After selling millions of albums and touring the world, what did AFI’s Davey Havoc and Jade Puget do when they had spare time? They wrote an album’s worth of material for their electronic music side project, Blaqk Audio. “We’ve been talking about doing this album for a long time,” says Puget. “The biggest problem has been finding the time to record it since we’ve spent so much time touring. Along the way, I’ve used our time on the road to program and record songs while were on the tour bus, so it took about six months for us to properly put the record together.”

Blaqk Audio’s debut, CexCells, hits stores tomorrow. Drawing influence from Depeche Mode, Front 242, Nitzer Ebb, and Ministry, the pair tapped into the music they loved as kids and used the songwriting skills they’ve honed in AFI to craft the album. If you’ve listened to recent albums like 2006’s Decemberunderound, you’ll know that releasing an all-electronic album isn’t too far of a creative stretch as elements of the genre has slowly seeped into AFI’s din.

“There’s been a lot of electronic elements in the last couple of AFI records; Davey and I have been electronic music fans since the ‘80s,” says Puget. “We’ve been listening to various forms of electronic music nearly all of our lives, so doing this album isn’t a stretch. I guess everything you listen to filters into what you write. On CexCells, there’s music from outside of electronic music that influenced me. I like take elements of rock and use a real song arrangement. I’m not a big fan of repetition, so I tried to arrange these songs like I would an AFI song.”

“Both of us have such varied tastes,” he continues, “so there was no clear-cut direction we wanted to go in. There’s so many influences on the album; it’s not really a specific sound, and that’s the way electronic music really is. It’s very genre-specific and bands don’t stray very far; they do one specific thing. We just wanted to take elements of everything we liked and make an album out of it.”

Puget and Havoc plan to take their show—you guessed it—on the road either through DJ sets (for the record, Puget has never DJ’ed) or a live show. “Davey DJs quite a bit; he’s part of the new breed of iPod DJs. Everybody is a DJ these days, and it doesn’t take skill to play from iPods. I’ve never done it, but I think guys like BT and Oakenfold are miles ahead of everyone.”

With their first single “Stiff Kittens” reinterpreted by Junior Sanchez, Morel, and Assemblage 23, Puget has also remixed for Marilyn Manson, Tiger Army, and more are in the works.

“It’s fun to take rock music and turn it into a hybrid. On our last two records, I’ve explored electronic elements in AFI. I don’t think the next one will be more electronic,” he fathoms. “I don’t want anything to be expected of us. The one thing I’ve learned is that everybody wants something different, so it’s impossible to please everyone. You’ve got to please yourself first, and hopefully your fans will follow.”