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DEVolution: DEVO talks groupies, the GOP, and the future of Booji Boy


DEVO.

“Everybody writes about the same things in their songs—sex and death—and we just present it with a different viewpoint.”

—Mark Mothersbaugh of DEVO

Here’s yet another reminder to anyone still clinging to the disinformation that the 80s were a terrible decade for music: in 1980, DEVO unleashed their third record, Freedom of Choice which yielded the monster hit (and their only gold-certified single) “Whip It.” Along with the positive reception of the first single from the album “Girl U Want,” and the title track, “Freedom of Choice,” the album put DEVO and their energy dome hats on the mainstream map. DEVO would make numerous television appearances following the May release of Freedom of Choice and the video for “Whip It” was wildly popular, though it did generate some controversy due to its content. According to DEVO bassist Gerald Casale, the band lost a booking for what Casale recalls was on the Midnight Special in 1981 due to the video for “Whip It.” Apparently, host Lily Tomlin saw the video which, as you may recall, features a woman having her clothing “whipped” off by whip-wielding Mark Mothersbaugh. Tomlin allegedly told producers to “Get rid of those guys!” which they did. So, yeah, not everybody “got” DEVO or “Whip It” (Mark Mothersbaugh has gone on the record saying the song was a kind of “pep talk” for Jimmy Carter who was running for President against Ronald Reagan in 1980 as well as a knock at Reagan being an actor).

But this didn’t stop the band from trying to enlighten the public and their fans about what made them tick. This brings us to the point of this post—a fantastic interview with both Mark Mothersbaugh and drummer Alan Myers published in Record Review magazine in December of 1980.

The interview, conducted by long-running journalist and author Jeff Tamarkin, occurred prior to Carter’s defeat in the November 1980 presidential race, and both Mothersbaugh and Myers weighed in about their thoughts on politics—and many other things, including demystifying their songs. Here are some of the highlights from the four-page interview, which does not disappoint:

On the political climate in 1980:

Tamarkin: Is there political significance behind the title of (the album) Freedom of Choice?

Alan Myers: Yes, there is. The significance is that people are being asked to use their freedom of choice in the presidential election. But it’s really ludicrous. It’s like a non-choice.

Tamarkin: Will you be voting in November?

Mark Mothersbaugh: We might be voting for Ronald McDonald. We’re going to put on blindfolds and just walk in, waving our arms.

Tamarkin: Do you find that your concepts keep proving themselves?

Mark Mothersbaugh: Yeah, look at the Republican Convention.

Alan Myers: It’s really true, though. Every time we come to New York, it’s filthier than the last time we were here.

Tamarkin: On the subject of nuclear power, if you were asked to do a benefit like the MUSE (the Musicians United for Safe Energy formed in 1979) shows which were filmed for No Nukes, would you do it?

Mark Mothersbaugh: I would do a pro-everybody that has anything to do with the nuclear power plant, as far as corporate structure and the people that govern it, being made to live within one mile of the nuclear site benefit. If they can get all those smart missiles together and they can’t even make nuclear power plants…that’s the worst end of capitalistic values. It’s perverse.

On Groupies (yes, DEVO had groupies):

Tamarkin: Does DEVO have groupies?

Mark Mothersbaugh: I don’t think you can call them groupies. If you mean do we have fans…

Tamarkin: No, regular groupies.

Mark Mothersbaugh: The kind of girls that are interested in DEVO and that we are interested in, are not your typical girls who take drugs and get as much out of you as they can and trade it in for a suck.

On why nobody seems to understand “their potato”:

Alan Myers: A few people do, though.

Mark Mothersbaugh: We’re misunderstood, that’s true. But we’re holding on, and we keep restarting the case.

Alan Myers: We keep trying to say things in more common terms. We always thought we spoke in common terms, but people think…

Mark Mothersbaugh: that we’re too bizarre and oblique.

Alan Myers: In their private conversations and things, people are capable of applying irony and interpreting things. But once you become a mass object of investigation, then people don’t take things past the first level of comprehension. So we’re learning how to communicate exactly what we want to say.

 

A photo of the legendary Spud/Spudocaster guitar.
 

On the future of Booji Boy:

Mark Mothersbaugh: Probably future mutations.

Alan Myers: Marriage, family. Nine-to-five job.

Following the release of Freedom of Choice DEVO hit the road in a big way and embarked on a tour with 77 stops across the world—recording two shows which were released as a DVD in 2005, DEVO Live in 1980. The back cover of the double-disc includes a quote from Gerald Casale who accurately sums up the impact DEVO made 39 years ago:

“This lone artifact offers indisputable evidence that in 1980 Devo had reached a turning point. We were no longer just art monsters, we were mainstream performers too.”

 

Footage of DEVO broadcast on the French comedy television show ‘The Collaro Show’ (air date June 18th, 1980) performing “Girl U Want” somewhere on the streets of Paris while Mark Mothersbaugh licks an ice-cream cone.

Previously on Dangerous Minds:
‘Are We Not Men?’ The Devo Documentary
‘Devotees’: Beautiful mutants create insane DEVO tribute album, 1979
Attention all spuds: Devo in concert 1980
Booji Boy: When DEVO’s Mark Mothersbaugh was guest DJ on ‘The Doctor Demento Show,’ 1980
DEVO meet William Burroughs: ‘David Bowie would never make an audience shit their pants. We would.’

Posted by Cherrybomb
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05.06.2019
10:47 am
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DEVO’s Jerry Casale interviews DEVO’s Gerald V. Casale
08.04.2017
09:46 am
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This is the best self-interview since David Byrne’s promotional interview for Stop Making Sense.

In this nineteen minute video, “Jerry” Casale plays the cynical straight interviewer of himself, “Gerald” Casale, bass player, vocalist, and spokesman for DEVO.

Gerald reveals to Jerry the secret behind the DEVO “energy domes” (erroneously referred to as “flower pots” by many spuds back in the day), the inspiration behind which was an art deco lighting fixture that hung from the ceiling in his grade school.

Gerald talks at length about the origins of DEVO at Kent State University, from the original concept creation with his friend Bob Lewis, to his meeting of Mark Mothersbaugh after seeing Mothersbaugh’s stickered artwork hanging in the halls of the school.

Gerald explains that the Kent State Massacre was the impetus for the creation of DEVO, conceptually and musically, as an experimental force and bulwark against the prevailing culture:

“After those killings at Kent State and the clampdown from the Nixon administration, you either had to go underground and stick to activism and possibly go to jail or be killed, or find a more creative and subversive way of reacting to the situation you found yourself in in the horrible culture.”

Gerald waxes nostalgic for the “democratic” early days of DEVO’s music when all of the members contributed to the minimalist “form follows function” vision of the band, but explains that the songwriting process went south when the technology they were using became “autocratic,” dictating the direction of the group. According to Casale, “Mark wanted it that way and I didn’t.”

DEVO’s biggest hit, “Whip It,” is also discussed, with Gerald revealing to Jerry that the basis for the song was Mark Mothersbaugh’s deconstruction of Roy Orbison’s “Oh, Pretty Woman,” adding a two beat space to the song’s main riff, with Casale’s lyrics being inspired by Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow.

Watch after the jump…

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Posted by Christopher Bickel
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08.04.2017
09:46 am
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