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new AFI effort underway (the new AFI
(The Blood Album), he nevertheless
pounced on the chance to see where the
trio’s as-yet-unformed concept might lead.
“And in a couple of days, he sent us his
ideas back, and the rest is history,” says
Kanal. “We got in a room and started
working on stuff, and all four of those ini-
tial ideas made the album. Then we went
on to write 25 more ideas together, so we
had close to 30 songs, of which 12 made
the album.”
There were two difficult aspects to
launching the franchise, Kanal, 46,
explains. The first was secrecy, recogniza-
ble musicians from two such high-profile
groups getting together in an L.A. studio
without arousing any ‘What are these guys
up to?’ suspicion. The music came easy.
The camaraderie came easy. Playing organ-
ic, unforced music together in one room
came easy. But keeping it all on the down-
low did not. But over nearly three hush-
hush years, the quartet mapped out its
retro-hip ‘80s-reverent path, and put the
finishing touches on its eponymous full- Dreamcar, perhaps a subtle homage to
Peter Murphy’s old spinoff with the late
Mick Karn, Dalis Car. But one thing’s for
certain – Dreamcar allowed Havok to
stretch his full vampiric wingspan, as he
flutters Bela Lugosi-like over the group’s
often upbeat Modern English-textured
tones. And Kanal loves that light/dark
contrast.
“I think Davey gets to explore different
things with Dreamcar that he doesn’t nec-
essarily get to explore with his other differ-
ent projects,” says Kanal, a longtime fan of
legendary, bass-heavy ‘80s outfits like The
Cure, New Order. “So for all of us, this has
been a great creative exercise in experi-
mentation, where we got to do things with-
out any limits. Because nobody knew
about the band, there was no expectation
for so long. We didn’t have a record com-
pany that we had to run stuff by, we didn’t
have a manager that we had to play stuff
to. We were just doing this for the music’s
sake. So it was like, ‘Does that sound cool,
doing that?’ ‘Yeah. That sounds cool.’
‘Okay, good.’ So we got to follow our pas-
lengther, which it will be premiering via a
handful of West coast club dates, which
Kanal couldn’t wait to play. “We haven’t
done clubs for a long time,” he sighs. “So
I’m excited to get back onstage so my girls
can see me play and go, ‘Oh – so that’s
what my dad does.’” Still, there were a
couple of close calls, where certain out-
siders nearly caught on to the truth. Like
the time in 2015, when all four performers
left their studio sanctuary (where Tim
Pagnotta was producing) to grab some cof-
fee at a nearby roastery. “The kid who was
working there kind of put it all together,
but we were like, ‘Oh, we’re just hanging
out,’ but he still suspected something
more,” he adds. “But for the most part, we
were able to keep it secret for a really long
time.”
The second obstacle? Kanal laughs.
Believe it or not, the simple act of choosing
a name. No sooner had they settled on a
particular moniker than they would dis-
cover that it was already being used by
another group elsewhere in the world, or
that – upon reflection – it didn’t sound so
cool after all. Sometimes it took a signifi-
cant other chiming in, calling it the worst
title they’d ever heard, to dissuade them
from proceeding with it. Eventually, it was
up to Havok to choose the winning sion, our seeds of passion that were grow-
ing. And for four guys that have been in
the music industry for such a long time, to
press the reset button and start fresh with
our creativity?” He sighs. “That is a really
rare thing to happen.”
Asked to pinpoint his ‘80s desert island
discs, the bassist gets uneasy. He hates that
question because he’s certain that he’ll
make several glaring omissions that he’ll
truly regret later. But he arrives at some
interesting choices, like Sigue Sigue
Sputnik’s underrated debut Flaunt It, plus
classic sets from his hero Prince, like Under
the Cherry Moon and the adventurous
Around the World in a Day. And he admits
to being on a huge Thompson Twins binge
for the past several months (“My wife can
confirm this,” he adds). Which led to some
of the edgier mixes he attempted at
Pagnotta’s urging, like the funky fretwork
heard throughout “On the Charts.” His ini-
tial plan was to waive his No Doub