1 The acronymic band name is short for A Fire Inside — a fitting image for the brooding blackhearts whose epic album decemberunderground recently hit No. 1.
2 Although new to many of their now-rabid listeners, AFI formed back in 1991, when singer Davey Havok (above, far right) and drummer Adam Carson (second from right) met as disaffected high schoolers in Ukiah, Calif. Says Havok: ''I remember putting out our first seven-inch ourselves — 207 copies — and thinking, This is amazing, there's going to be a record of our existence.''
3 The group's notoriously passionate devotees united to form a 25,000-plus-strong fan club known as the Despair Faction.
4 Carson and guitarist Jade Puget eschew meat, and Havok and bassist Hunter Burgan are strictly vegan. ''But that doesn't come into the music much,'' Carson explains. ''We tend to be somewhat apolitical.''
5 Long before these lords of darkness led their bat-winged faithful in the shout-along hit ''Miss Murder,'' AFI would crank out minute-long ditties like ''I Wanna Get a Mohawk (But Mom Won't Let Me Get One).'' ''I'm glad the AFI that's known today is the AFI of the last couple years,'' says Havok, ''because we had plenty of time to suck.''
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