Devo loved to drive people crazy and activate younger minds. Now, they’re doing it in the form of a documentary. Let’s whip it: Devo, streaming August 19 on Netflix, is a creative retelling of the band’s history, which began as a literary and art movement when Mark Mothersbaugh and several future members met as students at Kent State University. Thankfully for us, Mothersbaugh and the other energy-domed gentlemen — the classic lineup also consisted of Gerald Casale, Bob Casale, Bob Mothersbaugh, and Alan Myers — had the good sense to transition to music, and they became a focus point for the American New Wave with their 1978 debut Q. Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo!. As Mothersbaugh cracks in the doc: “When you have Dick Clark asking about devolution, it’s working.”
Devo’s marriage of music, theatrics, and philosophy sustained them until the end of the 1980s, with Mothersbaugh going on to enjoy a prolific second act as a composer for television shows and films. The band never really stopped performing, though, and this fall, they’ll be co-headlining a tour with their fellow weirdo luminaries the B-52’s. “When I look at this documentary and see someone else’s take on Devo, it gives me a more objective view of myself,” Mothersbaugh now says of the experience. “You can be like, ‘Well, I would’ve brought up this or I would’ve said that.’ You watch how they see you.”
The documentary’s core message posits that you’re the most misunderstood band to have shown up in the face of the planet. You’ve said that Devo’s sound “is for the listener to decide.” What were some of the most infuriating interpretations of your music you’ve encountered through the years?
I remember our first interview in Rolling Stone. They said, “You call this rock and roll? There’s a couple of songs that don’t even have real drums on it.” So we were like, “Well, have you been keeping up with rock and roll, you guys?” That annoyed me. By 1981 or 1982, MTV had been created and everybody was doing videos. We had already been doing these short films since the early 1970s and thought, Now everybody’s doing that. What are we going to do to stand out and do something different? We thought, We’ll do live performances where we’re in a video live onstage. Before there was Mitti, we crafted a way to play totally in sync with backing plates for songs like “That’s Good” and “Peek-a-Boo.” Some executive in Los Angeles said, “Devo, if I wanted to go watch a video game, I’d go to an arcade.” He thought it was ridiculous that we would play totally in sync with the background, but of course everybody did that by the following year. Then David Bowie, Michael Jackson, and everyone else copied it after. That and Rolling Stone frustrated me the most.
Early in the band’s career, you all considered getting plastic surgery to look alike.
Fortunately, we didn’t do that.
I wouldn’t have insisted that we sign with Richard Branson, because all we did was help make him a billionaire a little bit faster than he was going to be.
What were some other out-there ideas that never came to fruition?
At one point I thought, We’re making all of this material, but we don’t need to be the people that are out on tour doing it. We could just stay here in Akron and keep writing. So we seriously considered — this was long before Menudo — what if we did four or five Devos and put them all out on the road at the same time? It wouldn’t have to be about us five guys. It could be about a concept and an idea, more than about calling the five people in the band Devo. We had also talked about traveling in a tent, like a circus tent, so we could avoid being in the identical venues that made people compare you to other bands that had played the venues before us. Radiohead are the ones who finally did that, about 20 years later. The one idea I’m happy we pursued was we would be our own opening act. We would go on as Dove, the Music of Love. And we got booed off the stage, because our disguises were so good that people didn’t recognize us, even though we were doing born-again Devo songs.
How many shows did it take for people to realize what was going on?
There were big venues with big audiences, but the people in the front row always got the joke. They saw that it was fake muttonchops and Century 21 outfits instead of Devo outfits. But the people in the back were chanting over the music, “We want Devo!” So that was kind of a fun prank.
What were some of the subliminal messages that you enjoyed embedding into songs?
We didn’t do it in the band so much as in our careers afterward. In Pee-wee’s Playhouse, I would put in bits of Devo songs, or in television commercials. It started with Hawaiian Punch. I was hired to do a one-minute-long commercial. It was a big deal. When it got to the finale, there were no lyrics. There was a robot voice, and he declared, “Hawaiian Punch hits you in all the right places.” There was a drumbeat afterwards, it went boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. And over the top of the drumbeat went, “Sugar is bad for you.” I dialed it just below where the people at the advertising agency would have said, “Hey, get rid of that.” I remember going to the executives to play it for them. One of the head guys went, “Yeah, Hawaiian Punch does hit you in all the right places! Woo!” I remember Bob Casale giving me a look in that meeting like, “Wow, how did you get away with that?” So then we started putting different messages in other commercials, like “Question authority,” “Mutate,” and “Are we not men?” It was so easy to do. I did at least 30 commercials for brands like Mercedes and Levi’s. Nobody paid attention. I finally got caught by an editor and I had to be like, “Oh, sorry about that.”
It was after the shootings at Kent State that we started thinking about: ‘Rebellion doesn’t seem to work.’
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My favorite tidbit from the documentary that I learned is “Uncontrollable Urge” was created as a deconstructed version of “She Loves You” and the intro is almost the same as “I Want to Hold Your Hand.” I never clocked that Beatles influence. I know John Lennon loved you guys, but did the other three ever send their regards?
None of them ever talked to me about it. John’s the only one who acknowledged that he caught the connection between the songs. I mean, it wasn’t so overt that it was a copyright infringement. He understood the idea that instead of “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” we were singing “Yeah” as quickly as possible. He heard it and loved it. It was unfortunate that John had to go too soon. But that’s the way the world works sometimes.
You predicted that Devo would devolve themselves, and the band eventually got whittled down to something that, as you put it, a record company could deal with. When you look back at this time period — the mid-’80s — do you have any regrets?
There are things you would always do differently. I wouldn’t have insisted that we sign with Richard Branson, because all we did was help make him a billionaire a little bit faster than he was going to be. We’d been at Warner Bros. and we saw Annette Funicello and Frank Sinatra posters everywhere in the studio building. Then we went to Virgin Records in London and there were the Sex Pistols everywhere. It was much fresher. I thought Richard was going to be a better guy, but he wasn’t. He was a worse guy. You see, again, nothing in the documentary was startling, but it was interesting to see what things seemed irrelevant or important to an outsider. That’s what made it so enjoyable for me.
What was one piece of information that was left out and deemed irrelevant, but you think is very much relevant to talk about with me?
I would’ve gone deeper about how at the very beginning of Devo, we were pure artists. It was after the shootings at Kent State that we started thinking about: “Rebellion doesn’t seem to work. If the people you’re rebelling against the power get tired of you or are irritated with you, they just kill you. They can just shoot you and get rid of you. Who changes things?” We looked around and decided it was Madison Avenue and not people rebelling against the country. The advertisers on Madison Avenue changed people’s point of views on things. We thought, What techniques do they use? They were subliminal and subversive. So we decided we were going to add subversion as our go-to.
In Ohio, they have very lax laws on where you can bury remains. I was thinking I would transfer all of Devo’s remains to that one parking spot.
Devo was a video entity before becoming a working band, and one of your strongest principles was to keep working in territories that haven’t been explored before. Do you have any great, unrealized projects that never blasted off?
I always had a soft spot for the idea of: What if Devo had our own informational television station? We would have loved to have Devo Vision, where we could talk about and explain our take on everything that was going on in the world, as opposed to the “official take.” But there’s only so much energy. Devo were mostly outsiders for our whole career. So it’s like, we weren’t going to be the first choice for something like that. It would’ve been somebody like the guy who did “The Piña Colada Song.” The powers that be would’ve given him his own weekly show, not Devo.
One of my favorite video clips is when you discuss Weird Al’s Devo style parody. You referred to it as “the most beautiful thing I had ever heard” and hated him for his ingenuity in resculpting the Devo sound. Why did this shock you so much?
It’s interesting when you have somebody calling you “daring to be stupid,” because I didn’t think of Devo as being stupid, to be honest with you. So I found it amusing. I didn’t follow Weird Al. He wasn’t on my radar screen. Since it’s a parody, we didn’t have to approve it in advance. I guess it’s probably like, in parody, you can do a lot of things, and everybody knows you’re trying to make them laugh.
In a perfect world, you and Weird Al will be among the next class of Rock Hall inductees.
Well, I’ve got an alternative plan.
Let’s hear it.
I’m looking to buy a piece of the parking lot, like maybe one parking space adjacent to the museum. In Ohio, they have very lax laws on where you can bury remains. I was thinking I would transfer all of Devo’s remains to that one parking spot. We’d just dig down underneath it and bury everybody. So if we weren’t in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, we could be adjacent to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. That would take some of the pressure off. And you could still park on top of us; we don’t mind. If you help us get the parking spot right next to the Rock Hall, I’ll make sure you get a free parking permit whenever you’re there.
Where’s the weirdest place you’ve ever heard “Whip It” in the wild?
It wasn’t a place that was necessarily weird, but it was a place that for me was exotic. And that was Barcelona. I was just walking down the streets and enjoying a city that looked totally different than Los Angeles or Akron. And I heard it coming out of a store for teachers. They sold supplies for students and for schoolteachers. That’s truly my favorite memory of “Whip It.”
Do you still think devolution is closer to the truth than evolution?
Unfortunately, yes. What’s more to the point is humans, I think, are the one unnatural species. We’re the one species that’s out of touch with nature, and we’re destroying things. Our idea for a solution is, “Hey, okay, we’ll destroy this planet, but let’s all go to Mars.” And I’m thinking, “That’s crazy.” I’m sure animals must look at us and be repulsed.
