AFI is a US rock band from Ukiah, California, formed in 1991 and active from 1991 to the present. The group is also known as A Fire Inside. Its members include Davey Havok, Adam Carson, Hunter Burgan and Jade Puget, and earlier members include Vic Chalker, Markus Stopholese and Geoff Kresge. AFI releases music through Ex Noctem Nacimur Music and is associated with alternative rock, emo, hardcore punk, punk, punk rock and rock.

Background

AFI begins as a hardcore punk band before expanding into a wider range of styles. Havok and Carson remain the only original members. The lineup stabilises in 1998 around Havok on lead vocals, Carson on drums and backing vocals, Burgan on bass, backing vocals and keyboards, and Puget on guitar, backing vocals and keyboards.

Releases and chart success

The band issues eleven studio albums, ten EPs, one live album and one DVD. Its first significant commercial breakthrough comes with its fifth album, The Art of Drowning (2000), which reaches number 174 on the Billboard 200. The follow-up, Sing the Sorrow (2003), becomes the band’s mainstream breakthrough, peaking at number five on the Billboard 200 and remaining on the chart for 51 weeks.

Sing the Sorrow also produces the singles “Girl's Not Grey” and “Silver and Cold”, both of which reach number seven on America’s Hot Modern Rock Tracks chart in 2003. “The Leaving Song Pt. II” is also released as a single and reaches number 16 on the same chart. The album is certified Platinum by the RIAA in 2006 and becomes AFI’s best-selling release, with sales of over 1.26 million copies as of September 2009.

The band’s seventh album, Decemberunderground (2006), debuts at number one on the Billboard 200. It includes “Miss Murder”, which tops the Hot Modern Rock Tracks chart and reaches number 24 on the Billboard Hot 100, and “Love Like Winter”, which reaches number four on the Modern Rock Tracks chart. Decemberunderground is certified Platinum by the RIAA in 2013.

Later albums include Crash Love (2009), which peaks at number twelve on the Billboard 200, and Burials (2013), which peaks at number nine. The band’s tenth studio album, AFI (The Blood Album), is released in 2017 and peaks at number five on the Billboard 200.