Davey Havok's "Pop Kids" Book Signing

So a co-worker/friend of Dan and me offered to let him interview and me photograph Davey for the book signing of his first published novel, Pop Kids. Being an avid AFI fan, Dan was really excited to interview Davey. I'm not a huge punk music lover, but I love Davey because... drum roll.. he's a hardcore vegan!!

Flashback Story: Dan actually ran into him and a band-mate after a Gilman show back in the day and asked if he and his friend could tag along while they went on a hunt for ice cream. Davey said sure, probably thought it was cute some kid wanted to hang out with him. Anyway, they were looking at ice cream and Dan kept saying, "just get that one." To which Davey replied somewhere along the lines of, "I can't! It's not vegan!" Which confused the heck out of Dan. Little did he know, ten or so years later he would be marrying a vegan.

Back to the book signing! Originally, he was supposed to interview Davey after the book signing, but it was later changed to a phone interview. Which was a bummer for Dan, but in reality probably a good thing. He was supposed to interview at 18.00, but Davey was still signing until 18.30 and then spoke and read a bit. So, I would guess the interview would have been cancelled. Also, now Dan has it recorded.

It was a good interview too. Dan made sure to actually read the book, which it seems like most interviewers don't do. Or at least Davey said that to Dan.

So the next day was the signing and it was rather funny getting in.

First off, we left work early, and still managed to sit in traffic for an hour to go the grueling distance of 8 miles to Hollywood. Gotta love LA!! We were determined to eat at a restaurant called Real Food Daily, which is an all vegan restaurant. And oh boy, I am glad we did. That place had great food. Thank all things good they have one in Santa Monica. The time in traffic caught us off guard and we had to hurry it up to the event. We were running late. Luckily, we knew that the signing was first, speaking second.

When we got to the Standard, there was of course no parking and with us being late I was getting testy, seeing how I was the one driving. We eventually got parking and walked over to the hotel. There was a huge line outside and we were worried we would have to stand in it. Ew, so not happening. I was ready to leave if that was the case. We walked up to the gentleman letting people in and asked where media was supposed to go to check in. He looked around and pointed past the line to someone in white. "Talk to him." So we did. He laughed and said the whole thing was rather disorganized and he didn't have a list for media. I could tell Dan was getting worried, and so was I. There was no way we were going to go back outside and get in line after seeing the inside line. But he asked who we were with and saw my camera.

Really he didn't seem to hesitate at all and got us wristbands and let us through. Bam! How cool is that? Dan had his email open on his phone ready to prove who we were. He had the pre-release copy of his book. Didn't need any of it!

We grabbed some good seats for the Q&A and Dan grabbed us a beer. I walked around a bit taking shots of the venue and fans. Got some decent shots of Davey signing, but he was in a dark room and I hate constantly setting off my flash in people's eyes, especially when they are writing, so I backed off on that. To which Dan told me to go back inside and take some damn pictures. Haha. I love my husband.

When I was satisfied with my picture taking I sat down for a bit and let Dan walk around with my camera. He really wanted to get his book signed, but once again refused to stand in line. He grabbed his book and walked over to the person directing the line and said he was press and hoped to get his book signed.

The guy said sure and let Dan cut the entire line. When he came back to me outside he had a good sized grin on his face and told me how he let Davey know he was the person who had interviewed him the day before. Davey said that was his favorite interview by far and thanked Dan. Aww, so cute! Dan was swooning.

Eventually, the line ended and Davey came out to speak. He read a short story he had written in honour of the event, which was really well done, and read the intro to Pop Kids. He followed that up with a Q&A about the book, which was staged very strangely for me.

We went to Greg Graffin's (lead singer of Bad Religion) book signing a few years ago and the setting was much different. We were in a book store and it felt more like a real book signing. Even Dan got to ask a question and made eye contact with Greg. Then again, his book was talking about science and his band. Not a real Gothic crowd drawer.

With Davey Havok's book signing, he had someone (not sure, manager?) read questions to Davey, who then replied mostly to him. More like an interview. Apparently they asked questions from people who were there, but I didn't see anyone taking questions anywhere so that confused me.

It was interesting to listen to, and I'm glad I went. I will probably even read the book. But, by the end of the night I was ready to head home. I think the event ended at midnight, and the next morning we had to get up early to go back to Hollywood for the CoDeSports Championship event, which you can read about here.

Read Dan's article here: http://www.disarraymagazine.com/2013/04/exclusive-interview-afis-davey-havok.html