One of the most misunderstood bands of the post-punk/new wave era (mid 1970s to early ‘80s), Devo is best remembered today for somewhat mechanical music blending synthesizers and guitars, bass and drums, and stylized visuals including matching bright yellow jumpsuits, and (later) red plastic hats that looked like upended flower pots.
Sure, the look was a gimmick, but it got people to pay attention, which was the point. “Through Being Cool,” “Freedom of Choice,” “Girl U Want,” “Mongoloid” and “Whip It” (the band’s sole “hit”) were cool, catchy songs, and would have been even without the embellishing bells, whistles and flower pots.
Formed in Akron, Ohio, by Gerald Casale and Mark Mothersbaugh, Devo was, from the beginning, equal parts avant-garde music, performance art and nerd humor.
The Catalyst spoke with Mothersbaugh, Devo’s lead singer and visual focal point, ahead of the group’s Aug. 27 appearance at the BayCare Sound (tickets are here). In keeping with Devo’s retro-robotic weirdness, the tour is called Mutate, Don’t Stagnate.
(Devo today includes Mothersbaugh and Casale, along with lead guitarist Bob Mothersbaugh, brother of Mark and another founding member, with drummer Jeff Friedl and Josh Hager on keys and guitars.)
Mark Mothersbaugh is a noted visual artist, and the CEO of Mutato Muzika, a music production company. He composed (among others) the theme song and other music for Pee-wee’s Playhouse, 13 years of Nickelodeon’s Rugrats cartoon, and the scores for many, many films, including Wes Anderson’s Bottle Rocket, The Royal Tenenbaums and The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou.
More recently, he created the music for Thor: Ragnarok, Cocaine Bear and The Minecraft Movie (he’s currently working on the sequel).
The Devo story begins, and still hinges on, a theory that contradicts evolution – rather, humans are de-volving, adapting to chaos, calamity and conformity by simply accepting everything they’re handed by governments and by advertisers.
Casale and Mothersbaugh both trace it back to the events of May 4, 1970. They were young, impressionable students at Kent State University when four people – two of them personal friends of Casale’s – were shot and killed by the Ohio National Guard during an anti-war protest on campus.
The’s the sort of thing that will point your mind in a different direction.
With all the success you’ve had in more recent years, why was it important for you to re-visit Devo now?
Because it’s still relevant, is our feeling. Matter of fact, I feel like what we had to say is more relevant now than it was 50 years ago.
I feel different now than I did 50 years ago, in a way. Fifty years ago it was the ‘70s, and it was Nixon, and Vietnam, and I was a student, and we were protesting the war in Vietnam. The governor just got tired of it, so he said “Load up your guns and shoot ‘em.” And they did. They shot over 30 kids, and killed four of them, and it changed my kind of optimism about the world. And it did the other guys too.
We were trying to figure out what had happened, and what was going on, and came to the conclusion that humans might be the only unnatural species on the planet.
We wanted to talk about that. And it was the kind of thing where if you talk about it too blatantly, people just think you’re crazy. But we did talk about it, and it was part of our message.
But we also realized that the way that people hear things and accept things is through subversion. It’s like, the people that are the most successful at changing the way you think use subversive techniques, like Madison Avenue, for instance. They’re able to get you to buy shitty cars, shitty clothes, shitty food and be happy about it.
We thought well, that’s the techniques we’re going to use. And that’s why we got into music and doing live shows like that.
As far as how I feel now: I remember when I was 20, in 1970. I remember thinking “I wish I would have been born 50 years earlier. I wish I had been alive during the ‘20s, in Europe. I could have been in Berlin, or Paris, and been around for the Futurists, and Bauhaus, and Dadaists and Ballet Mécanique and all these amazing art movements that were happening then.”
And I was too young to realize what was happening. Artists were responding to a dark time in human history. That that was the period where Hitler and the Fascists were coming to life. And the ‘70s was something similar. It inspired punk rock, and new wave, and a lot of interesting pop art like conceptual art, all became inspired by that time period.
And I think maybe we’re at that again. We’re at that point. Where I used to think everything was just devolving and going downward. There are people that think that, you know, but I feel like maybe what’s in reality is there’s a constant struggle between evolution and de-evolution. That’s what I feel now. I feel maybe that’s what’s happening.
Because there were times in the last 30, 40 years that I was proud of my country. And we did things that I never thought could possibly happen. And I saw things in the world that were very positive and optimistic.
And then it got dark again. I think it’s a time now where artists, they’re usually the first to respond to social injustice, for instance. And I think if Devo has a purpose now, it’s maybe to help inspire or invigorate those kids that are going to be making art now that five years from now, you and I are going to go “That is so amazing. Why didn’t I think of that?”
Right now, capitalism and greed have once again risen to the top. But I’m hoping that things change again.
You had the devolution message, but you also had to go out there and be “entertainers” for people who may not have cared about why Devo existed in the first place. Did you think “Well, this is the only way we can get the message across”?
Well, that’s what I’m saying. We had come to the conclusion that subversion was the most successful way to infiltrate people’s minds. And that’s the way Madison Avenue did it, for instance, or that’s the way propaganda works. And we thought, we have a message for people … sure, they’re going to buy an album and hear a song that’s fairly shallow called “Whip It,” and they’ll dance to it. But then maybe they’ll buy the album and listen to the other songs, and they might hear “Freedom of choice is what you got/Freedom from choice is what you want.”
And they might go, “What does that mean?” So it might make them think. It’s just been the methodology we chose.
You’re on the road now playing to, I assume, lots of young people. Is the message getting through, or are they just going “Hey, ‘Whip It’ was a cool song. Let’s dance!”
I think there’s a higher percentage of people that get the message. I think kids are smart. They hear a band that they like and they go “Well, who influenced that band?” And they look it up on their phone, or on their computer, and it says “They listened to Nirvana.” Then they listen to Nirvana and go “Who did Nirvana listen to?”
They look that up and they go “Oh, Nirvana covered Devo songs; Nirvana were big fans of Devo’s music.” And they show up at our shows. And there’s more kids singing along than I’ve ever seen before. I’m singing and I’m watching them, and they’re singing along with me. I find that interesting.
When my kids were little, I remember Rugrats coming on the TV and seeing your name in the credits. And saying “Hey – I know that name!” And then you were doing Wes Anderson movies. How did all that come to pass?
I just love writing music. And I think it’s because I was born legally blind. And nobody knew it. I was almost 8 years old when I finally got an eye test, and they said “Oh – he can’t see the big E on the eye chart.” Somehow I’d been walking to school every day. I’d gone all the way through second grade without being able to see past six inches from my face.
I’d be in the living room playing, and I’d hear a noise in the direction of where I knew the door was. Even though I couldn’t see it. The door would open, and I’d see a blur of color that was like pink, and I knew that was my grandma’s coat. But I couldn’t see her: I could just see light, dark and color.
But my handicap put me in a situation where … I get scripts from people, and while I’m reading them I start hearing music. And oftentimes it’s music that ends up becoming orchestrated, with a hundred-piece orchestra, and it goes in the film. It’s just the way my brain works.
When Devo started slowing down, in the mid ‘80s, Paul Reubens had offered me a job scoring a TV show for him, called Pee-wee’s Playhouse. I’d been going on tour for the last six years before that.
He sent me a videotape on Monday. On Tuesday, I wrote 12 songs. On Wednesday, I recorded them. On Thursday, I sent a tape from L.A. to New York; on Friday, they’d mix it into the final mix of the show, and on Saturday we’d watch it on TV. Monday, he’d send me another tape.
I said “Sign me up for this job. I just love the idea that I’ll be constantly writing music.” I put in little bits of Devo songs, or hints of other things. And I got to work with the Residents and all these other interesting artists during that time period.
When I saw Rugrats, I really respected the people that created the show. And I liked the way the Rugrats looked, and the way that they all talked to each other like adults, and the adults didn’t know what they were saying. And they were ugly; they weren’t cute kids. Their heads looked like gonads, actually. I found that all very humorous.
Wes Anderson, when I worked with him, he was one of the artists that reminded me of when we were putting Devo together. Working with him on Bottle Rocket, his first movie. He just kind of had that attention to detail and storyline, and he was very confident in what he was doing. We complemented each other really well.
Again, with everything you have on your plate, you felt Devo was worth re-visiting …
Devo was where it all started, and I feel like all the people that were involved in it, and all of us who are still here, we created something. And we’ve all made permutations of Devo. And I think a lot of my music that I write is influenced by the way that our thoughts came together when we were in our early, idealistic 20s.
