In Thursday’s edition of “did not expect that” news, Billboard is reporting that Davey Havok, lead singer of the Bay Area-based rock group AFI, has started a supergroup with all the members of No Doubt who aren’t Gwen Stefani: guitarist Tom Dumont, bassist Tony Kanal, and drummer Adrian Young.
As of press time, the band is unnamed and without a label but they do have a manager — Green Day’s Pat Magnarella — and have already completed their first record, according to reports.
The Voltron-like assemblage of this new group, which could be best described as the emo/ska/pop version of Audioslave, comes at an opportune time for both bands. Last year, after a successful tour pushing the disappointing Push and Shove, Stefani hired a new manager and began concentrating on her next solo album, leaving her longtime group in the lurch. As for Havok, AFI, which he co-founded while living in Ukiah back in the early ’90s, haven’t released a new album since 2013’s Burials.
The question is, what will this group sound like? Audioslave, a collaboration between Soundgarden’s Chris Cornell and the non-singing members of Rage Against the Machine, certainly created music that sounded well-beyond a simple mashup between their two former groups. Being that both bands come from punk backgrounds — remember when No Doubt covered Bad Brains? — one could guess that they’ll tap into this common ground. Maybe Havok will even bust out his old jar of pomade and go back to aping Misfits-era Glenn Danzig?
