Among various other ventures, he performed lead vocals for Son of Sam's debut album and for fictional band My Purple Agony in the animated series Harvey Girls Forever!.

[3][7] When Havok was age 5, his father died,[8][9] and he and his mother moved from Rochester to Sacramento, California to be closer to family.

[10] His mother remarried and Havok took on the surname of his stepfather (Marchand),[8][9] and was enrolled in Catholic school through eighth grade.

[14] Havok and his friends, Mark Stopholese and Vic Chalker, decided to start a band in high school, but they did not own or play any instruments.

The next release was the A Fire Inside EP, which features covers of "The Hanging Garden" by the Cure and "Demonomania" by the Misfits.

In 1999, the band released Black Sails in the Sunset, which was the first album to include the current line-up: Havok, Carson, Hunter Burgan and Jade Puget.

On June 6, 2006, Decemberunderground was released on Interscope Records, again achieving platinum status in the U.S. and Canada and Gold in Australia.

[18] For the 20 year anniversary of Sing the Sorrows, AFI performed the album in its entirety on March 11, 2023 at a sold out concert in Inglewood, CA .

[20] On August 14, 2007, Havok's electronic side project with AFI guitarist Jade Puget, Blaqk Audio, released their first album, titled CexCells.

A number of cassette tapes appeared around some California record stores in early 2014, bearing the band name XTRMST.

Listeners soon noted that the band's vocalist sounded like Havok, and rumors began spreading that he was the group's singer.

[21] The band, a straight edge metalcore act, released its self-titled album via Dim Mak Records in late 2014.

In 2016, it was revealed that Havok had formed Dreamcar with No Doubt members Tom Dumont, Tony Kanal and Adrian Young.

[26] Havok played a supporting role in Sarah Jacobson's 1997 film Mary Jane's Not a Virgin Anymore.

[28] For March 2011, Havok joined the cast of Green Day's American Idiot on Broadway, playing the role of St.

[30] In addition to Armstrong's web show, Havok voiced Hay in John Roecker's 2006 stop motion animated film Live Freaky!