If you're going to do something, do it right.

That's the kind of advice usually offered by dads and phys ed teachers (of course, the harsh retort to the latter is, "So where did you go wrong, coach?" -- but I digress).

And it's something American noir punk act AFI (A Fire Inside) took to heart when they made the decision to finally take that leap from indie act to major label superstars after a decade dwelling in the underground.

"It was something that we were very deliberate about and, of course it was a concern, because we were making a decision that was going to affect the rest of our lives," says the band's frontman Davey Havok, who brings the quartet to MacEwan Hall tonight.

"But it was something we really thought we needed to do and we wanted to do."

From that leap came Sing The Sorrow, a polished, more straight-ahead rock record for AFI, which Havok says was a natural evolution for the once hardcore crew.

It was also a natural byproduct of the deal they signed with Dreamworks which allowed them to work with producers who they thought truly understood them -- Jerry Finn and Butch Vig -- and spend as much time in the studio as was necessary to craft Sorrow into what it is.

And as to what AFI had to give up as a result, Havok says the challenges to their credibility have been minimal ("Certainly none to our face," he laughs), and artistically, they're still 100% intact.

"We had the privilege to not have to worry about that at all," he says.

"We were in the position in making the move from an independent label to a major label where people just wanted us for who we were. They just wanted us to do exactly what we do with them."

That includes Havok not having to lighten up his lyrical outlook on the world, which, right down to the title of the disc, remains dark, dreary and depressing.

And by the way, as he confirms with his words and his jovial demeanour during the interview, that's depressing, not depressed.

"I'm not clinically depressed," he says. "Someone asked me that once ... and I'm not -- I'm not.

"It's just an aspect of my personality that really comes out in my writing.

"I think it's something that people tend to shy away from and I think there can be positive change created from acknowledging a lot of those aspects of one's personality or what's going on around them in the darker sense."