say,” DeVore says. “This is probably around the 20-year mark, maybe.” Part of it’s that DeVore, who turns 45 in September, had to face that tried-and-true punk rock cliche of getting older. “There’s only so many years you can jump 20 feet off of a ceiling or scaffolding and hope that you survive,” he says. “They always say it’s going to catch up to you. And once you get to 40, that shit catches up immediately. Like, why can’t I walk? Why is my foot swollen?” DeVore says he now can see “see the broader picture. It’s not just a young kid shooting from the hip.” And that perspec- tive is what it’s really all about. “Now it’s like I’ve got a direct target of sorts,” he says. “We all have a collective vision. And it’s really a cool thing. You’re not so overly determined. It’s like that thing I talked about with your goal setting, where you get disappointed because you see this one giant goal and you’re just going for it. All the rest of the stuff that comes along with that is going to be super tough but super awesome at the same time and it’s going to be a life experience. And that’s what’s going to make this really special and keep the journey going.” At the same time, however, the issues went deeper still. DeVore under- went a “reality check of sorts,” asking big ques- tions like “Are you just going through the motions now? What are you doing this for? What’s the point?” A lot of it was tied to his own personal drinking habits, which is made all the more complicated when you’re the leader of Authority Zero. “We were the party band, and we were just having fun,” he says. “But mine got to a dangerous place of being unhealthy, and it became a deal with coping with all of the change that was going on.” So, a few years back, DeVore quit drinking. He says the personal shift was rather significant. “It really was life-changing for me to find the clarity and this (sense of) resur- gence within myself,” he says. “Like, ‘This has just begun.’ It’s maybe an old guy thing to say, but the first three years was the warmup. It gets you prepared for what’s about to actually happen. Now that you’ve broken all the bones and you’ve snapped those tendons, you’ve hurt yourself multiple times, and you’ve taken the beat- ings, now you’re calloused enough for where now the work begins.” Getting older and not drinking wasn’t just good for DeVore personally. He’s found that drive and spark he was searching for. “The intensity of it all is different than it used to be,” he says. “It’s knowing what you can and can’t do if you want to keep on doing it. It’s about how you enjoy singing to these people and feeling that intensity through the passion and the lyrics and the song itself. It’s the comfort zone of knowing who you are at this point, what your band is and knowing that you can release that energy through the emotion and passion of simply singing your songs the best you can and giving them the best show in that regard. Putting more focus toward that rather than how outlandish can I be or how crazy I can be.” Still, this extended reexamination can be quite difficult. But there’s also clearly some upsides to boot. For one, it’s given DeVore a chance to understand how the band writes songs and, as an extension of that, what these creations ultimately mean for Authority Zero. “I think it’s cool when people as a collective can latch onto one song that has that universal impact,” says DeVore. “I like it when you’re not trying to do that for the general masses, but when it happens, happenstance, because it’s a good song, that’s the most beautiful thing in the world. It can break barriers. I think it’s because we just write this music for ourselves. I grew up on bands that I would sing the big parts, the chorus, the sing-alongs, those things that you can easily digest in parts. It’s honest from the second you put the pen to paper. Like I said, Authority Zero is not life; life makes Authority Zero.” He added, “And that’s where all the ideas come from — that human experience, the good and the bad, where you use the music to resolve these difficult situations and find that hope of a positive outlook.” Connection and positivity have been the band’s calling card for years. It’s why for DeVore, there’s one song that instantly comes to mind as the pinnacle of Authority Zero’s output (and not just because it’s one of their more substantial releases). “I’d say it’s ‘A Passage in Time,’” says DeVore about the band’s quintessential song. “It’s got the weird time signatures and breakdowns. It’s got the intense punk rock elements and rock ‘n’ roll. It shows you enough within that song. It’s also got the reggae-ska side thing. It’s weird enough to make it seem like there might be a thing that’s happening there, but you’re not sure what’s happening. It also makes you realize this band is fucking weird. Like, ‘I can’t wait to see what the next one’s all about.’ That’s the song we all encore with every night.” It’s a song that’s often the centerpiece of Authority Zero’s live shows, including their ongoing anniversary world tour. DeVore has a few such memorable shows that come to mind, and much like everything we’ve discussed so far, it all connects back to the power of community and engaging others via music. “We played Edgefest back home. I think it was one of the first after (‘A Passage in Time’) hit the radio; local people knew about the band on a grander scale and were super stoked,” DeVore says. “I remember walking out on that stage; I’ll remember that for my entire life. This was like a hair- raising, pinnacle moment. Like, you have arrived, bro. We walked out on stage and that G chord hits for ‘A Passage’ and that whole baseball field lost it. Like, 30,000 people just like ants filing down from that stage. It was like watching “Braveheart”; it was the coolest thing I’ve ever seen in my Jason DeVore, left, and Bill Marcks at the band’s first electric show at The Mason Jar in the mid-1990s. (Photo by David Hunsaker) Mesa Town Milestone from p 13 “...YOU’VE TAKEN THE BEATINGS, NOW YOU’RE CALLOUSED ENOUGH FOR WHERE NOW THE WORK BEGINS.”
