Jason DeVore is on a beach, except not really.
DeVore, the vocalist for Arizona’s punk rock stalwarts Authority Zero, is releasing his fourth solo album, Til the Voice Goes Out, on June 7 via Double Helix/SBÄM/Caffeine Bomb Records. Long content to write solely for his band, that changed for Devore when he first got into the music of Jeff Buckley. “Listening to Jeff Buckley’s music quite literally changed my life and outlook on singing,” says DeVore. “It was so beautiful and passionate in a way that I had never tapped into with my own songwriting. The melodies, the finesse, the flow, and intensity—it would raise the hairs on my neck. All of it captivated me. I was immediately inspired to pick up an acoustic guitar to learn to play it and to simultaneously learn to sing better and more cohesively.”
Today, DeVore is debuting the video for the latin-tinged single “I’m On a Beach” off of the upcoming record. The song may not be strictly punk rock, but it retains a Peter Pan-like youthfully playfulness that speaks to a life playing punk music. It’s tongue in cheek, while also offering an underlying seriousness as it reflects on DeVore’s newfound sobriety.
“‘I’m On A Beach’ derived from a trip I was on while down in Puerto Peñasco (Rocky Point), Mexico with my family,” DeVore explains about the single. “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.”
And yet, the video doesn’t see DeVore on a beach at all, but rather lost in the middle of the desert in search of a one, maintaining the tongue-in-cheek attitude of the song itself. “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!’” recalls DeVore regarding the video. “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.”
Check out the video below.
Til the Voice Goes Out is out June 7 and you can pre-order it here. Follow Jason DeVore on Facebook and Instagram for future updates.
Photo courtesy of Jason DeVore
