that's rad. There's no like pre pro and banging out in the studio. I mean, those things have their place. And going back in the studio and re recording what you wrote, it's like, this is it. This is the final.

[Bo]

You've done that, you know.

[Jade Puget]

Yeah.

[Alec Favor]

And there's so much energy in that particular moment. Like sometimes you get demoitis because you played something in the moment that's so energetic and like, cool. And then when you go to try to recreate it, it just.

[Jade Puget]

Yeah, it's like you did.

[Bo]

You did the least punk record, sonically, scientifically, you recorded in the most punk way. Yeah.

[Alec Favor]

Yeah.

[Jade Puget]

Since a lot of that is one take on that whole record. And Dave is like very much. He's like one of the most natural, authentic people. So the first take for him is when you're going to have the most real.

[Alec Favor]

Right.

[Jade Puget]

Expression from him the first time he ever does it. And that's what I was capturing. And like a lot of times on earlier records I can hear, you know, Jerry and Joe were very hesitant to use autotune or pitch correction. So they would just make Dave, if he was pitchy online, they'd make him do it over and over until they got it right. But you can hear the emotion start to disappear because then now he's just doing it by rote and trying to get a note rather than to give emotion in the line. And so for me, I just want Dave that be the most raw. Even if it's imperfect. Like give like, you know, this record is very.

[Bo]

That emotion is there.

[Alec Favor]

Yeah.

[Jade Puget]

Very raw, the record. Yeah.

[Bo]

You did great.

[Jade Puget]

Thank you.

[Bo]

And we didn't get to talk about. I hadn't heard it before that episode. So this is a. This is me talking about it for the first time. But I love this record.

[Jade Puget]

What did you think when you're doing that episode?

[Bo]

I heard behind the Clock.

[Jade Puget]

Okay.

[Bo]

Because that was out. So. And then him telling me like, oh, it's that. So if you like that, you're gonna love it. If you don't like that, you're gonna hate it. That Was interesting to me. And then I think Holy Visions was. I did get the record, like, that night. Okay. So I think Beau and I drove home, listened to it, and Holy Visions is. Is that the song after behind the Clock, or is there one between the two?

[Jade Puget]

I don't remember. I think you might be right. That might be.

[Bo]

Holy Visions came on, I think next we might have been talking, but that. And we were like. We stopped talking and we're just like, damn, this is sick. And then just sat there and listened to the whole thing and we're like, we don't. I don't know what I was expecting. But, yeah, this is different and. And cool and interesting because it's different and cool. And then no one underground. He talked about how you guys maybe not having it last at some point.

[Jade Puget]

He's like, no.

[Bo]

And he was like, no, please, God.

[Alec Favor]

Yeah.

[Bo]

Which upon hearing it, made a lot of sense.

[Alec Favor]

And now knowing that there's a Chapter Two. Yeah, yeah.

[Jade Puget]

And that one's fun. Live. And he started going crazy on that song, like, towards the second half of this tour. He's like Rollins on that song. He's going nuts. And, you know, he's not. Not going nuts in general, but if there's ever a curtain in a club we're playing, he'll. At the end of that song, runs over and pulls the curtain closed on the stage, like, in the. Like, while we're still playing. And last time we did it, like, the curtain closed on my head, like, I was trying to play, and I was like, those things are heavy.

[Bo]

Yeah.

[Jade Puget]

But he's just, like, rolling around on the ground.

[Bo]

He's, like, bringing it with that song, like, melodically, it's. I mean. And that sounds fun to sing, so. And the fact that that's, like, he hasn't doing stuff in one take means you haven't maybe found the live nuances you're going to be doing for 10 years or any. So now and exact. Now he gets to have fun, and you get to have fun finding those little different ways you change things. It doesn't surprise me that with that song would. Being what it is, like, that just sounds. I want to roll around, you know,

[Alec Favor]

Is there any fear in that doing vocals or doing, like, one take of things that you're not going to find? Maybe the. Not even the best version, but the version and because I think sometimes that'll prevent people from releasing songs just because they are trying to find. Trying to find it.

[Jade Puget]

I just know from working with Dave for almost 30 years and writing music with him and recording him. I know how he works and how he works best.

[Alec Favor]

Yeah.

[Jade Puget]

And when he's doing something for the first time, especially, like, this stuff, he's, like, trying to give it it. He's trying to sell me on the idea that this is the. The best vocal, this is the best melody, these are the best lyrics. And so he's, like, really bringing it because he wants to be like, what I'm doing is. Is going to blow your mind, and he'll never do it the same way again. And so, like, I think the. Sure. If we worked on it, maybe some certain lines could be better, but I just think the realness and the rawness of. Of it. I'd rather have that.

[Alec Favor]

Yeah.

[Bo]

Yeah. And it worked very well.

[Jade Puget]

Thank you.

[Bo]

Great job. Loved it. How. And Run for Cover did this record.

[Jade Puget]

Yeah.

[Bo]

How was working with them?

[Jade Puget]

They're killer.

[Bo]

Yeah.

[Jade Puget]

They, like, come out to shows. Like, they came to Mexico. We played in Mexico City, and they. All these Run for Cover people just flew down to come to, like, really supportive after a while of being with labels that you don't even ever see anyone from the label. Like, I don't know who works with these labels. And every cover is just down.

[Bo]

All right, let's go back to Bodies real quick. Just. We skipped over it. This being like a Pandemic record.

[Jade Puget]

Yeah.

[Bo]

Essentially. Did that affect the. The rollout or the creation of this record at all?

[Jade Puget]

Yeah. You know, it definitely didn't help it. It would have been easier. We weren't doing. We weren't touring. We weren't like, you know, but it was just like, we. It had been done because it was written pre Pandemic. So it's like, how long are we gonna sit on this thing? Like, let's just do it. We can't. At that time, no one could predict.

[Alec Favor]

Yeah.

[Jade Puget]

When things were going to return to normal. So we're just like, let's put it out.

[Bo]

And that worked for some people. It didn't work for some people. But when you did your first shows post Pandemic, they seem good from what I've seen.

[Jade Puget]

Yeah. The first shows were those Palladium shows. Although, little did I know, Adam had Covid, and I was just me and him in a little dressing room all day. I didn't get it there, so.

[Bo]

Okay.

[Jade Puget]

But I was like, you know, first show back, Adam has Covid, so. Yeah.

[Bo]

Okay. So do you look back at Bodies as a. As a positive experience?

[Jade Puget]

Yeah, it was fun. Yeah. I can't really think of any negatives with that other than. I just kind of felt like, like I said, we had kind of finished with this idiom of what we were doing with that style of music and we needed to do something else. But it was fun. Like, writing a song with Billy Corgan was. Was fun. Like, we had never written with someone outside the band before, so that was a new experience. It was cool.

[Alec Favor]

Is that how you feel when you write records often because you're so prolific? That is it kind of like, okay, the next thing for you, like, you finish a record and you're kind of at the end of that cycle or whatever. Is it. Is it just so quick for you to cycle in your mind to the next thing?

[Jade Puget]

Yeah, because I'm writing all the time.

[Alec Favor]

Yeah.

[Jade Puget]

Like, by the time a record comes out, I'm like, that old.

[Alec Favor]

Right.

[Jade Puget]

I've got the nut. I got the new right here. Like, why are we thinking about. It's not even out yet. Yeah. So that's a kind of a curse for me because everything always seems like, oh, that's some stuff we did in the past. Because I've been writing the whole time with new stuff, so that's a little tough to wrap my mind around. Oh, this is our new record.

[Alec Favor]

And then a pandemic record that takes.

[Jade Puget]

Yeah.

[Alec Favor]

So long to come out. I'm sure that's extra.

[Jade Puget]

But that tour was really incredible that we did in the. And we went out with your rad majesty, who I love.

[Alec Favor]

Yeah.

[Jade Puget]

That was a fun time.

[Alec Favor]

Great, man.

[Bo]

You've been busy as hell since this record came out.

[Alec Favor]

Yes.

[Bo]

Tours looked awesome. Response to our episode with Davey was awesome.

[Jade Puget]

That was a great episode.

[Bo]

I mean, it changed things for us. To me, I think he knows how to talk. He does. But it's cool that in that conversation was like, okay, I'm gonna have to talk to Jade about that.

[Jade Puget]

You guys were very kind to me, you and Beau during that conversation. Very complimentary. So that was my intro to hard lore. And so I was like, you know,

[Bo]

hey, we're honest men.

[Jade Puget]

No, thank you.

[Alec Favor]

Of course.

[Bo]

You deserve it. You're going back to the UK finally this year.

[Jade Puget]

I know.

[Bo]

I feel personally responsible for that in some way. Yeah.

[Jade Puget]

I mean, thank you. Appreciate that.

[Bo]

Yeah.

[Jade Puget]

I've always loved the uk. It's just hard to get over there, man. It's expensive.

[Bo]

It is expensive.

[Jade Puget]

And the Deftones, bless their hearts.

[Bo]

True.

[Jade Puget]

Like, they've really been. Last time we went to the UK, the Deftones took us.

[Bo]

Yes. In 2017.

[Jade Puget]

Yeah. So, like, you know, those guys were very instrumental in Getting us over there like those guys.

[Bo]

I need a jade diary from this. From this week of shows. Video diary.

[Jade Puget]

I used to make video diaries, like on December Underground, mainly just filming Smith's antics. They're still online. Man, is hilarious. She looked at it.

[Bo]

Here's one now. That was unbelievable. So somehow after all that, you've got a time to do a brand new hardcore band.

[Jade Puget]

Yeah.

[Bo]

Called Bird Legs, and you put out a record on Revelation.

[Jade Puget]

Yes.

[Bo]

How cool is that?

[Jade Puget]

For me, Very cool.

[Bo]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Jade Puget]

Revelation is from one the 80s. That was the one to me, synonymous with hardcore. Like Revelation and hardcore. Put out all these great records I loved and then to finally get my star after all this. I never thought that would happen. I mean, how would I ever put a record on revelation in 2026, you know? But it happened.

[Bo]

Congrats.

[Jade Puget]

Thank you.

[Bo]

How did it feel to flex the. The core muscles again?

[Jade Puget]

It's crazy. Like, I sat down to write hardcore for the first time since, like straight hardcore since 95. And it was like a new genre to me. Like, I'd never done it because it had been so long that it was completely fresh.

[Bo]

Yeah.

[Jade Puget]

And I ended up writing like, literally like 60 or 70 songs because, like, you know, I. All my songs, I try to make no more than a minute and a half. Some under a minute.

[Alec Favor]

Yeah.

[Jade Puget]

But it was so fun and so creative and so inspiring because I just hadn't done it. It was so. Just. I don't know, I just had all these ideas. So I've already written Ryan and I, the next. The actual Bird Legs full length that we're starting to work on, like a full length record. And I have all these. I. If anyone needs any hardcore songs, I've written a lot of hardcore songs.

[Bo]

All right, we'll be in touch. Do you have now any of the urge to bring that energy back into AFI or.

[Jade Puget]

Just never left me. I've never stopped.

[Bo]

Right.

[Jade Puget]

I've never stopped loving that part of afi. But I understand Dave's perspective on it and I. And I respect his perspective. And what he says is as valid as what I think, 100%. So, you know, and I think that

[Alec Favor]

we have those songs.

[Jade Puget]

That's another thing, you know, and I always think this. It's like if AFI was to put out art of, like a new art of Drowning, that would be whack.

[Alec Favor]

Yeah.

[Jade Puget]

It would just be a pale version of the thing that already exists. And I really believe, like, fans that are like, should do some more stuff like, blah, blah, blah, you know, Black Sails. I think if we really did that. They wouldn't like it. They think they want that, but I don't think people want that. You want AFI of 2026 to go back to when we were kids and write.

[Bo]

Yeah.

[Jade Puget]

Try to pretend to be that again. It's just now I. I think we could do. If we. For some reason we're gonna make aggressive music again, I think there's a way we could do it that's new and aggressive and cool.

[Bo]

I think you just kind of did with no one Underground, you know.

[Jade Puget]

Yeah, exactly. The way that singing is bizarre and new.

[Bo]

Yeah, good.

[Alec Favor]

And aggression comes in. There's aggressive parts in every. On every record. Like.

[Jade Puget]

Yeah.

[Alec Favor]

You know, I think that if you want Fast afi, there's seven records and

[Jade Puget]

we're not going to ever do Fast AFI better than we did it on those records. That is that if you want to listen to the best fast AFI that could be written. We did it.

[Bo]

You really did something. We didn't get into that episode at all. That I'm excited to talk about is your culinary preferences on tour.

[Jade Puget]

Okay. It's. They're very simple and I'm sure.

[Bo]

Listen, I'm sure you guys. I'm sure the catering is great for afi.

[Jade Puget]

Catering?

[Bo]

You don't get catering.

[Jade Puget]

No.

[Bo]

Okay, so let's talk. What do you like?

[Jade Puget]

Well, we have a writer, like all bands.

[Bo]

Okay. That's catering to me.

[Jade Puget]

Okay, well, to me catering is, you know, you do a big tour where they.

[Bo]

Steak and lobster, you know.

[Jade Puget]

No. Or they have people that cook.

[Alec Favor]

Right.

[Bo]

That's crazy.

[Jade Puget]

Yeah, we've been on those. Many of those.

[Bo]

True, true, true, true.

[Jade Puget]

We actually on our big headline tour on December Underground had catering that we brought people cooking food every night. Yeah. We have a writer and it's all the craziest vegan food and potions and. And you know, stuff for Dave, like powders and potions for him.

[Alec Favor]

Yeah.

[Jade Puget]

And I'll literally eat oatmeal slices of gluten free bread with nothing on them.

[Bo]

You gluten free?

[Jade Puget]

No, but that's. But that's what's there.

[Alec Favor]

Okay.

[Bo]

Okay.

[Jade Puget]

And I used to eat this vegan meat on there, but it's not on our writer anymore. It was vegan cheese. And so now I just eat the bread with nothing on it and. And then I'll eat, you know, Amy's meals.

[Bo]

Yeah, those are good.

[Jade Puget]

I'll eat an Amy's meal, a vegan Amy's meal before we go on. And that's my. Pretty much everything.

[Bo]

That's every day.

[Alec Favor]

You Know you don't explore food when you're in like a town.

[Jade Puget]

No, because first of all, there's nothing grosser than eating some heavy meal and going on stage.

[Alec Favor]

I do it every time.

[Bo]

That's one of our favorite things to do.

[Jade Puget]

Yeah. You guys, is. You guys praise of, of this ill fast food.

[Bo]

It's not praise, it's survival also.

[Alec Favor]

Hold on. Well, we're doing less fast. We're going to, we're going to restaurants now.

[Jade Puget]

Yeah. Okay.

[Bo]

Where you sit down cuisine is a accelerated beyond.

[Jade Puget]

But you know, if you go, you know you love McDonald's, right.

[Bo]

Who's to say?

[Jade Puget]

But if you say it's a survival thing, you can easily go into like a grocery store and get X, Y and Z.

[Bo]

Sometimes the stores close, you know.

[Jade Puget]

Okay, it sounds like you're creating a problem for yourself.

[Alec Favor]

Leave the gig a problem. Leave the gig at 1am Hopefully.

[Bo]

What are you going to do? You know?

[Jade Puget]

Yeah, I mean, I lived that life for many years. I mean, I.

[Bo]

And what were you eating?

[Jade Puget]

Taco Bell.

[Bo]

Exactly.

[Jade Puget]

Yeah. I mean, you know, and you're not

[Alec Favor]

vegan, so you can.

[Bo]

Yeah, you can get the bean and cheese now.

[Jade Puget]

I just want to. First of all, I don't want to get food poisoning. Of course I have this fear. I'm eating strange food every day in a different city. Yeah, I'm gonna get food poisoning. I do eat chipotle.

[Alec Favor]

That's food poisoning, number one.

[Bo]

Yeah, that's. They got, they got algae in there.

[Jade Puget]

I feel like they've been hit by food poisoning so many times now that they're very careful.

[Alec Favor]

That's possible.

[Bo]

What's in the lettuce?

[Jade Puget]

I don't eat the lettuce. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. The number one. E. Coli.

[Bo]

Yeah.

[Jade Puget]

Purveyor.

[Bo]

Yeah, they love E. Coli. Yeah.

[Jade Puget]

Yeah. So I don't have the lettuce on etchipotle.

[Bo]

Okay, so that's your pick on days

[Jade Puget]

off, I have chipotle.

[Alec Favor]

Okay.

[Jade Puget]

Yeah. That's like my treat.

[Bo]

And do you feel like.

[Jade Puget]

No.

[Bo]

Okay.

[Jade Puget]

I feel good.

[Bo]

You get the sofritas?

[Jade Puget]

No, I get a burrito bowl, rice, cheese and beans.

[Alec Favor]

That's it?

[Jade Puget]

Yeah, that's it.

[Bo]

Yeah.

[Alec Favor]

You're not even getting the tofu. The sofritos. Oh, I love the sofritos.

[Jade Puget]

I want that mess on my. Messing up my rice and beans and cheese. Soupy ass sofritas.

[Bo]

No guac or anything.

[Jade Puget]

I'm a pure, a purity man.

[Bo]

Like, you know, that's gotta be like $4.

[Jade Puget]

I used to. My order at Subway was A foot long piece of bread with cheese.

[Bo]

But you're so. You're one of those guys. You can. You cannot gain weight no matter what, huh?

[Jade Puget]

I have pretty crazy metabolism. Yeah, but you're eating bread and cheese at home, though. I pig out. Okay. My wife is a really good cook.

[Alec Favor]

Okay.

[Jade Puget]

And I pig out. I'm 52 now. You know, it doesn't like.

[Bo]

You look great.

[Jade Puget]

Thank you. It doesn't. You know, the metabolism won't last forever, but I. Luckily I've never. I never even as a kid had a fat.

[Bo]

I think if it lasts till 52, it's gonna last forever.

[Jade Puget]

Yeah, I mean, I, you know, I got my hair and I. I'm not. I'm not a thumb yet, so I'm okay.

[Bo]

Thumb is killing me. What about coffee?

[Jade Puget]

I love coffee. Just recently I started drinking decaf. What?

[Bo]

Damn.

[Jade Puget]

I know. My one advice. I've been straight edge my whole, you know.

[Bo]

Yeah, but is it advice?

[Alec Favor]

It's not advice. Don't let him fool you.

[Bo]

You do that thing where you try. Try the thing. Okay, so you don't drink caffeine now.

[Jade Puget]

More for, like, health reasons.

[Bo]

Okay.

[Jade Puget]

Because has your life improved? I started doing it a few days ago. So. Yeah, this is like. This is like I just said. My doctor just said, like, you should not drink caffeine.

[Bo]

What is he.

[Jade Puget]

The only thing I do. And she's like, what does she know? It's like, where'd you go to school? I went to Berkeley.

[Bo]

What's your social theory about caffeine?

[Jade Puget]

It's that it's great. I mean, you know, it's straight edge. What does Ian think about caffeine?

[Bo]

Yeah, he said, you know, your friend, you.

[Alec Favor]

Yeah, okay. Yeah.

[Jade Puget]

If Ian says it's okay, he does. Then I'm drinking.

[Bo]

You got to get back on it.

[Jade Puget]

I should have told my doctor that.

[Bo]

Yes, you should tell your doctor. You based off what Ian says? Yeah, we should have a cup right now in there, celebrate.

[Jade Puget]

That's crazy.

[Bo]

I know.

[Alec Favor]

Whatever I'm doing it, I'll do it with you.

[Bo]

All right, I have one final question for you. Could you tell us your top four hardcore records of all time?

[Jade Puget]

Okay. So, you know, there's this thing where people are like, hardcore means hardcore punk, and it also hardcore. I had this discussion with Damien Abraham and I'm like, to me, hardcore has always meant. Even though I was listening to punk in the mid-80s, hardcore has always meant hardcore. Capital H, New York, hardcore, The mags af, like, et cetera, et cetera. That's hardcore. Let's just call that as the punk. I love that stuff too. That's where. That's my first love. So I'm gonna say my first. My top four punk records.

[Bo]

Oh.

[Jade Puget]

Hardcore punk records. And then I'll tell you my first four.

[Bo]

I love it, Jade.

[Jade Puget]

So Suicidal Tendencies, self titled first record. Mdc. Millions of Dead Cops. Like incredible record. Very important record for me. Black Flag, Nervous Breakdown, Technically an ep,

[Bo]

but that doesn't matter.

[Jade Puget]

I mean, you. You gotta. This is tough. Because Fear, the record is a really important one for me. Dead Kennedies.

[Bo]

Fresh Fruit.

[Jade Puget]

Rotting Vegetables.

[Bo]

That's.

[Jade Puget]

But there's Bar Religion. How can hell be any worse? So that four spots, that's multiple choice germs. I mean, yeah, okay. I was kind of a cop out, but okay. So top four, we're gonna call it.

[Bo]

Okay.

[Jade Puget]

Top five, Capital H. Hardcore Records. Youth Today. Break down the Walls. Yes. Agnostic Front. Victim of Pain.

[Alec Favor]

Yes.

[Jade Puget]

Gotta Be Chromag's Age of Coral. I have to say, just from my personal journey, Earth Crisis. Destroy the Machines.

[Bo]

Unbelievable job, Jade. Just a lot. Even the extra credit, you crushed that.

[Alec Favor]

Yeah.

[Jade Puget]

Thank you.

[Alec Favor]

Sounds like you wanted to say another one.

[Jade Puget]

I mean, I could keep going. I mean, I could do a top, you know. I've left out so many important records, so many important bands and records.

[Bo]

You nailed it, though. You absolutely smoked the assignment.

[Jade Puget]

Thank you.

[Bo]

Well, Jay, this was just a blast. Thank you so much for being here.

[Jade Puget]

Thanks for having me.

[Bo]

Anytime. Every time. I need the tour diary from uk. Of course.

[Jade Puget]

Yeah. And shout out to Bo. I wish I could have.

[Alec Favor]

Shout out to Bo.

[Jade Puget]

I wish I could have met him in person today.

[Bo]

He wish you.

[Jade Puget]

Amazing.

[Alec Favor]

Thank you. I. I mean, I would rather be listening to it in a couple weeks than be sitting here, to be honest.

[Bo]

He's here.

[Jade Puget]

You know, I see him.

[Bo]

He heard the whole thing and he loved it. And he loved you. He loved fi. Let's do an epilogue for Beau. Tell me a little bit more about your Les Paul.

[Jade Puget]

Les Paul?

[Bo]

Yeah.

[Jade Puget]

What do you want to know about Les Paul's your.

[Bo]

If you're picking up a Les Paul at home to write, tell me about the. The. You're the Les Paul.

[Jade Puget]

My original the Les Paul was my black Les Paul standard that I played every single part of. Every single song on Black Sails and Art of Drowning and some on Sing of Sorrow that got stolen out of a storage space with 20 other guitars, which is sad.

[Bo]

Yeah.

[Jade Puget]

But nowadays I do have a the Les Paul. And It's a cloud 9:59 reissue weight relief.

[Bo]

Oh.

[Alec Favor]

So it's nice and light.

[Jade Puget]

Very light. Sounds amazing. I. We were doing Burials. I called down to Gibson and I'm like, can you just send me a guitar that I can play in pre production? Just whatever, whatever you have laying around doesn't have to be something cool. So they send me this guitar and it's got no head badge. I'm like, what is this? It's clearly a Les Paul. And so I had it forever. And I finally called the custom shop. I'm like, I have this Les Paul. I don't know what it is. And I was describing it and I read them the serial number and they're like, oh, that's like a cloud nine. Which is basically these guitar stores in the Midwest got together and had Gibson make them a limited run of these reissue Les Paul's that were weight relief and we shouldn't have sent you that because that's a very rare guitar and. But he's like, you've had it for so long, now it's yours.

[Bo]

Okay.

[Jade Puget]

But you know, we up.

[Bo]

Wow.

[Jade Puget]

And it's an incredible guitar. My best lust ball fall free.

[Bo]

There you go, Bo. Thank you so much.

[Alec Favor]

Thank you.

[Bo]

Jade Puget, everybody. Silver Blades. The black sun is out now. Bird Legs is. They got 60 more songs coming. Revelation Records.

[Alec Favor]

It's unbelievable.

[Bo]

He finally got his star. You're going to see them a lot this year. You're going to hear new AFI at some point. He revealed to us in a very special manner. And I hope you have you back someday. This was great.

[Alec Favor]

Absolutely.

[Bo]

Thank you. If you have any parting words for the world, it would be right there.

[Jade Puget]

That's it.

[Bo]

That was good. Jade Puget, everybody. Thank you all so much for watching. We'll see you next week. Bye.