Arizona’s Authority Zero have become international icons while staying true to their roots
By Troy Farah
Published on 01/12/2012 in Flag Live
With hit singles like “One More Minute,” “Revolution,” and the Wall of Voodoo cover “Mexican Radio,” Authority Zero are arguably the most popular band to come out of Mesa—and they’re especially familiar with any kid who got into skateboarding or punk around the turn of the century. Noted for their mix of reggae, ska-punk and their Spanish and Portuguese inspirations, the four-piece admit a deep admiration for Sublime, Pennywise and Bad Religion, making them a distinct and flavorful semi-local act.
On the road with Voodoo Glow Skulls for their Black Coffee, White Knuckles Tour, Authority Zero will be making a stop at Flagstaff’s Orpheum Theater on Sunday along with the Glow Skulls, Colorado punk band Skyfox, and Flag favorites Telescope and Tonsil Yeti.
Though once calling the streets of Mesa home, the band is now scattered (with the exception of bassist Jeremy Wood): guitarist Brandon Landelius lives in Amarillo, Texas, drummer Jim Wilcox resides in Chandler, Ariz., and frontman Jason DeVore lives in Tempe. DeVore says growing up, they made the best with what they had, but it wasn’t always glamorous.
“A lot of our hometown love and pride is there wasn’t anything crazy cool about Mesa, but we did the best we could and had the most fun we could,” DeVore explains. “Just a bunch of crazy kids, just going out, partying it up, playing music, skating, just doing what we could do to find fun. It made us who we were and it created this band, so we couldn’t ask for a whole lot more, honestly, the way it all came up.”
The band has indeed come a long way. From getting songs in video games like Tony Hawk’s “Underground,” which was “cool” and “kinda weird,” to international tours, to their highest-selling album yet, Stories of Survival. Now, Authority Zero is bigger than ever, but not without a few bumps in their road to stardom. Many members have come and gone, two went and joined the Air Force, but few had as much influence as founding member and guitarist Bill Marcks, who departed in late 2008.
“I think it’s a natural change, in all reality,” DeVore says. “Luckily those things we wrote together and played together for so long, that each of our styles rubbed off on each other a lot. We changed a lot actually. It’s been three years now, [other] people have come and gone in that time.”
The band has experienced a lot of coming and going in the last five years, which made it seem to DeVore like Authority Zero was on its last legs. But the group remained strong, “kept a positive head about it,” and then wrote their best-selling record. And for a punk band that’s been around as long as they have, (an almost unheard-of 17 years) it’s no easy feat to do all this without getting stale.
“There’s a new guitar player [Brandon Landelius] and the fans know that and you know that inside,” DeVore says. “We’re a bunch of fans of the bands we grew up listening to and watched change. You get freaked out or pissed off and you wouldn’t want to hear anything to do with it. When we got some good feedback on [Stories of Survival] and it ended up being one of the biggest records we’ve done in that respect; it opened a big door of opportunity and hope for the future of this band.”
The title, Stories of Survival, refers to various things, but to DeVore, his own personal survival story was the band itself.
“To see it just die after all the ups and downs, to me, that really wasn’t an option,” DeVore says. “It was just trying to figure out the right thing to do with it and how to progress and move on. That really is what a lot of that record has to do with, a lot of the shit we went through and personal things that we’ve been going through as well.”
Another defining point of the band has always been politics and activism, at least on the surface. Underneath, DeVore admits politics have never been a huge issue, even with “Revolution” appearing on Rock Against Bush Vol. 1, a 2004 modern punk compilation released during George W. Bush’s reelection campaign. The band instead promotes the idea that if you want something changed, take personal action.
“If there’s something you want done, either politically or in your personal life, no one’s gonna do it for you, so you gotta do it yourself,” DeVore says. “That’s really where a lot of that influence comes from with ‘Revolution,’ about changing yourself to make the things around you different, if that’s what you want to see happen.”
And Authority Zero has seen a lot happen for themselves, having just wrapped up their third tour in Japan, where DeVore says he didn’t find any dirty panty vending machines (a popular rumor), but enjoyed the machines that dispensed beer.
“The crowds are nuts, man,” DeVore says with a laugh. “These kids
go apeshit. They may not speak a lot of English, you know, but they sing every chorus as much as they can and as loud as they can. And the minute you’re done, they just go dead silent, a kind of weird, eerie silence. Waiting and watching for you to tell them what’s going on or say something they can kind of communicate with you. But the minute you start playing a song, they just start going nuts.”
Their summer tour in Europe was equally successful, doing half the shows with Pennywise in 3,000-person capacity venues and the other half with the Adolescents in old-school punk venues barely large enough for 300.
Being far from home has one drawback, however – they haven’t had as much time to participate in Arizona’s punk scene, but according to DeVore it faded and now it’s coming back.
“It seems like bands are starting to work together again,” DeVore says. “For awhile it seemed like it was doing a little more of the dog-eat-dog. It seems like a lot of kids are going to each other’s shows again and try to build each other up. It was a pretty cool thing when we were coming up out of Mesa. Bands were truly working together and really trying support each other at the shows. It’s kind of what’s happening again.”
See Authority Zero and the Voodoo Glow Skulls Sun, Jan. 15 at the Orpheum Theater, 15 W. Aspen. Opening guests include Skyfox, Fight the Quiet and Tonsil Yeti. Doors for the all-ages show open at 6:30 p.m. and it all starts at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $18 in advance and $20 at the door. For more info, see www.authorityzero.com.
