Is Gio Bard Zero a Real Wizard? Here's the Story Behind the Viral Posters in Denver

Gio Bard Zero is not a real wizard. At least that’s what one “poster-slinging rascal” would like everyone to believe, he says.

Posters discrediting Zero’s mystical powers have been popping up all around Denver in defiance of his Friday, November 17, concert at the Studio Loft in the Ellie Caulkins Opera House.

“I will actually have an interaction with this person on stage during my show,” Zero says of the disinformation campaign organized against him. “The idea is this poster-slinging rascal might make an appearance at the show, where he will learn the true meaning of music and magic.”

The Denver musician’s performance is much more than a celebration of his debut solo album, Songs of Life and Death, which will be released the day of the show. Performed like a play, it’s equal parts musical comedy and tragedy, with three archetypal characters — the Bard, the Addict and the Wizard — all played by Zero. So when he says he’s going to “confront” the person behind the damning posters, it’s all part of the experience.

Zero, who began dressing up and playing songs as a wizard at former oddity shop the Room of Lost Things during First Friday art walks in the Art District on Santa Fe, is a classically trained multi-instrumentalist, fluent in everything from jazz piano to flamenco guitar. The thirteen tracks that make up the new album were originally acoustic folk songs that the 32-year-old wrote throughout his twenties. A crowdfunding campaign in 2019, in partnership with Boston studio Plain Dog Recording, helped raise just over $6,000 for recording. That’s when the vision for Songs of Life and Death really started to come into focus.

“I was trying to find themes. I was like, ‘Well, I seem to write about love, mysticism, philosophical things and then addiction,’’’ he explains, adding that he lost his father to alcoholism and has had his own struggles with it. The album's title, he adds, "encapsulated those themes.”

The name is also an homage to Leonard Cohen’s 1971 album Songs of Love and Hate. Plus, he settled on showcasing his best baker’s dozen, because the number thirteen is typically the death card in most tarot decks.

With these ideas in place, Zero went back and forth about how to share his debut. He took into account that such a release usually includes dropping a couple of singles or music videos for marketing purposes, to stir up some buzz and excitement, if nothing else. “All my friends were like, ‘You can’t just have the first thing you release be an album. You've got to do singles or an EP, because no one’s going to listen to an album. No one has attention spans,’” he recalls.

He hosted a “very ragged” version of the musical play at the Gypsy House Cafe in early 2020, but admits it was “nothing fancy at all.” Still, he stuck to the initial concept and had some extra time to figure out how he’d bring it into the world.

“The songs really go together. I have to do the whole album,” he says. “I was thinking about what I can do to sell the concept better, to make it come alive.”

After receiving a $10,000 Denver Arts & Venues ARPA grant, Zero’s production is finally ready. He credits John Baldwin of Z Music Place and Cynthia Giannini, host and co-founder of Denver grassroots arts initiative Artists Amongst Us, for lending a helping hand. Joining Zero on stage at the Studio Loft will be local musicians Kevin Mooney (saxophone, keyboard, ukulele, harmonica and mandolin), Anterra (violin, harp and backing vocals), Justin Carter (guitars, mandolin and backup vocals) and Elyjah Tribe (drums and percussion). Tickets include a VIP option, which adds a classical set and Q&A after the performance.

Zero hopes people can connect to the rock-opera format, with its different roles and themes, and the overarching message of everyday magic. “The way this show works is it usually starts out being silly. People usually laugh at the costumes. Then I sing about my dad, and my songs about my dad are very graphic, like no-holds-barred. It gets really dark,” he says.

“Then you have these songs that are very hopeful and triumphant. We kind of bring them in with the silly and funny, and then we drop them down into hell, but then we bring them back out,” he continues. “The idea is the world can be a horrible place, but you don’t have to avert your eyes in order to be positive. You can look at how horrible it is and still be able to be positive and create beauty.”

Bringing pieces of himself to the trio of personas he’s created, Zero is clearly a wizard of some sort, even if at least one skeptic refuses to believe it.

“We have the idealistic child who wants to follow dreams and fall in love. Then there’s the disillusioned addict who finds out that a lot of that is bullshit — that you live life and a lot of times you get burnt,” he explains. “But then there’s the wizard who has been through all of that and is wise enough to know, ‘Yes, the world will break your heart, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that dreams are bullshit.' It just means you just basically need to become a wizard.

“Really, the biggest source of magic in my life is music in many ways,” he says.

Gio Bard Zero, 7 p.m. Friday, November 17, Studio Loft, Ellie Caulkins Opera House, Denver Performing Arts Complex, 980 14th Street. Tickets are $20-$48.