{"id":4754,"date":"2025-08-26T14:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-08-26T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/crack-that-whip-new-documentary-explores-the-evolution-of-devo\/"},"modified":"2025-08-26T14:00:00","modified_gmt":"2025-08-26T14:00:00","slug":"crack-that-whip-new-documentary-explores-the-evolution-of-devo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/crack-that-whip-new-documentary-explores-the-evolution-of-devo\/","title":{"rendered":"Crack That Whip: New Documentary Explores the Evolution of Devo\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<figure><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static.spin.com\/files\/2025\/08\/useDEVO_n_00_01_57_02.jpg\" width=\"\" height=\"\" alt=\"Mark Mothersbaugh cracking a whip in the \u2018Whip It\u2019 video. (Courtesy of Netflix)\"><\/figure>\n<p>Somewhere deep in the archives of the lime-green, forum-shaped headquarters of Mutato Muzika, Mark Mothersbaugh is digging up the distant past.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The building houses his music production company on the Sunset Strip, but also the entire recorded history of Devo, the groundbreaking art-punk new wave band he co-founded with Jerry Casale back in the 1970s. He soon emerges with a box holding a multitrack tape from the band\u2019s revolutionary 1978 debut album, <em>Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo!<\/em><\/p>\n<p>More from Spin:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\n\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.spin.com\/2025\/08\/police-members-royalty-lawsuit\/\">Andy Summers, Stewart Copeland Sue Sting Over Police Royalties<\/a>\n\t\t<\/li>\n<li>\n\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.spin.com\/2025\/08\/close-but-no-cigar\/\">CLOSE, BUT NO CIGAR<\/a>\n\t\t<\/li>\n<li>\n\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.spin.com\/2025\/08\/mavis-staples-new-album\/\">Mavis Staples Makes \u2018Beautiful\u2019 Music With Star-Studded Cast<\/a>\n\t\t<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>\u201cSo this is one of the two 24-track masters from Germany when we recorded with Eno and Bowie,\u201d Mothersbaugh says with a smile, as he sits back down. He opens the box and flips through sheets of paper that list different elements on the tracks, and notes of the album\u2019s acclaimed producer, \u201cI was looking at how nice Brian Eno\u2019s handwriting was.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Mothersbaugh, 75, is dressed in a black T-shirt with a classic band logo, with shiny metal glasses, short gray hair with a stylish wave on top. He\u2019s here with younger brother, Bob, 73, dressed in plaid; and Casale, 77, in a black jacket.\u00a0<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image aligncenter size-full\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1200\" height=\"1731\" src=\"https:\/\/static.spin.com\/files\/2025\/08\/DEVO_2025_9color.jpg\" alt=\"Devo co-founder Mark Mothersbaugh. (Credit: Steve Appleford)\" class=\"wp-image-470990\" srcset=\"https:\/\/static.spin.com\/files\/2025\/08\/DEVO_2025_9color.jpg 1200w, https:\/\/static.spin.com\/files\/2025\/08\/DEVO_2025_9color-340x490.jpg 340w, https:\/\/static.spin.com\/files\/2025\/08\/DEVO_2025_9color-768x1108.jpg 768w, https:\/\/static.spin.com\/files\/2025\/08\/DEVO_2025_9color-1065x1536.jpg 1065w, https:\/\/static.spin.com\/files\/2025\/08\/DEVO_2025_9color-498x718.jpg 498w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px\"><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Devo co-founder Mark Mothersbaugh. (Credit: Steve Appleford)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>They are gathered at Mutato Muzika to talk about the new feature documentary, <em>Devo<\/em>, currently on Netflix. The Devo members admit they can\u2019t look at the film objectively, and they seem ambivalent about the results, but they\u2019ve supported the doc in full, appearing together at festivals and special screenings. Mothersbaugh has shown the film for friends at his Los Angeles home. And the band is releasing a soundtrack album, <em>Energy Dome Frequencies: Songs from the DEVO Documentary<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>In truth, <em>Devo<\/em> is a fascinating encapsulation of what led to this band being created and its ongoing legacy, which inevitably leans toward the earliest years and first few albums on Warner Bros. Records. They weren\u2019t always embraced by radio or the mainstream music industry, but made history. The first hour of this 90-minute documentary is focused on the Devo creation story, followed immediately by the disorienting success of the single \u201cWhip It.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou get to find out finally what our creative inspirations were, where the ideas were coming from \u2026 from outside of pop music entirely,\u201d says Casale. \u201cIt was important for people to understand that there was some intentional substance behind it all. There was some big meta view of the world. De-evolution wasn\u2019t just a smart student pose.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd now here we are where it\u2019s more than real. We\u2019re living in what we talked about and worse. It\u2019s idiocracy, our worst fears came true. What we were warning about, like canaries in the coal mine, it all happened.\u201d<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image aligncenter size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1200\" height=\"1642\" src=\"https:\/\/static.spin.com\/files\/2025\/08\/DEVO_2025_11color.jpg\" alt=\"Devo co-founder Gerald Casale in the recording studio of Mutato Musika, Mark Mohersnaigh's music production company on the Sunset Strip.  (Credit: Steve Appleford)\" class=\"wp-image-470988\" srcset=\"https:\/\/static.spin.com\/files\/2025\/08\/DEVO_2025_11color.jpg 1200w, https:\/\/static.spin.com\/files\/2025\/08\/DEVO_2025_11color-340x465.jpg 340w, https:\/\/static.spin.com\/files\/2025\/08\/DEVO_2025_11color-768x1051.jpg 768w, https:\/\/static.spin.com\/files\/2025\/08\/DEVO_2025_11color-1123x1536.jpg 1123w, https:\/\/static.spin.com\/files\/2025\/08\/DEVO_2025_11color-498x681.jpg 498w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px\"><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Devo co-founder Gerald Casale in the recording studio of Mutato Muzika, Mark Mothersbaugh\u2019s music production company on the Sunset Strip. (Credit: Steve Appleford)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>This is not the story of a rock band desperate to be loved. Devo was anti-rock, anti-cool, a multimedia sendup of conformity, technology, religion, and sex, depicting humankind as a laughable specimen in a Petri dish. Society was lost in consumption and decay, Devo warned. It can\u2019t be stopped, so enjoy! The band would eventually claim a private corner of the festering \u201970s punk\/new wave movement, touching a raw, awkward nerve with music and short films that mixed crackpot science with aggression and wit.<\/p>\n<p>The documentary tells an entertaining and meticulously constructed story through startling vintage footage and montages colliding the band\u2019s diverse influences. \u201cThey definitely looked at the world through their own lens,\u201d says director Chris Smith, known for <em>American Movie<\/em> and <em>Jim &amp; Andy: The Great Beyond<\/em>, in a phone interview. \u201cEverything they did gets better with time. If social media had been around in their era, they would\u2019ve been one of the most popular bands in the world because they were creating stuff that was so distinctive and visually arresting.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Devo also remains very much an active band, and have been since before their last album, 2010\u2019s <em>Something for Everybody<\/em>. On Sept. 24, Devo begins a co-headlining tour with the B-52\u2019s, another demented musical sendup of pop culture born in the \u201970s that seemed insane in the time of Styx and the Eagles.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNobody can believe that somehow we didn\u2019t cross paths and tour together,\u201d says Casale. \u201cNow we\u2019re probably two of the only bands from that era that can still get on stage and really do it.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image aligncenter size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1080\" height=\"1080\" src=\"https:\/\/static.spin.com\/files\/2025\/08\/EN-US_DEVO_Main_Square_1X1_RGB_POST.jpg\" alt=\"(Courtesy: Netflix)\" class=\"wp-image-470986\" srcset=\"https:\/\/static.spin.com\/files\/2025\/08\/EN-US_DEVO_Main_Square_1X1_RGB_POST.jpg 1080w, https:\/\/static.spin.com\/files\/2025\/08\/EN-US_DEVO_Main_Square_1X1_RGB_POST-340x340.jpg 340w, https:\/\/static.spin.com\/files\/2025\/08\/EN-US_DEVO_Main_Square_1X1_RGB_POST-768x768.jpg 768w, https:\/\/static.spin.com\/files\/2025\/08\/EN-US_DEVO_Main_Square_1X1_RGB_POST-498x498.jpg 498w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1080px) 100vw, 1080px\"><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">(Courtesy: Netflix)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>It began in Akron, Ohio, where Casale and Mothersbaugh and their brothers grew up absorbing an endless supply of pop culture kitsch, B-movies and TV commercials, comic books, and cocktail napkin cartoons. Also reaching their ears were the crazy new sounds of \u201960s rock, scary Cold War rhetoric and the fiery sermons of local televangelists Rex Humbard and the Rev. Ernest Angley, who claimed the healing powers of Christ himself (\u201cI know there are some of you here who could make a $1,000 covenant! Don\u2019t be afraid! God will stand by you!\u201d).<\/p>\n<p>At Kent State University, Casale and Mothersbaugh met as art students. Mothersbaugh was printing up decals and stickers of strange cartoons that he was putting up around campus. One of them was of an astronaut holding a potato on the Moon. Casale introduced himself and asked, \u201cWhat do potatoes mean to you?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>They both saw something intriguing in the other, Akron homeboys and kindred spirits, each a provocateur, a collaborator.<\/p>\n<p>The year was 1970, and things were about to take a grim turn at Kent State. Casale was an active anti-war demonstrator. And on May 4 tensions were high: President Nixon had expanded the Vietnam War into Cambodia, and protesters responded by torching the ROTC building. Bob Mothersbaugh, then a high school kid, was there for that, and brought an American flag that someone ignited and tossed into the pyre.<\/p>\n<p>So the governor sent a detachment of Ohio National Guardsmen in gas masks to the campus. Soldiers were predictably taunted by activists as tear gas canisters were launched into the crowd. Students scattered, Casale among them. Then, at 12:24 p.m., he turned to see guardsmen kneeling and taking aim. At least 61 shots were fired. Four students lay dead, nine others were wounded.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image aligncenter size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1200\" height=\"1804\" src=\"https:\/\/static.spin.com\/files\/2025\/08\/DEVO_2025_10color.jpg\" alt=\"Devo lead guitarist Bob Mothersbaugh in the Mutato Musika recording studio. (Credit: Steve Appleford)\" class=\"wp-image-470989\" srcset=\"https:\/\/static.spin.com\/files\/2025\/08\/DEVO_2025_10color.jpg 1200w, https:\/\/static.spin.com\/files\/2025\/08\/DEVO_2025_10color-340x511.jpg 340w, https:\/\/static.spin.com\/files\/2025\/08\/DEVO_2025_10color-768x1155.jpg 768w, https:\/\/static.spin.com\/files\/2025\/08\/DEVO_2025_10color-1022x1536.jpg 1022w, https:\/\/static.spin.com\/files\/2025\/08\/DEVO_2025_10color-498x749.jpg 498w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px\"><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Devo lead guitarist Bob Mothersbaugh in the Mutato Muzika recording studio. (Credit: Steve Appleford)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>\u201cWe didn\u2019t expect what was about to happen. That was a set up,\u201d Casale remembers. \u201cWe were the idiots that were completely chumped because nobody knew what the plan would be. We just thought we were going to do speeches and vent the anger and the outrage, and that would be that. But the National Guard had a big plan, with the governor of Ohio, and they surrounded us. And they had live ammunition.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI was right in the line of fire, but they didn\u2019t kill the people closest to them. They killed the people behind us.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Casale personally knew two of the students killed that day. And something inside him changed.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cLike the Matrix, it was a big red pill moment,\u201d Casale says. \u201cUntil then, you were probably just a live-and-let-live hippie-ish person that thinks, \u2018Oh, America is exceptional, and there\u2019s just some bad apples in the barrel, and it can be fixed.\u2019 And then you find out everything\u2019s been a lie, and you recalibrate. And then you watch history being written when you were there, and you know what happened. And nobody was telling the truth.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Casale and Mothersbaugh escaped to the basements of Akron, where they began piecing together a new sound and a half-serious\/half-comic philosophy about something called \u201cde-evolution.\u201d They recruited brothers Bob Mothersbaugh (\u201cBob 1\u201d) and Bob Casale (\u201cBob 2\u201d) on guitars; Jim Mothersbaugh also briefly joined on drums, later replaced by Alan Myers. What emerged from those early experiments wasn\u2019t punk, not yet, but something closer to the skewed blooze of Captain Beefheart, raw groovy stuff for weirdos, with abstract synthesizer sounds from the fingers of Mark Mothersbaugh.<\/p>\n<p>They initially thought of themselves more as performance artists than as a band.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe had been influenced by a lot of the art movements in the \u201920s in Europe,\u201d says Mothersbaugh. \u201cWe thought, \u2018Well, what\u2019s the 1970 version of the 1920s futurists?\u2019 Although we didn\u2019t agree with their politics, I love their ideas about music. We talked about a cabaret, maybe instead of being a regular band going on tour.\u201d<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image aligncenter size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1200\" height=\"600\" src=\"https:\/\/static.spin.com\/files\/2025\/08\/playingDEVO_n_00_27_05_06.jpg\" alt=\" Jerry Casale and Bob Mothersbaugh performing with stocking on their heads. (Courtesy of Netflix)\" class=\"wp-image-471079\" srcset=\"https:\/\/static.spin.com\/files\/2025\/08\/playingDEVO_n_00_27_05_06.jpg 1200w, https:\/\/static.spin.com\/files\/2025\/08\/playingDEVO_n_00_27_05_06-340x170.jpg 340w, https:\/\/static.spin.com\/files\/2025\/08\/playingDEVO_n_00_27_05_06-768x384.jpg 768w, https:\/\/static.spin.com\/files\/2025\/08\/playingDEVO_n_00_27_05_06-498x249.jpg 498w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px\"><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Jerry Casale and Bob Mothersbaugh performing with stockings on their heads. (Courtesy of Netflix)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Casale and Mothersbaugh would travel to Los Angeles to meet with their old Kent State pal Joe Walsh, now a big-time rock star known for chunky FM radio riffs. The Devo boys knew him in his days leading the James Gang in front of ecstatic students soaring on acid and Quaaludes through Walsh\u2019s nightly jam sessions in town.<\/p>\n<p>So in 1974 they drove out to Los Angeles from Ohio in Casale\u2019s Dodge Dart to play Walsh their six-song demo tape. Walsh had a place amid the woods of Topanga Canyon. What he heard was raw and weird, unpolished crackpot blues and synthesizer windouts, starting with a song called \u201cA Plan for U.\u201d Looking back, Mothersbaugh can still recite the lyrics: \u201cWeave to the left, bob to the right \/ Or you\u2019ll get a flat tire on the freeway of life.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>As the music played, Walsh sat there with a joint in his hand, nodding his head, then got up and stepped just outside of the room. Mothersbaugh looked around the corner and saw Walsh with another long-haired musician. \u201cThey\u2019re passing a joint back and forth, stifling their laughter,\u201d he recalls. \u201cHe came back in the room after it was over, and he goes, \u2018Well, I don\u2019t know if that went over me or under me or around me, but keep up the good work and when you get something new, let me hear it.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Their first trip to Los Angeles hadn\u2019t worked out as planned. \u201cWe really thought we were driving out to California to get a record deal,\u201d says Mothersbaugh, \u201cand that Joe Walsh was going to hear this and he was going to lose his mind.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd he did,\u201d says Casale.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Music was still just one side to the Devo re-education plan. In 1975, Devo and filmmaker Chuck Statler made <em>In the Beginning Was the End (The Truth About De-Evolution)<\/em>, a low-budget 16mm short film. One scene had Mothersbaugh delivering \u201cJocko Homo\u201d as a lecture while human larvae writhed on a conference table. The film won the next year\u2019s Ann Arbor Film Festival, and the film toured the country, which is how A&amp;M Records man Kip Cohen first heard of Devo. Two months later the label gave Devo $2,000 to drive out to Los Angeles for a 45-minute showcase set at the Starwood nightclub. Cohen left early. But Devo decided to stay in L.A. People actually liked them out there, got the music and the message. Shows were sellouts.<\/p>\n<p>Devo also made the trip to New York, played CBGB\u2019s and found inspiration from the punk scene there, trimming the fat from their exotic dirty blues sound.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image aligncenter size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1200\" height=\"913\" src=\"https:\/\/static.spin.com\/files\/2025\/08\/liveDEVO_n_00_31_39_10.jpg\" alt=\"Devo. Jerry Casale and Bob Mothersbaugh performing. (Courtesy of Netflix)\" class=\"wp-image-471077\" srcset=\"https:\/\/static.spin.com\/files\/2025\/08\/liveDEVO_n_00_31_39_10.jpg 1200w, https:\/\/static.spin.com\/files\/2025\/08\/liveDEVO_n_00_31_39_10-340x259.jpg 340w, https:\/\/static.spin.com\/files\/2025\/08\/liveDEVO_n_00_31_39_10-768x584.jpg 768w, https:\/\/static.spin.com\/files\/2025\/08\/liveDEVO_n_00_31_39_10-498x379.jpg 498w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px\"><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Devo. Jerry Casale and Bob Mothersbaugh performing. (Courtesy of Netflix)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>\u201cWe listened to the Ramones and Sex Pistols and other bands, and we\u2019re like, \u2018Oh, yeah, this is great.\u2019 And when our songs are 50% faster, they sounded better,\u201d Mothersbaugh says with a laugh.<\/p>\n<p>At the legendary New York rock club Max\u2019s Kansas City, Bob Mothersbaugh would unfurl his guitar solos while walking over the tables of the audience. Among them were some new fans. One night, John Lennon walked up to Devo\u2019s frontman after their set and sang the opening line from \u201cUncontrollable Urge\u201d right into his face: \u201cYeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, <em>yeah<\/em>!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>On another night, as seen in the documentary, Bowie introduced the band to a full house. They were embraced at that time and in the coming years by many artists they respected, from Iggy Pop to Neil Young.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat they thought mattered. If David Bowie likes you, if Iggy Pop likes you, if Neil Young likes you, you feel vindicated,\u201d says Casale. \u201cThere were plenty of people that hated Devo. We were very polarizing. They laughed at us. They hated us, but we felt that same emotion straight back at them and that only gave us more resolve.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>By now Devo had adopted a new look, appearing on stage in plastic yellow Hazmat suits, a belt cinched tight around the waist, the proper uniform for a devolving world. And a new sound emerged on the band\u2019s first real single, released on Devo\u2019s own Booji Boy label: \u201cJocko Homo.\u201d Here was a new anthem for a new age, describing the cracked Devo philosophy (\u201cWe\u2019re pinheads now \/ we are not whole\u201d) against a quirky anti-rock throbbing. The B-side was the sneering \u201cMongoloid,\u201d which described all humankind as deluded genetic deviants.<\/p>\n<p>Bowie passed his copy of the Devo demo to sometime collaborator Brian Eno, and at the Max\u2019s show Eno offered to produce Devo\u2019s first album. He would even finance the recording himself, certain Devo\u2019s inevitable signing to a major label would mean a quick return on his investment.<\/p>\n<p>Eno brought Devo to West Germany, to Conny Plank\u2019s studio in Forst, near Cologne. It was home to a certain brand of conceptual electronic music and to the German \u201chead bands,\u201d the likes of Guru Guru, Birth Control, and Mobius. Eno often worked there. It was cheap and isolated, a converted farmhouse and pigsty.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image aligncenter size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1200\" height=\"600\" src=\"https:\/\/static.spin.com\/files\/2025\/08\/busDEVO_n_00_44_32_03.jpg\" alt=\"(Courtesy of Netflix)\" class=\"wp-image-471078\" srcset=\"https:\/\/static.spin.com\/files\/2025\/08\/busDEVO_n_00_44_32_03.jpg 1200w, https:\/\/static.spin.com\/files\/2025\/08\/busDEVO_n_00_44_32_03-340x170.jpg 340w, https:\/\/static.spin.com\/files\/2025\/08\/busDEVO_n_00_44_32_03-768x384.jpg 768w, https:\/\/static.spin.com\/files\/2025\/08\/busDEVO_n_00_44_32_03-498x249.jpg 498w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px\"><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">(Courtesy of Netflix)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>The producer had many ideas for the record, but Devo were extremely protective and controlling. And many of the bits and pieces Eno recorded on various tracks (some with Bowie) didn\u2019t make the final mix of the album.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe freaked him out and he freaked us out a little,\u201d says Mothersbaugh of their Eno experience. The singer still has dreams of handing Eno back the old multitrack tapes for a new remix.<\/p>\n<p>Regardless, when the sessions were over, Devo and Eno had created something crisp and frenzied, a seething, desperate rock and roll record, both a warning and a joke about the coming pop future.<\/p>\n<p>The album began with strange echoes from the pop past, filtered through the Devo brainpan. \u201cUncontrollable Urge\u201d lifts its first four bars directly from the Beatles\u2019 \u201cI Want to Hold Your Hand.\u201d Then comes Devo\u2019s frantic, and to many a deeply disturbing, reconstruction of the Rolling Stones\u2019 \u201c(I Can\u2019t Get No) Satisfaction.\u201d The Jagger\/Richards tune was like a holy text then, a beloved Baby Boomer anthem of apocalyptic lust, transformed here into something spasmodic and weird, inspiring new waves of love and hate for Devo.<\/p>\n<p>The documentary includes a clip from Devo\u2019s intense performance of the Stones classic on <em>Saturday Night Live<\/em>, and the song is sped up even further. The five members face the TV cameras in their yellow Hazmat suits, and perform the song with twitchy, robotic movements, terrifying and thrilling a new generation of music listeners watching at home.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt would not be an exaggeration to say at least a hundred people have come up to us through the years backstage and said, \u2018The first time I ever heard you guys was on <em>Saturday Night Live<\/em>, and you scared the shit out of me,\u2019\u201d Mothersbaugh says with a laugh. \u201cThat\u2019s a very typical response that we all get.\u201d<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image aligncenter size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1200\" height=\"899\" src=\"https:\/\/static.spin.com\/files\/2025\/08\/useDEVO_n_00_42_53_09.jpg\" alt=\"Devo playing in the &quot;(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction&quot;\u00a0music video. (Credit: Courtesy of Netflix)\" class=\"wp-image-471001\" srcset=\"https:\/\/static.spin.com\/files\/2025\/08\/useDEVO_n_00_42_53_09.jpg 1200w, https:\/\/static.spin.com\/files\/2025\/08\/useDEVO_n_00_42_53_09-340x255.jpg 340w, https:\/\/static.spin.com\/files\/2025\/08\/useDEVO_n_00_42_53_09-768x575.jpg 768w, https:\/\/static.spin.com\/files\/2025\/08\/useDEVO_n_00_42_53_09-498x373.jpg 498w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px\"><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Devo playing in the \u201c(I Can\u2019t Get No) Satisfaction\u201d music video. (Courtesy of Netflix)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>After a second album, 1979\u2019s <em>Duty Now for the Future<\/em>, with songs from the same body of work, Devo hit the mainstream in a big way with their third release. The robotic R&amp;B-flavored <em>Freedom of Choice<\/em>, from 1980, included the unlikely pop hit \u201cWhip It.\u201d The song reached the Billboard Top 20 and had a provocative Western-themed music video that had Mothersbaugh with a bullwhip.<\/p>\n<p>As a rare band with the foresight to create music videos since their earliest records, Devo were also in regular rotation on the still-young MTV network. Soon, the band was headlining major venues, from Budokan in Tokyo to The Forum in Los Angeles.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe wanted commercial success, but for us, it was more important to be artistically true to ourselves,\u201d says Mothersbaugh. \u201cWe wanted to figure out how to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The final third of the <em>Devo<\/em> documentary shows the triumph and disappointing aftermath of the band\u2019s success. The record company wanted a series of hits like \u201cWhip It,\u201d but the band had already moved on. Their third album, 1981\u2019s <em>New Traditionalists<\/em>, included several now-beloved Devo standards\u2014\u201cBeautiful World\u201d and \u201cJerkin\u2019 Back \u2019N\u2019 Forth\u201d among them\u2014but no hit singles.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>By the time of Devo\u2019s final album with Warner Bros., 1984\u2019s <em>Shout<\/em>, band members were experiencing creative differences for the first time. Things began to fray.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image aligncenter size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1200\" height=\"589\" src=\"https:\/\/static.spin.com\/files\/2025\/08\/legsDEVO_n_00_59_53_18-1.jpg\" alt=\" Jerry Casale on set of \u2018Whip It\u2019 video. (Courtesy of Netflix)\" class=\"wp-image-471083\" srcset=\"https:\/\/static.spin.com\/files\/2025\/08\/legsDEVO_n_00_59_53_18-1.jpg 1200w, https:\/\/static.spin.com\/files\/2025\/08\/legsDEVO_n_00_59_53_18-1-340x167.jpg 340w, https:\/\/static.spin.com\/files\/2025\/08\/legsDEVO_n_00_59_53_18-1-768x377.jpg 768w, https:\/\/static.spin.com\/files\/2025\/08\/legsDEVO_n_00_59_53_18-1-498x244.jpg 498w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px\"><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"> Jerry Casale on set of the \u201cWhip It\u201d video. (Courtesy of Netflix)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>\u201cI don\u2019t think any of us feel like we love it,\u201d Mothersbaugh says now of that record. \u201cBy the time we got to <em>Shout<\/em>, me and Bob Casale were the only ones that were showing up for rehearsal and writing.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Devo were bought out of their deal with Warner and moved to indie Enigma, which soon went under. Devo likely could have found a new label, but chose to go on hiatus.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think bands are like bacterium in a Petri dish and you watch it grow, grow, grow, and then it starts to go away,\u201d Mothersbaugh suggests. \u201cSome of them are a really strong bacteria, like the Rolling Stones. They had a bunch of great stuff for a long time. I think it\u2019s part of the cycle, and you\u2019re lucky if you have four or five albums that you like before you fall apart. When you\u2019re unlucky, you only have one album.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>As the documentary ends, the Devo story comes to a semi-happy conclusion, with the band seemingly over, but Mothersbaugh finding a new outlet as an in-demand composer for film and television under his Mutato Muzika banner, bringing along the two Bobs. And Casale began a busy career directing music videos and TV commercials, often showing some of the classic Devo visual flair.\u00a0<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image aligncenter size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1200\" height=\"848\" src=\"https:\/\/static.spin.com\/files\/2025\/08\/DEVO_2025_1.jpg\" alt=\"(Credit: Steve Appleford)\" class=\"wp-image-470997\" srcset=\"https:\/\/static.spin.com\/files\/2025\/08\/DEVO_2025_1.jpg 1200w, https:\/\/static.spin.com\/files\/2025\/08\/DEVO_2025_1-340x240.jpg 340w, https:\/\/static.spin.com\/files\/2025\/08\/DEVO_2025_1-768x543.jpg 768w, https:\/\/static.spin.com\/files\/2025\/08\/DEVO_2025_1-498x352.jpg 498w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px\"><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Gerald Casale, Bob Mothersbaugh, and Mark Mothersbaugh. (Credit: Steve Appleford)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>They returned to Warner Bros. for the 2010 comeback <em>Something for Everybody<\/em>, which reached the Top Ten of <em>Billboard<\/em>\u2019s rock and alternative album charts. Bob Casale died in 2014 at age 61. (Drummer Alan Myers, who left Devo after <em>Shout<\/em>, died in 2013.)<\/p>\n<p>In 2025, the band is active, but have no immediate plans for another studio album. Devo exist mainly onstage, often facing audiences filled with new fans born decades after <em>Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo!<\/em>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, a lot of the hitmakers that filled the charts back in the \u201880s are long forgotten, and Netflix isn\u2019t commissioning documentaries on them. Five decades later, Devo are somehow still relevant, as society continues its de-evolutionary decline.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhy are people interested in Devo?\u201d asks Casale. \u201cWe didn\u2019t have a dozen No. 1 hits. We didn\u2019t sell a hundred million records. We weren\u2019t Elton John. It\u2019s because of the thing that we did do, which is a cohesive body of work driven by a few big ideas.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere\u2019s still vital energy there, there\u2019s still meaning there,\u201d he adds. \u201cAnd there\u2019s now three generations watching us because they discovered it through the internet. And it\u2019s kind of cool.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>To see our running list of the top 100 greatest rock stars of all time, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.spin.com\/2021\/07\/the-greatest-rock-stars-of-all-time\/?utm_source=yahoo&amp;utm_medium=bottomlink&amp;utm_campaign=yahoolink\">click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div style=\"margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;\" class=\"sharethis-inline-share-buttons\" ><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Somewhere deep in the archives of the lime-green, forum-shaped headquarters of Mutato Muzika, Mark Mothersbaugh is digging up the distant past.\u00a0 The building houses his music production company on the&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1728,31,24,2240],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4754","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-devo","category-features","category-pushly","category-watch-me"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4754","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4754"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4754\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4754"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4754"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4754"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}