The Entertainer! Magazine (March 30th 2017)

Following a Dream: The men of No Doubt steer the musical car in a new direction with AFI’s singer

For most of their adult lives, Tom Dumont, Adrian Young and Tony Kanal have performed behind one lead singer—Gwen Stefani—as part of No Doubt.

Now the trio is moving toward a darker side with Dreamcar, fronted by AFI and Blaqk Audio’s Davey Havok.

“I’m incredibly fortunate to do what I love,” says Dumont, calling from his home in Long Beach, California. “To be able to keep doing it and do it with my old friends Adrian and Tony is really fun.

“The whole genesis of Dreamcar was starting over with a new singer and a new band. The whole idea was to make sure this is fun and something we love to do. That’s our main objective here. So far, so good.”

Set to play a sold-out show at the Crescent Ballroom on Thursday, April 20, Dreamcar will release its self-titled debut on May 12. The band will make its network TV debut performing its first single, “Kill for Candy,” on Jimmy Kimmel Live on Tuesday, April 18, on ABC.

“I think the last time I played in Phoenix was with No Doubt in 2009,” Dumont says. “I can’t believe that’s eight years ago. It’s been way too long—way too long.

“The fun thing about this is we’re playing small clubs again. It reminds all of us of those early days in No Doubt. We did that for so many years. It was always sweaty and intense, and we would walk offstage drenched in sweat. We’d have this connection with everybody in the audience.”

The No Doubt veterans met Havok when his side project, Blaqk Audio, opened for the seminal pop-punk-ska band in 2012.

“Tony and Davey kept crossing paths,” Dumont says. “When Tony, Adrian and I wanted to do a new band project and find a singer to partner with, Davey was the first name that came up.

“It was like we asked him on a date. We asked him to go to dinner and talk about music and what we were thinking of doing. We asked if he had time, if he was interested. We know that AFI is an institution. We knew that. From that dinner, we had the impression that he had the time to be creative and wanted to try it.”

After dinner, Dumont, Young and Kanal sent demos of four instrumental songs to Havok. Dumont says that Havok immediately “dug the vibe” and wrote four songs over them. The album grew one track at a time until they hit 20 tunes.

“We looked at each other and said, ‘We have a band. We have an album here,’” Dumont recalls.

“There was a chemistry between our personalities. We felt the same things about life and the things in the world. The songwriting process was instantly comfortable and easy with him. Davey is an interesting guy to get to know. He’s the perfect lead singer in that he is flamboyant and extroverted on stage, and confident.”

Dumont adds that he loves Havok’s courage to go outside of his comfort zone.

“This is a different musical direction from AFI,” Dumont says. “With this band, we wanted to differentiate ourselves from both of our earlier projects and we had no problem doing that and going somewhere new with us. Both of those are amazing traits. We wanted that big, brash frontman and we wanted someone who’s creatively bold. He fits both of those descriptions.”

Speaking of songs, Dumont explains it was hard to choose the first single, as he sees Dreamcar as a collection of 12 stories—kind of like a book.

“I’m so proud of all of them,” he says. “They stand on their own. We paint with so many different colors, too. We have three songs that have saxophone on them; saxophone in the vein of early Duran Duran albums, not like the Jamaican and ska music we played with a horn section in No Doubt. It’s an early ’80s new wave saxophone vibe.

“Everybody has their influences. On this album, I kept going back to the first two Duran Duran albums. I’m not saying we are copping that vibe, but for me, as a guitar player, that was definitely the inspiration.”

He’s just excited for fans to hear the album.

“I love it,” he says. “It’s funny. A lot of times when you make an album, by the time you get to writing and recording an album, you get sick of the songs. That hasn’t struck me yet, as I’m rehearsing them to play live. I love this.”