What was the first ever AFI song you heard and when? Mine was Miseria Cantare, I honestly don’t remember what year just after 2004 is all I know
3 Likes
“Initiation, Lost Souls” of TAOD.
I was consumed. 
EDIT: I just realized I never said “when” this happened. So, this happened in 2000. I was in High School and a friend of mine encouraged me to listen to a CD of a new album from a band he enjoyed. To him at the time, I think he generally liked AFI but I don’t think he was confined to them at all.
Regardless, he gave me his headphones and I began listening to (without knowing what it was, other than him telling me “you gotta listen to this new AFI CD”) Initiation, into Lost Souls. I remember how much I loved Initiation. It had the creepy vibe to it with how the music was hovering all around you it seemed, then all of a sudden it smacked you in the face. I loved it.
When I listened to Lost Souls… I was completely sold. I loved Davey’s voice, especially when he sings, “I will! I’ll seep under your skin! I will! I’ll hold onto your heart! I will!”. With that being said, I’ve even thought about having the lyrics, “You’ve made me perfect” on my back because of how much AFI changed me life.
2 Likes
“He Who Laughs Last”, Go Ahead Punk… comp, fall 1996. (And then “Wake-Up Call” like 10 minutes later or whatever.)
I clearly remember a friend telling me about this CD shortly after the start of my freshman year of high school. It has an unreleased Offspring song! (A cover, and technically it had been released before, but not on a full length. Still, certainly a selling point for 14 year olds in 1996.) It has the Vandals and Guttermouth and Jughead’s Revenge! (We were aware of these bands from flyers in other bands’ liner notes.) He didn’t even mention AFI.
So I got it and went to school the next day and was all “DUDE, THIS OTHER BAND THAT YOU DIDN’T TELL ME ABOUT.” Then I spent the next four years doing that to anyone else who would listen. Ha.
3 Likes
Yep, I have this comp. That’s an awesome story btw.
Brownie Bottom Sundae… around 1997… heard the song after a girl I was dating told me about them … and after that I was hooked… 20 years … 15 or so shows and the devotion and love for this band has never gone away
2 Likes
I love these stories.
Great thread @MissLivHavok
BTW I added to mine. I didn’t realize how short I made my post. I gave some back history.
1 Like
Oh thank you, I really appreciate that coming from you! 
2 Likes
Strength Through Wounding in 2001. I was on a choir trip and Black Sails in the Sunset called to me from the sale bin in a Hot Topic (as our choir teacher brought us to a mall to burn a few hours). Got on the bus, put it in my discman…hooked. I was like ‘where are the people who listen to this? I need to find them, they are my people’
The rest of my jazz choir mostly decided I was weirder than they already thought I was
3 Likes
To this I say, “Fuck you, AFI for closing the DF boards!” 
Shit, it only took me till 2017 to make these forums. 
But yeah, THIS is how I felt when I saw AFI again in February, 2017.
Great story!
2 Likes
Said this on Twitter…but I guess I need to reply here as well “Girls not grey”…around 2003 on MTV…still one of my favorite songs of all times…
Funny enough…It wasn’t until a couple years ago that I watched the video on YouTube and started digging deeper into AFI…after that…I became a fan for life
5 Likes
“Malleus Maleficarum.”
I was 11. My “uncle” is really into music and knew how much I like the occult and how I had actually read the Malleus Maleficarum at that point and decided that I needed to listen to this song. He played it for me, and I was hooked (partially because there was someone out there in the world who knew what the Malleus is…LOL).
3 Likes
when I started to read your response, the song came on😋
1 Like
Ha, you’ve gotta be in like, <1% of AFI fans who knew the book before the song.
1 Like
I’m a weird person and was an equally weird kid. I mean, I was nine when I read Malleus the first time. And then 10 when I read the accompanying demonology book. Fun fact: guy who wrote Malleus and the demonology book was the King who commissioned the Bible most people read- the King James Bible. That Demonology book is allegedly the inspiration for a lot of the supernatural elements of Macbeth.
2 Likes
First song I heard was love like winter, it was on 2008 
2 Likes
“The Boy Who Destroyed the World”. February 2006. (Or maybe even 2005.) On Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3. Didn’t know that song was by AFI. That is to say, I knew AFI had a song called “The Boy Who Destroyed the World” but I didn’t know which one on the soundtrack it was, but when it came on, I’d loved it.
More embarrassingly, I’d misapplied the title to the similarly titled Guttermouth song, “I’m Destroying the World”, which was on the same soundtrack. And that one made it into my iTunes library before AFI’s song did. Yes, men who thought it funny to put meat in Davey’s food got my attention before Davey himself did.
It wasn’t until I’d bought Art of Drowning well into fandom that I learned that AFI also did that song on Tony Hawk. Yes, I know it’s an All Hallows’ EP song. A lot of their stuff at that time was similar enough for me to recognize it as a consistent style. For someone who had only known Sing the Sorrow and Decemberunderground, the pleasant surprise was real.
5 Likes
I miss playing those games! That and Dave Mirra’s BMX.
SAME! I was 16. I bought Go Ahead Punk… because Guttermouth was on it…and it was a time when comps were good and that is pretty much how I went about finding new music.
I went and bought Very Proud of Ya a few weeks later when I scrounged together enough money.
3 Likes
I had both “The Boy Who Destroyed the World” and “I’m Destroying the World” on my first mp3 player. In fact, most of the music I had on there came from the Tony Hawk video games. THPS3 was my introduction to AFI as well.
2 Likes
One of my associates at work randomly stopped me yesterday and asked me about AFI. He heard me talk of them before and asked about their music. He asked me if I ever saw them live. Of course I started telling him stories and could probably talk about AFI for hours, but I asked him if he had any of their music and I don’t think he did.
I recommended “Art of Drowning” as a first listen, first album to get. AOD is a centerpiece time-wise and I feel a great intro album. It’s hard for anyone to pick a favorite from that album.
2 Likes