Rock
AFI’s Davey Havok reveals wild label ideas: 'They wanted us to collab with 50 Cent… and make a ringtone album'
Davey Havok has lifted the lid on the bizarre industry requests AFI faced in the mid‑2000s, including a proposed 50 Cent collaboration and a full album made entirely of ringtones.
AFI frontman Davey Havok has shared some of the strangest label ideas ever thrown at the band - including a proposed team‑up with rapper 50 Cent and a pitch for the world’s first “ringtone album”.
Speaking in a new interview, the lead singer of the goth rock band recalled the chaos that followed AFI’s move from Dreamworks to Interscope.
He told Metal Hammer magazine: “We had signed to Dreamworks, but they sold it to Interscope. Bummer."
According to Havok, their A and R rep was determined to get the attention of label boss Jimmy Iovine, who had publicly declared that “rock is dead”. That led to one particularly baffling suggestion.
He recalled: “Our A and R guy was hellbent on trying to get Jimmy Iovine - who had expressly claimed in the press that rock is dead - to pay attention to AFI, and so it was suggested that we collab with Jimmy’s great love at the time, which was 50 Cent."
Havok added: “I have nothing against 50 Cent, but what does that even mean?!”
Despite AFI’s breakthrough success with their 2003 album Sing The Sorrow, Havok says the strange ideas kept coming.
The band’s rep even pitched a tech‑driven stunt during the height of the ringtone craze.
Havok said: “Even worse was this was the era when ringtones were the new technology craze.
“I love this man [their then‑A and R] and I still see him once a month at the least, but this motherf***** says to me, ‘What if you were to be the first band to write a ringtone album?’”
AFI crossed into the mainstream at the time. Sing The Sorrow hit number five on the Billboard 200. while its follow‑up, 2006’s Decemberunderground, debuted at number one and produced the band’s biggest hit, Miss Murder. But Havok admits the single’s legacy frustrates him.
He said: “It breaks my heart that Miss Murder will always represent us.
“I don’t dislike Miss Murder, it’s a pretty good song! But never, even when we wrote it, did I think that it was the greatest song. I even voted to not put it on the record… I have campaigned to keep it off the setlist and recently succeeded.”
Fortunately, AFI survived the ringtone era and the 50 Cent pitch.
