Davey Havok

**David Paden Marchand** (born **David Paden Passaro**, November 20, 1975), known professionally as **Davey Havok**, is an American singer and musician who is a member of the alternative rock band AFI. He is the band's lead singer.

## Early Life

Havok was born David Paden Passaro, in Rochester, New York, on November 20, 1975. He is of Italian ancestry.

When Havok was five, his father died, and he and his mother moved from Rochester to Sacramento, California, to be closer to family. His mother remarried and Havok took on the surname of his stepfather (Marchand), and was enrolled in Catholic school through eighth grade. The family moved to Ukiah, California, in the late 1980s, where he graduated from Ukiah High School in 1993.

Following high school, Havok attended University of California, Berkeley, as an English and Psychology double major. Following his sophomore year, his career with AFI took off and Havok did not return to the university.

## Career

### AFI

Havok and his friends, Mark Stopholese and Vic Chalker, decided to start a band in high school, even though they did not own or play any instruments. Stopholese suggested that his friend, Adam Carson, might be able to fill the role of drummer because he owned a drum set. They became AFI.

After high school, the band broke up when its members left for college. Havok attended UC Berkeley where he took on a double major in English and psychology. There, he began writing lyrics which would later appear on AFI's first two albums.

After gaining some popularity in their absence, AFI played a reunion show at the Phoenix Theater for several hundred fans. Following the positive reception, they decided to reunite and record an album. In 1995, the band's first album, *Answer That and Stay Fashionable*, was released on Wingnut Records and in 1996, their second album, *Very Proud of Ya*, was released on Nitro Records. In 1997, the band released their third full-length album, *Shut Your Mouth and Open Your Eyes*.

The next release was the *A Fire Inside* EP, which features covers of The Cure's "The Hanging Garden" and "Demonomania" by the Misfits. In 1999, the band released *Black Sails in the Sunset*, which was the first album to include the current line-up: Havok, Carson, Hunter Burgan and Jade Puget. In the fall of 1999, they released the *All Hallows* EP.

In 2000, they released *The Art of Drowning* to fair record sales. The group had toured with another band, Samhain, on their reunion tour; Havok later joined three members of Samhain and recorded an album under the name Son of Sam. In 2000 when Michale Graves had left the Misfits, Havok was approached by Roadrunner Records to be the new lead singer of Misfits. However, Havok told an interviewer that he would never leave AFI as it was his own band.

AFI continued to tour for a few years and released a few EPs along the way. In 2003, the band's first major label release, *Sing the Sorrow*, was released, achieving Platinum status in the US and Canada and Gold in Australia. On June 6, 2006, *Decemberunderground* was released on Interscope Records, again achieving Platinum status in the US and Canada and Gold in Australia. Havok, along with AFI, toured around the world.

Along with this concert series, AFI's first DVD, *I Heard a Voice – Live from Long Beach Arena* was released on December 12, 2006, containing the live concert from Long Beach Arena from September 15, 2006. This DVD was released as a CD-version in November 2007. Decemberunderground achieved Double Platinum status in 2013, having sold more than 2,000,000 copies worldwide. AFI's eighth studio album *Crash Love* was released on September 29, 2009, and their ninth studio album, *Burials*, was released on October 22, 2013.

In late 2016, AFI released a series of teaser videos featuring song clips and backwards audio, eventually revealed to be promotion for the band's tenth album, *AFI* (also known as *The Blood Album*), which was released on January 20, 2017 via Concord Music Group. Their eleventh album, *Bodies*, was released on June 11, 2021.

### Fashion and modeling

Havok and Jeffree Star modeled for Tarina Tarantino's jewelry line, Tokyo Hardcore in 2007. Havok was a presenter at the Mélange Fashion Show on August 6, 2011 in San Francisco. He was featured in the June 2012 issue of *VAR Magazine*  and in *Herring & Herring: Framed* in 2014.

### Acting

Havok played a supporting role in Sarah Jacobson's 1997 film *Mary Jane's Not a Virgin Anymore*. In 2009, Havok joined the cast of the "illustrated film" series *Godkiller*. Havok voices the antagonist role, a fallen god named Dragos. For March 2011, Havok joined the cast of Green Day's *American Idiot* on Broadway, playing the role of St. Jimmy. Havok is featured in at least one episode of Tim Armstrong's musical web series "Tim Timebomb's RockNRoll Theatre". In addition to Armstrong's web show, Havok voiced Hay in Armstrong's 2006 stop motion animated film Live Freaky! Die Freaky! which tells the story of the Manson family. He had a small acting role in the 2012 film *Knife Fight*.

## Other ventures

### Books

On February 21, 2013, Havok announced that he had written his first book, *Pop Kids*, and published it through Black Candy Publishing. The novel was released April 2013. Havok released his second book, *Love Fast Los Angeles*, in February 2018.

### Clothing lines

Glitterboy was a short-lived fashion line created by Havok. It was partly inspired by the 70s glam music scene, among other things. Clothing line Paden was released in 2007 and was available exclusively through Fred Segal clothing stores in California.

Havok's second line, Zu Boutique, was launched in August 2008. The line was vegan and featured T-shirts with a limited pressing of 100 shirts per design. The line "pays homage to pop culture, forward thinking, and hedonism". A jewelry line was released in March 2009 in collaboration with PNUT Jewelry, the side project of Rusty Pistachio of punk band H2O fame. The jewelry was also limited, with only 10 to 90 pieces of each design made. In August 2009, in collaboration with Macbeth Footwear, Zu released a line of limited-edition shoes. Plagued by legal trouble, Zu Boutique vanished in 2012. Havok continues to collaborate with PNUT Jewelry.

## Personal life

Havok is a vegan and was voted the winner of peta2's annual *World's Sexiest Vegetarian* contest in 2007. Havok appeared on the cover of *Vegan Health and Fitness* magazine for their March/April 2015 issue. He has said reading *Diet for a New America* by John Robbins caused him to adopt a vegan diet.

In more recent years, Havok had some of his tattoos "blacked out", saying, "I'm constantly changing, and it's an attempt to cover up bad decisions with worse decisions. That's how I live life."

## Discography

### with AFI

> *See: AFI discography*
>
>

### with Blaqk Audio

* *CexCells* (2007)
* *Bright Black Heaven* (2012)
* *Material* (2016)
* *Only Things We Love* (2019)
* *Beneath the Black Palms* (2020)

## Side projects

* Son of Sam (2000 - 2001)
* Blaqk Audio (2006 - present)
* XTRMST (2012 - 2015)
* Dreamcar (2016 - present)

## Acting roles

* 1997: *Mary Jane's Not a Virgin Anymore*
* 2003: *Clandestine*
* 2006: *Live Freaky! Die Freaky!*
* 2009: *Godkiller: Walker Among Us* & *New Brow: The Rise of Underground Art*
* 2011: *American Idiot* & *Tim Timebomb's RockNRoll Theater*
* 2012: *Knife Fight*
* 2015: *Talking Marriage with Ryan Bailey*, *Darknet Delivery: A Silk Road Story* & *Dacryphilia*
* 2019: *Harvey Girls Forever!*

## Trivia

* Davey's height is 5'10".
* He doesn't like the term "emo" when describing the band, saying it's "insulting".
* He is one of the four founding members of AFI, the others being Adam Carson, Vic Chalker, and Mark Stopholese.
* He is one of the two remaining original members, Carson is the other one.

## Notes

1. ↑ **Son of Sam**: This is only when he was in the band as they are still active