Davey Havok

David Marchand (born David Paden Passaro, on November 20, 1975, in Rochester, New York) more commonly known by the stage name Davey Havok, is the lead vocalist of the band AFI.

He was born of Italian-American ancestry in New York. At the age of three his father passed away; and as his mother later re-married, he took on the surname of his stepfather; Marchand. When Havok was six years old, he and his family moved from Rochester to Ukiah, California. There, Davey attended Catholic school in Ukiah until the eighth grade.

During high school, his friends Mark Stopholese and Vic Chalker wanted to start a band (which would become AFI). Unfortunately, they had several problems; chief amongst them was that their lack of a drummer, Mark suggested his friend Adam Carson be in the band. Furthermore, they didn’t know how to play any instruments, but they knew that Davey had a good voice, and Adam had a drum set. So Mark learned guitar and Vic learned bass (he was later replaced by Geoff Kresge who would go on to play bass for Tiger Army).

Shortly after high school, the band broke up and Davey moved to Berkeley, California, where he attended UC Berkeley, planning to double major in English and Psychology. He began constantly writing lyrics to songs that would eventually appear on the albums “Answer That and Stay Fashionable” and “Very Proud of Ya”.

In a memorable band reunion,they put together a show that showed that they were actually starting to have fans, the band played at the Phoenix Theatre for several hundreds of fans.