On a Mexican Radio with Authority Zero
By Jamie Taylor

Authority Zero’s band members (Jason DeVore-vocals, Bill Marcks-guitar, Jim Wilcox-drums and Jeremy Wood-bass) have come a long way since playing shows around their hometown of Mesa, AZ. With years of touring and cultivating the do-it-yourself punk rock attitude, Authority Zero has been laying the groundwork for a successful career in making music. Since their first release in 2002 - A Passage in Time - the band has been honing their punk rock skills. The sophomore album, Andiamo is pure punk aggression at it finest. With singles like “Revolution” and an apmed up cover of Wall of Voodoo’s “Mexican Radio” getting national radio airplay, Authority Zero is sure to be another house hold name on the punk scene. While making a recent stop at the House of Blues, Smash had the opportunity to sit down with guitarist Bill Marcks and discuss the new album and its creation.

Smash - How is the tour going?

Authority Zero - Actually we just got off a tour with New Blood Revival and ASG about two weeks ago, and now we are just doing sporadic radio dates. Anywhere that’s going to pump in “Revolution” and “Mexican Radio” - our singles off of Andiamo. That’s all we got going on right now, we’re waiting for a little bit bigger tour of some sort to hop on.

Smash - Was this your first headlining tour?

AZ - No we’ve been on different headlining tours. We’ve been on one called the This Will Get Messy Tour; which we put together with 1208 and Redfield from Phoenix. 1208 is on Epitaph, but we’re trying to help get Redfield signed since they’re our friends from back home.

Smash - Lets talk about “Andiamo.” What is the meaning behind the word and the reason behind naming the album that?

AZ - “Andiamo” means “we go” or “lets go” in Italian. It came from brainstorming; we were at a loss for what we were going to call the next album. Jason said “Vamanos,” because we have a lot of Spanish influences in our music. We were like “you know what we’ve already covered a lot of the Spanish influences why don’t we try something different.”
Like “andiamo” is the opposite of “vamanos” in Italian, and Jeremy is of Italian decent. Plus when Jason read it said “And I am 0” (and I am zero), so we did a little play on that throughout the insert.

Smash - The cover of the album appears to be the band running with gas masks on holding the American Flag. What was the statement you were making with that?

AZ - Our friend Bret Ash put that together. It’s a spoof of Norman Rockwell painting called “Gone Fishing”. The original piece was three boys and a dog swimming in a hole with a sign that said “no swimming,” so that’s the authority zero. He put aspects of us; our different tattoos, our haircuts, and he changed the dog to a wolf. A wolf being a loyal creature which represents strength. It’s a twisted version of Americana. It’s depicting the turmoil in our government. Just showing society as it is right now. It can be taken a lot of ways, but that’s how I see it.

Smash - I know you guys did a couple of stops on the Punk Voter Tour. So how important do you think it is for people to get out there and vote?

AZ - I think it’s a must. A lot of people like to bitch and not do anything about it. The best policy is to vote either way. Whether it is for Kerry or for Bush, you might as well just get out there and vote. The value of the vote is diminutive, but there is still value to a vote. Even though the Electoral College does do most of the work, you need to flip the vote in your favor. Every little sliver counts.

Smash - On a couple of tracks on the album - “Taking on the World” & “PCH-82” in particular, you put the Bill of Rights in there. What were you conveying in that song?

Bill- Well, just like I said, its reflecting what’s going on in society right now. Just trying to get people to take a stand for what they believe in and kind of slapping people in the face trying to get them to be a little less apathetic of what’s going on in the world today. “PCH-82” (Pacific Coast Highway-82) tells you your rights straight up. We didn’t do anything just kind of slapped the Constitution onto it. That was actually DJ Field Marshall from Sublime. “Thousand Years of War” is another song mostly dealing with the Iraq war, and “Taking on the World” is both political and personal. It’s a battery for people to have energy to do something positive.

Smash - Speaking of Sublime you got to work with Michael Happoldt (aka Miguel, producer for Sublime), I know that you were influenced by them so what was it like working with him?

AZ - It was rad! I was talking to him the other day - he is out on the road with Bud, one of the guys from the Ziggens and one of the guys from the Meat Puppets. They’re in a band called Volcano; they do covers and their own shit. He wants to come out and play “Mexican Radio,” “Madman” and “New Thrash” by Sublime with us when were in L.A. That’s cool because we have a camaraderie now. It’s strange because I was listening to 40 oz. To Freedom when it first came out. It’s weird to actually be friends with Miguel now and chill over in Long Beach in the same place that Sublime did a lot of their stuff. The vocals on “Mexican Radio” were done in the same bathroom where Brad did a lot of his stuff.

Smash - Why did you decide to cover Wall Of Voodoo’s “Mexican Radio?”

AZ - Miguel wanted us to do that. We were skeptical at first, but it turned out to be a fun song. It was right up our alley, because it’s kind of an odd song but it’s still catchy. Stan Ridgeway (the guy who wrote the original) likes it. He sent me an email saying that he liked how fast it was and that the world needs more angry young men now that Marlon Brando passed away.

Smash - How do you think you have grown musically since the first album?

AZ - We were a little less overzealous with effects and stuff. When we went into the studio for the first time the albums we had produced before were done within a two-day period or a week perhaps. We had two months to kill on the first national release, and we went a little overboard with the overdubs. We wanted the second album to reflect our live performance a little more, we wanted more of a raw energy feel. That’s why it’s a little more aggressive then the last album.

Smash - What was the process like writing this album?

AZ - We put the album together in about a month and a half. We were writing stuff on the road and what not. Due to the time frame provided to us by Lava we had to get it out pretty quick. So the process was rushed. But sometimes you work better under pressure. Some day it would be nice to have the amount of time that Blink-182 had on their last album. Something like six months, you could really perfect something in that much time. We have to mention Ryan Greene (producer of bands NOFX, Lagwagon and Strung Out for Fat Wreck Chords) because Miguel only produced three or four songs. Ryan was really the backbone of the whole album. He is a hard worker and very precise, that’s why we got it done so well in so little time.

Smash - Thank you for taking the time to be interviewed. Have a great show!

AZ -Thank you