As he raced up the West Coast of the USA for a series of intimate shows celebrating the release of their new record Burials, I caught up with Soundwave festival bound Jade Puget of AFI to talk about their return to the festival, their new album and much, much more!
I understand you’re in Portland at the moment – playing the Roseland tomorrow night?
Yeah that’s right!
You’re going up the West Coast up to Vancouver playing some intimate venues.
Yeah, we’ve gone all around the place and now we’re doing the West Coast.
How have the shows gone?
Yeah, well we decided that because we hadn’t been out of the road for three years, that we’d start off playing some more intimate shows… the shows have been really great. After being away for so long we weren’t sure what to expect, but we’ve really been pretty gratified to have had the great response we’ve had.
Not to mention the venue’s you’re getting to play are quite iconic. From the Commodore in Vancouver to Mohawks in Austin and then the Troubadour in LA…
Definitely – and we’ve played a lot of them in the past, too, so it’s nice to revisit those rooms again.
In the midst of this tour, you’ve released your long awaited new record Burials – has there been a noticeable change in the shows since it was released?
I wouldn’t say a noticable change, no, but people definitely know the new songs a bit more, and are singing along. But one thing that has been consistent on the shows is that we can look out into the crowds and see people who love all different types of genres of music. It’s great that they can all come together and enjoy what we do.
And you’ve always been a band that’s attracted that cross-genre pull…
Yeah, we’ve been lucky to have… I’m sure it’s helped that we’ve dabbled ourselves in different genres!
After this brief tour… in between there and Soundwave, what are you guys going to be up to?
We are hopefully going to be up to absolutely nothing over the holidays, and enjoy a bit of time off… And then once the holidays are over start up again!
And then you’re coming back to Australia!
Yeah we’re very excited to come back to Australia. The last time we were there… except for the brief tour Davey and I did (as Blaqk Audio in 2012)… was all the way back in 2010 (for Soundwave) so it’s exciting to come back.
That was a great run of shows… Faith No More headlined that year from memory.
Yeah it was. And it’s funny to see the lineup being so different this year… I don’t know if that’s just how it goes, like each year there’s sort of a different vibe to it. Like we had Faith No More and Janes Addiction our year… and 2014 definitely seems to be heavier. It’ll be great to be a part of it.
And they’ll be your first big shows since the release of the record, too…
Yeah, I mean we played a couple festivals earlier this year, but these will definitely be among the biggest shows we’ve done. And I really remember our last Soundwave experience fondly. Except for the insanely hot sun beating down on my head the whole time.
Some of the venues have changed since you were last year, so hopefully there’ll be some more shade for you.
I would thank Australia greatly for that!
And I guess we should talk about the record now. It’s been out for about a week now, congratulations on Burials! It’s been a while in the making…
Thank you! Yeah, we definitely take our time on our records. But we’re really happy with it. And that’s all we’re ever striving for… to make something we’re happy with. I mean you can pander and try to make something that you think others will like, but I don’t believe that’s the way to do it. We want to make something we like enough that we hope people like and connect with. You never know how it’s going to go… but we never rush it. Maybe we should! It has been a long time. But yeah it’s great to finally have something out there for people.
There were some changes with labels and things like that with the new record… did that change things at all in the process of putting the album together?
Not in putting it together, no. The new label (Republic Records) haven’t tried to get involved at all in the creative side, or trying to tell us what to do. So far they’ve been awesome and very supportive… cool people… they’re about music, they understand music… nothing more you could hope for from them!
And you worked with the legendary producer Gil Norton on the record. What was it like working with him?
Gil’s great. He’s such a cool dude. So laid back and easy to work with. His track record speaks for itself. We almost worked with him on our last record (2009’s Crash Love) but this time it finally happened, and yeah it was great. Nothing but positive things I can say about the experience.
And he’s got nothing but an eclectic taste himself, working with Surfer Blood, Pixies and yourselves in the last year…
He does a cool mix of projects. He definitely was a fan of the songs we were doing, too, which was all we really wanted. He wasn’t just doing it to do it. And on the ablity side… well, we made this record faster than any record we’ve made since the 90s, so to me that was a big win.
What do you put that down to?
Well we said going in that we didn’t want to take months in the studio like in the past… for the last few records. We wanted to get in there, do it… cut the fat, and give it all a sense of urgency. It’s just not smart anymore to do that (spend months in the studio). Gil was instrumental in bringing that out of us. We went in there and banged it out in a month and a half, which is pretty crazy for us.
Looking back to the more intimate shows you’re doing now, I imagine you’re not just getting to explore these newer songs, but also your back catalogue in an interesting way…
With nine records to choose from, it’s really hard to make the setlist every night. And I’m the one that puts that together… there’s so much material. We keep it to a small group of songs though that we generally play, but last night we did a song called “Three and a Half”, which was a pretty obscure cut from an early EP… I can’t even remember the last time we played that. We’re definitely throwing some interesting stuff in there that crowds haven’t heard in a long time.
And probably not even by you guys!
No! And like with that track, we hadn’t rehearsed it so all I could think of for Davey was “man, I hope you remember the lyrics! Because we’re springing this on you!”
Have you ever surprised him a bit too much?
I always assume he looks at the setlist before we play, but sometimes I can tell that he hasn’t… there was a song we did earlier in the tour where he couldn’t remember the lyrics, and he has to ask the front row (of die hard fans) to help him out. But when you haven’t played a song like that in ten years, you can’t really expect it!
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AFI‘s new album Burials is in stores now. The band are returning to Australia next February to play Soundwave Festival 2014. Tickets are on sale now! Dates and details can be found at http://www.soundwavefestival.com/
