Authority Zero go Ballistic for new DVD release

By CHRIS HANSEN ORF
GET OUT

Local film production company Ballistic Entertainment has been extremely busy lately, and company founder Zachary Yoshioka says he owes it all to Mesa ska/reggae/punk band Authority Zero.

“I am a filmmaker in Arizona, and I do a lot of independent films,” Yoshioka says. “I was doing a lot of local bands’ music videos, and the first national act I worked with was Authority Zero.”

Yoshioka and his cohorts had filmed a video of the band, and when Authority Zero put the video on its Web site, Yoshioka and Ballistic Entertainment were suddenly in big demand.

“Literally three days after (the video) was on the front page of their Web site, (national act) Adema called me,” Yoshioka says. “Every weekend after that, national acts were calling me from across the country booking me every weekend to shoot everyone from (Valley-based national act) The Format to Three Days Grace to shooting the Warped Tour.”

It was on the Vans Warped Tour that Yoshioka began filming live footage of Authority Zero, and seeing the footage impressed the band.

“We saw it on the bus, and it was great,” says Authority Zero guitarist Bill Marcks. “We'd never seen live footage of us before.”

The DVD, which will be available on Friday at the Marquee Theatre when Authority Zero celebrates the release with a concert, will include six music videos, interviews with the band and some of the humorous moments captured on the tour.

Yoshioka and Ballistic Entertainment are heading back out on the road to shoot Valley pop-punkers Mourning Maxwell on the 2005 Vans Warped Tour.

“Authority Zero is very much about the Arizona scene,” Yoshioka says of the gig with Mourning Maxwell. “Their attitude is, “ ‘We helped you, now you help us,’ so we're going out with Mourning Maxwell.”