Jason DeVore, the charismatic frontman for long-standing Arizona punk powerhouse Authority Zero, is debuting ‘I’m On A Beach,’ the sun-soaked second single and video off his upcoming fourth solo album,‘Til The Voice Goes Out,’ out on June 7th via Double Helix/SBÄM/Caffeine Bomb Records.
DeVore shared: “‘I’m On A Beach’ derived from a trip I was on while down in Puerto Peñasco (Rocky Point), Mexico with my family. I had just quit drinking and it was my first trip south of the border going ‘sober’. I have a long history of going down to Rocky Point with my friends and band since the age of 18 and we’ve had MANY wild times down there. This time, in particular, I was getting up early with the sunrise to get a morning run in on the beach. This was the kind of morning where I just sat down and allowed myself to soak it all in, while reminiscing of days of old. There wasn’t a soul on the beach, only me. I suddenly said to myself, out loud, ‘I’m on a beach, and there’s no one around.’ I instantly had an idea for a song and thought, Jason, don’t let this one get away. Go upstairs and write it NOW. So I ran upstairs, wrote the song in I’d say a matter of 25 minutes and that was it. I then played it live without memorized lyrics at Circus Mexicus with Roger Clyne and the Peacemakers and it became an instant hit for the fans that weekend. I can’t wait to get the fully produced version out there and playing on everyone’s stereos.”
Speaking on the video, Jason added: “The very talented directors Eric Cannon and Justin Bergonzoni from Illmatic Productions worked with me on this video, as a follow-up to the video we all made for ‘Turn It Off!’. How we arrived on this video concept is a fun and somewhat funny story because it certainly isn’t the original concept. We did two days of shooting in a row, one for each video. During the making of ‘Turn It Off!’ I had to put on and take off the Joker face paint so many times it ended up causing burn marks on my face. So the next morning, when I woke up to shoot the ‘I’m On A Beach’ video, I kinda tripped out when I saw my irritated face. I didn’t want to spend the whole day trying to cover it up with make up because some of the burns were actually kind of scabbed up and there’d be no hiding them. It was 7 a.m. and I thought of a completely new story line right there on the spot. I immediately called Eric, waking him up, and frantically yet excitedly told him that, even though the video shoot was only a couple hours away from starting, I was determined to make this new idea work and get us both on the same page. He came over to my place where we ran through the idea and hashed out a fully thought-through process. Then we packed the cars up with every deflated pool floatation device I had and more and headed toward the open desert. Conceptually, the idea of the video is that I had just had a very long night hanging out with friends in Mexico and then I wake up in the middle of the desert without a clue as to what happened, where my friends went, what happened to the ocean, and even if the whole experience was real or just a dream? Picture very roughly the movie ‘The Hangover’ with some fun new twists and turns. I used the blisters on my face and some red makeup to cover myself with an extreme sunburn and it worked out beautifully. The video takes you on the euphoric, hallucinogenic, and almost Hunter S. Thompson type of journey of a man trapped in the desert, searching to pick up the pieces of his night to help it all make sense. Along the way he is dehydrated, hungover, delusional, and starts wondering what is real and what isn’t. All the while this is happening, he’s lost and getting depleted but at the same time he’s celebrating his little successes and victories, bringing to light the idea that everywhere can be your beach, no matter your situation in life. It’s all about how you choose to deal with it and how you choose to look at the situation. So it’s all about perspective. With that in mind, there’s a scene in the video where there are two beach balls I find along the way. One is red, one is blue. Something of the red pill/blue pill option to determine your reality, throwing a bit of ‘The Matrix’ in there. It’s a fun unplanned Easter Egg that we sneaked there to help make full sense of the story line.”
First inspired by the songwriting and music of Jeff Buckley, Jason DeVore’s solo work effortlessly melds rock ‘n’ roll, folk, punk, reggae, classical, and gospel influences into a vibrant, fresh, and exhilarating sound that is simultaneously daring and innovative, yet unmistakably embodies his incomparable style.