AFINewsHQ’s Interview With Ben Grey, Pt. 2

Last week we posted Part 1 of our interview with Scarlet Grey frontman Ben Grey. That part dealt with Scarlet Grey’s history and influences as a band. We admit that posting the entire first half here was not a good decision because it was not AFI related. However, this second part focuses on touring and recording with AFI.

Jason: Davey does guest vocals on “The Sky And I” and Jade does programming on the title track. How did you approach them about doing this and how much of a creative role did they take?

Ben: I just sort of asked them; It wasn’t like a formal proposal or anything. For [The Sky & I], I had written a vocal part that I thought would really suit Davey’s vocals and the song. Since Keith had been engineering some of the new Blaqk Audio, we just pulled up the track and Dave sang on it. I’m really thrilled with how it all came together.

With Jade it was a little different We had sent him the basic tracks of Fancy Blood while he was in Japan and gave him complete freedom to do whatever he wanted. A few days later he sent us back some unbelievable music that really took the song to another place. I can’t imagine the song without it now. Davey and Jade are just incredible talents and I feel so lucky that they wanted to be a part of our little record.

Jason: How was it touring with AFI this past month? If you had to pick one moment on this tour with AFI that has been the most memorable, what would it be?

Ben: I think the thing people don’t really know about AFI is how funny everybody is. So much classic material… Jade had an auto-tune app for his iPhone which was the source of hours of entertainment and possible future material. (kidding) But for me the most memorable moment was singing “Love Like Winter” with AFI in New Orleans. It was such an honor to be asked to do it in the first place and then it was so relieving that it went over okay haha. Originally it was supposed to be “End Transmission” because I was familiar with it from the “Crash Love” sessions, but they switched up on me that day and it was so nerve-racking! But it was unbelievably fun and I’m really glad the DF was into it.

Jason: What is your favorite AFI song or album?

Ben: I think my favorite song is The Missing Frame. The bridge of that song is really powerful. But I think the unsung hero of AOD is “Of Greeting and Goodbyes.” That song never really gets a lot of praise but I loved it the most! I made quite a leap from DU to AOD, but I wanted to make it known how into that track I was.