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Speaker 1: Pushkin, the lead singer and keyboardist for Devo, Mark Mothersbaw

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Speaker 1: is an avant garde new wave pioneer. Although critics often

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Speaker 1: classified Devo as a joke band, the akron Ohio art

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Speaker 1: punk's ethos was created in response to a very serious event,

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Speaker 1: the nineteen seventy massacre at their college, Kent State. Following

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Speaker 1: the shooting, the band took on the name Divo, short

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Speaker 1: for what they felt was organized society's de evolution. Throughout

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Speaker 1: the seventies and eighties, Devo helped lay the groundwork for

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Speaker 1: diy anti establishment bands by releasing bizarre and left of

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Speaker 1: center music and conceptual films that helped usher in the

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Speaker 1: music video revolution. In addition to his work with Devo,

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Speaker 1: Mark Mother's Law also had a long and successful career

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Speaker 1: scoring for film and TV. His credits include Pee Wee's

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Speaker 1: play House, The Rugrats TV Show, and movies, and he

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Speaker 1: scored several classic Wes Anderson directed films, including The Royal,

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Speaker 1: Tenenbaumbs and Rushmore. On today's episode, I talked to Mark

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Speaker 1: Mother's Bop about how he developed his quirky sensibility as

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Speaker 1: one of five kids growing up in a chaotic household

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Speaker 1: that included exotic animals. Mark also tells a story about

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Speaker 1: the time Richard Branson suggested that Johnny Rotten joined Devo

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Speaker 1: right after the Sex Pistols had broken up. This is

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Speaker 1: broken record liner notes for the digital age. I'm justin Mitchman.

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Speaker 1: Here's my conversation with Mark mothers VA. How you doing,

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Speaker 1: I'm good.

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Speaker 2: How are you?

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Speaker 1: I'm good, Man, I'm really good. Thanks for doing this

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Speaker 1: broken record? That's right? Was that like a radio drop

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Speaker 1: for us?

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Speaker 2: Sure, yo are listening to broken record? You know what

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Speaker 2: I used to when I was seventeen or eighteen, I

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Speaker 2: used to take my sister's be Gie records and also

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Speaker 2: my brother's one of his Pink Floyd records. So I

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Speaker 2: apologize to both of them now, but I took and

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Speaker 2: I damaged the disc on purpose, so that I mean,

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Speaker 2: there was no I didn't have a synthesizer or anything

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Speaker 2: in these days. These are like. There was a piano

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Speaker 2: and a little portable organ and a guitar in the

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Speaker 2: room where I was doing this in the basement. But

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Speaker 2: it would go there's a time, there's a time, there's

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Speaker 2: a time, there's a tie, and I would jam with that.

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Speaker 2: And I didn't have enough technology that I recorded any

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Speaker 2: of them, which I really regret. But I used to

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Speaker 2: like break my records on my sister's records on purpose.

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Speaker 1: How did you discover that as a means of making music?

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Speaker 2: Nobody was respectful of the discs in our house. Everybody

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Speaker 2: treated them, you know, because there were kids of all age.

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Speaker 2: So little kids would go ah, and they'd take my

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Speaker 2: record that I liked and they'd scratch it or by accident.

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Speaker 2: Then I'd go to play it, and then I go

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Speaker 2: little little lip bath, I go fu amy and h

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Speaker 2: It made me interested in these other kinds of rhythms

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Speaker 2: and sounds and deconstruction of music when I was a kid,

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Speaker 2: and it was innocent. I didn't have any school connection

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Speaker 2: to it. I had, you know, nobody at school talked

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Speaker 2: about that stuff. I just experimenting on my own actually.

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Speaker 1: Before you just sort of discovered that and and sort

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Speaker 1: of that kind of naturally led you into deconstruction of

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Speaker 1: music and these weird, quirky kind of rhythms and things.

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Speaker 1: Was your taste more conventional? Were you also into the

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Speaker 1: early Beacheese records?

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Speaker 2: Well, you know, I hated music when I was a

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Speaker 2: kid because I had to take piano lessons when I

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Speaker 2: was seven, and I'd be sitting there on the piano

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Speaker 2: plane the stupid thing that I had to learn, like

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Speaker 2: Autumn leaves, you know, which you know, like Roger Miller

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Speaker 2: is singing it or something. But i was playing, ah

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Speaker 2: the leaves, and I'd look out out the window of

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Speaker 2: my friends were like, ha haha, They're out there playing

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Speaker 2: and they're they're having fun, and I'm like, hey, little shirks.

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Speaker 2: And that started when I was seven, and I hated it,

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Speaker 2: and then five years later after I've been doing it

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Speaker 2: for five years. My parents too. We had five kids,

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Speaker 2: and the only way to keep it from total chaos

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Speaker 2: at dinner time is my dad had this little black

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Speaker 2: and white portable television and he'd set it on the

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Speaker 2: end of the kitchen table or whatever we and we'd

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Speaker 2: all like just we just watched TV. And dinner time

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Speaker 2: was after dad got home from work, so it would

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Speaker 2: be like, uh, you know, we'd be watching Ed Sullivan,

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Speaker 2: you know, so it'd be like football, gig O, you know,

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Speaker 2: the Little Puppet Mouse and stuff like that, and you know,

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Speaker 2: it was it was just something to watch that kept

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Speaker 2: us from like hitting each other or like putting our

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Speaker 2: fingers in each other's food, and then mom Bob put

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Speaker 2: his finger in my food, you know, like that kind

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Speaker 2: of stuff. And but one day he goes all right

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Speaker 2: and from Liverpool the Beatles, and I saw the Beatles

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Speaker 2: Do I want to hold your hand? And I lost

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Speaker 2: my mind. I just went, yeah, what is that? That's

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Speaker 2: incredible because to me, I didn't listen to the radio.

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Speaker 2: Radio and AKRON at that time was like a lot

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Speaker 2: of country Western and then and then novelty music, you know,

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Speaker 2: so there'd be like gee Wore and it's eve bitsy

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Speaker 2: teeny weeny yelloop. So that's the kind So that's what

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Speaker 2: pop music was like. To me, it was like novelty

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Speaker 2: songs like that and witch Doctor and Purple People Lead

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Speaker 2: and stuff like that. But then when I saw the Beatles,

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Speaker 2: I went, that's what I've been tortured my whole life

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Speaker 2: learning music for so I could do that. I knew

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Speaker 2: when I was twelve I was going to be in

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Speaker 2: a band, and that was before I got interested in

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Speaker 2: like writing stuff. And then I wasn't sure what that

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Speaker 2: meant or what I was doing. When I was trying

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Speaker 2: to do it, I started write trying to write music

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Speaker 2: pretty early on. But I never tried to write something

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Speaker 2: like a Beatles song or anything. I didn't really, you know,

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Speaker 2: the truth of the matter was, I didn't really. I

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Speaker 2: thought a lot of their lyrics were sappy and silly.

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Speaker 2: But I was twelve, so I was still growing up.

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Speaker 2: I thought the Rolling Stones had great lyrics. I thought

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Speaker 2: they had the best looks. I thought Satisfaction was like

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Speaker 2: this cool hipster beatnik proclamation and the music, the instruments,

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Speaker 2: you know, we're like, we're like genius. I just I

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Speaker 2: think they never talk about it, which is but I

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Speaker 2: think Keith Richards and Mick Jagger were both incredible lyricists

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Speaker 2: and songwriters.

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Speaker 1: So yeah, it's funny. I was thinking about Satisfaction. It's

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Speaker 1: funny brought up. I mean, I guess it's not strange.

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Speaker 1: You got Divo also, you know, did a great cover

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Speaker 1: of Satisfaction. But I was thinking about Satisfaction of the

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Speaker 1: day because one of my streaming services that I watched

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Speaker 1: TV on somehow switched over to the version, the lower

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Speaker 1: grade version with commercials, and so I was sitting through

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Speaker 1: a movie and it kept popping. I was sitting through

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Speaker 1: a Charles Bronson movie from the eighties, some random Charles

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Speaker 1: Bronson movie. It kept going to commercials, and I realized

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Speaker 1: about halfway through the movie I kind of missed commercials.

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Speaker 1: And then I was thinking about how Satisfaction was sort

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Speaker 1: of this screed against consumerism and people selling to you

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Speaker 1: and advertisers. But I've gotten to the point in twenty

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Speaker 1: twenty three where I kind of miss any level of communal,

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Speaker 1: like you know, yeah, and it gives you.

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Speaker 2: A relief from whatever the mediocre movie you're watching.

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Speaker 1: It was the most random Charles Bronson that's kind of funny,

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Speaker 1: hunting down like a Mormon serial killer or something curtzy.

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Speaker 1: It was wild to greetd Movies have becoming of equal

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Speaker 1: interest to you to music early on.

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Speaker 2: But it wasn't just movies. It was commercials. It was

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Speaker 2: random music you'd hear anywhere, just sounds that you heard

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Speaker 2: out in the world. When I went to public school

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Speaker 2: in Akron, there wasn't really a very robust music or

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Speaker 2: or art or anything cultural in the schools because basically

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Speaker 2: they were teaching kids how to be farmers. At my

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Speaker 2: high school there was like a ninety five kids, you know,

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Speaker 2: graduating class, and their parents were farmers. And my dad

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Speaker 2: was like a we had like a green acres farm.

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Speaker 2: It was like wasn't really a farm. It was like

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Speaker 2: this little tiny place. It had had a barn and

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Speaker 2: it had a house, and it had like five acres.

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Speaker 2: And but he was a salesman and he but he

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Speaker 2: always wanted to, you know, to live out in the

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Speaker 2: country and he so we were kind of so we

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Speaker 2: moved out to to you know, like a suburb outside

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Speaker 2: of Akron, and it was a total different world there.

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Speaker 2: You know, the people inside Akron were all you know,

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Speaker 2: they were gonna end up working on the conveyor belt line,

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Speaker 2: you know, they were going to the assembly line at

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Speaker 2: Tires because we had like we were the tire capital

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Speaker 2: of the world when I was in high school. Still

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Speaker 2: and then it smelled when you got near downtown, but

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Speaker 2: you knew that was the smell of everybody's paycheck, you know.

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Speaker 2: So you know, whether you were actually on the on

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Speaker 2: the factory line, or if you were just working at

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Speaker 2: the hot Hamburg store right out, you know, or the

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Speaker 2: hot dog stand you know, just outside of Goodyear, you know,

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Speaker 2: where people came to eat on the way out of work.

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Speaker 2: You know, It's like it was all rubber did everything

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Speaker 2: with everything did.

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Speaker 1: You spend much time because I guess you know your

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Speaker 1: your Akron. The closest cities would have been like Columbus, Cincinnati,

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Speaker 1: of course still within Ohio, Cleveland, Cleveland.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, we were a Cleveland wannabee. We wished we could

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Speaker 2: have been like they have a cooler art scene in Cleveland.

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Speaker 2: They have bands come to play there. You know, you

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Speaker 2: had to go up to Cleveland to go see David Bowie.

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Speaker 2: He didn't come down to Akron.

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Speaker 1: Did you get any shows in Akron when you were.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, occasionally. I I had to miss it for I

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Speaker 2: don't remember what reason. But my my younger brothers saw

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Speaker 2: Cream at the Akron Civic Theater. And I remember my

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Speaker 2: little brother who was in junior high and was a drummer.

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Speaker 2: He charged the stage after the show was over and

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Speaker 2: before Ginger Baker. He said, Ginger Baker had his drumsticks

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Speaker 2: taped to his hands with because because otherwise he would

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Speaker 2: have lost him because he was so you know, probably high,

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Speaker 2: you know. But he ran up on stage and he said,

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Speaker 2: good drumming man, and Ginger Baker just went anxious, you know,

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Speaker 2: like that, and that was and he was so excited

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Speaker 2: that he exchanged a communication with Ginger Baker and he

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Speaker 2: did become a drummer my brother Jim Man.

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Speaker 1: I mean, Ginger Baker is an exciting guy. You know,

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Speaker 1: even if he's not enough.

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Speaker 2: Probably probably would have been dangerous if he would have

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Speaker 2: ended up, you know, backstage or something with him. But

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Speaker 2: who knows.

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Speaker 1: That's a bummer he missed that. I'm sure that must

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Speaker 1: have been incredible.

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Speaker 2: There were a lot of well shows, you know, because

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Speaker 2: if nothing else, they were on their way to Chicago

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Speaker 2: or they were you know, Detroit was like the shit though,

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Speaker 2: you know, It's like Detroit had amazing bands that came

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Speaker 2: from him, you know, and and that's where you had

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Speaker 2: to go if you wanted to see like Iggy Pop

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Speaker 2: or and.

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Speaker 1: Seeing Iggy in Detroit. But I mean before he left Detroit,

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Speaker 1: that must have been wild.

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Speaker 2: You know where I saw him actually, I saw him

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Speaker 2: in Cleveland. I saw him in Cleveland at the Cleveland Tourium.

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Speaker 2: He opened up for David Bowie for his Spiders to

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Speaker 2: Mars show, and I was like, wow, look at that guy,

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Speaker 2: because he was like, he didn't have a shirt and

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Speaker 2: he would like throw himself off the stage and people

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Speaker 2: would get out of the way and he'd just smash

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Speaker 2: on the floor and he'd just bounce up and keep singing,

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Speaker 2: and he'd be bloody by the end of his set,

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Speaker 2: and I was like, that's pretty hardcore. That was amazing.

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Speaker 2: Well was that, you know? And then then Bowie came

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Speaker 2: out and that was such an incredible show. The Spider

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Speaker 2: Some Mars show was so amazing, and and like Mick

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Speaker 2: Ronson had like a blonde page boy poudy, you know, lipstick,

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Speaker 2: and he had like on silk blue pants that like,

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Speaker 2: you know, went just below the knee with white knee

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Speaker 2: socks that came up, you know, like like he had

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Speaker 2: like white pantyhose on. And he had like lifted shoes,

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Speaker 2: you know, big shoes with a big buckle, and he

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Speaker 2: just looked so badass, like a out of a Renaissance painting.

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Speaker 2: And they were so amazing. And I remember at one

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Speaker 2: point during one of his solos, Bowie gets you know,

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Speaker 2: he's dressed like a lizard alien and and he gets

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Speaker 2: down in front of Mick and I remember being in

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Speaker 2: the Audiens going, oh gosh, I wonder if David knows

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Speaker 2: that looks like he's blowing Mick Ronson. He should someone

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Speaker 2: should tell him not to do that, because it looks

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Speaker 2: like he's blowing him. I you know, I know he's

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Speaker 2: just worshiping his guitar playing, but the way he's doing it,

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Speaker 2: it looks like he's blowing it. I remember thinking that

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Speaker 2: when I was a little.

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Speaker 1: Kid, oh Man, to be naive Akron.

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Speaker 2: Well, I mean, you know, an Akron if anybody, if

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Speaker 2: there was anybody there that was gay, it got beat

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Speaker 2: out of them. You know, That's the kind of it was.

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Speaker 2: It was a rough place to be even, you know,

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Speaker 2: anywhere deviant of right down the middle it was. And

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Speaker 2: so Devo was so far off to you know, out

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Speaker 2: of out of it that we were just we just

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Speaker 2: felt like space aliens, you know, like observing the planet

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Speaker 2: the whole time.

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Speaker 1: I mean that show that you saw with Bowie and

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Speaker 1: Iggy and Brox, I mean that must have been maybe

250
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Speaker 1: just before DEVA started. You guys might have even been

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Speaker 1: been playing.

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Speaker 2: It was probably we might have already been jamming, because

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Speaker 2: I don't remember what year it was now now you're right,

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Speaker 2: I don't know the exact year that that that album

255
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Speaker 2: came ound though, right around the same time, and you know,

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Speaker 2: Bowie was somebody we we really respected as an artist.

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Speaker 2: You know. It's like there were people that we kept

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Speaker 2: our eye on and it was like, uh, like Eno

259
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Speaker 2: for instance, you know, but even like a much more

260
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Speaker 2: eccentric things like uh, Captain Beefheart. I was a really

261
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Speaker 2: big fan of his.

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Speaker 1: I think the first Captain Beefheart record is probably the

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Speaker 1: only Captain b Fart record that I have been on

264
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Speaker 1: the wrap my mind around still. I mean it only

265
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Speaker 1: because it only got more and more bizarre from from there.

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Speaker 1: You know, that was kind of a conventional record in hindsight,

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Speaker 1: save as Milk and.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, for me, it was trout Mask Replica was the

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Speaker 2: one that I thought was his uh masterpiece. Matter of fact,

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Speaker 2: there's a song on it called the Blimp and the

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Speaker 2: line and it goes did it? Did it? Did it?

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Speaker 1: Did it?

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Speaker 2: Did it? And anyhow So, when we did our remake

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Speaker 2: of Secret Agent Man and played a solo for it,

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Speaker 2: I finished the solo at the beginning of the song.

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Speaker 2: It has an homage to that goes did it did It?

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Speaker 2: I put it in the solo and nobody has ever

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Speaker 2: come up to me and say, hey, you you referenced

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Speaker 2: a cap'n Beefheart song in Secret As it was too

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Speaker 2: obscure for everybody in the world.

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Speaker 1: I guess there's too much information on drop masks. I've

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Speaker 1: going to synthesize it and be able to recognize it

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Speaker 1: else where. I think, you know, it's just two.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, that's yeah, that's it's a pretty amazing you know,

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Speaker 2: it's pretty dense.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah.

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Speaker 2: So anyhow, that was that was my early influences and

288
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Speaker 2: just but also at the same time of that, when

289
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Speaker 2: I was a little kid, twelve and going up, it

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Speaker 2: was the British invasion for me. I loved all that stuff.

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Speaker 2: And I remember going walking past the drug store on

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Speaker 2: the way home from school because they and they had

293
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Speaker 2: a magazine called Tiger Beat and I never bought one

294
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Speaker 2: because I didn't have a quarter or whatever it was,

295
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Speaker 2: but I would go in and I just look at

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Speaker 2: them to see pictures of these and I remember being

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Speaker 2: really upset once because it said Dave Clark five versus

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Speaker 2: the Beatles, you know, like they like had these like

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Speaker 2: their concepts of Battle of the Band, and you know,

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Speaker 2: they would then go through and say, whoa, here's what's

301
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Speaker 2: good about them, and here's what and here's what's not

302
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Speaker 2: as good, but it's better by them, and I remember

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Speaker 2: in my little twelve or thirteen year old brain, I'm

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Speaker 2: going like, well, that's not fair. There's five of them.

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Speaker 2: In the day of Clark five, there's only four Beetles.

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Speaker 2: I just remember being like, that's my takeaway. When I

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Speaker 2: left the drug store that day, I was like really

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Speaker 2: concerned about the Beatles, you know, being outnumbered. I thought

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Speaker 2: I was the fifth Beatle. When I was a little kid,

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Speaker 2: I would go down in the basement. Is the only

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Speaker 2: way I could get away from like five kids. We

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00:16:44,516 --> 00:16:49,916
Speaker 2: had monkeys, flying, squirrels, dogs, cats, every kind of animal. Seriously, yeah,

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Speaker 2: we had all sorts of animals. My dad was kind

314
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Speaker 2: of odd in that way, in a great way. But

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Speaker 2: I could go down in the basement. I could turn

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Speaker 2: my Beatle record up loud, and I would pretend I

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Speaker 2: was the fifth Beatle and I and in my mind,

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Speaker 2: I'd be watching the Beatles at Shay Stadium on stage

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Speaker 2: and I'd be off stage, and then one of them

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Speaker 2: would look over, like maybe John would look over and

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Speaker 2: he go come on, and so I'd come out and

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Speaker 2: he'd they'd be playing in the middle of a song

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Speaker 2: and he'd lift his guitar away from his body. So

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Speaker 2: this is this is creepy for a twelve year old

325
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Speaker 2: kid to be having this fantasy. But you know, I

326
00:17:27,276 --> 00:17:29,796
Speaker 2: would get in between him and his guitar and then

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Speaker 2: I'd take over playing, and then he would slip his

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Speaker 2: guitar strap off of his neck out round mine and

329
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Speaker 2: I'd be this little twelve year old kid playing with

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Speaker 2: the Beatles and they had their outfits. I couldn't be that.

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Speaker 2: I wasn't allowed to have that in my fantasy. I

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Speaker 2: just was like in my school clothes and I'm playing,

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Speaker 2: and then i'd keep an eye on him, and John

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00:17:50,196 --> 00:17:53,236
Speaker 2: would like be smoking a cigarette and then he'd put

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Speaker 2: it out and you'd go okay, and then he'd come

336
00:17:54,876 --> 00:17:58,036
Speaker 2: back out, and then we'd do that thing again, and

337
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Speaker 2: he'd get in between me and he'd take over playe

338
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Speaker 2: and I'd duck out, and then you know, maybe the

339
00:18:03,236 --> 00:18:05,476
Speaker 2: next maybe next it would be Ringo would look over,

340
00:18:05,556 --> 00:18:08,236
Speaker 2: he'd have to pee or something, you know, and I'd

341
00:18:08,676 --> 00:18:10,396
Speaker 2: i'd I'd like to come out, and I'd be sitting

342
00:18:10,396 --> 00:18:13,516
Speaker 2: there in between him and the and the drums. Then

343
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Speaker 2: then next thing you know, I'm playing and he's gone.

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Speaker 2: He's going to the restroom or something or getting a

345
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Speaker 2: glass of milk or whatever Ringo had to do in

346
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Speaker 2: the middle of a song. But it was but it

347
00:18:24,356 --> 00:18:26,196
Speaker 2: was always like in the middle of a song too.

348
00:18:26,356 --> 00:18:28,036
Speaker 2: That was the amazing part of it. It was like

349
00:18:28,116 --> 00:18:30,516
Speaker 2: never like they would finish a song and then I'd

350
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Speaker 2: come out and do it. It was like it was

351
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Speaker 2: better than that.

352
00:18:33,636 --> 00:18:35,316
Speaker 1: That's a way cooler way of doing it though, just

353
00:18:35,316 --> 00:18:38,836
Speaker 1: slipping in the beat never stops, you never, you know,

354
00:18:39,436 --> 00:18:41,796
Speaker 1: just picking right up where one of them left off.

355
00:18:41,836 --> 00:18:43,836
Speaker 1: That's the that's the smooth way of doing it.

356
00:18:43,916 --> 00:18:47,396
Speaker 2: That was my British Invasion fantasy from twelve or thirteen

357
00:18:47,516 --> 00:18:48,276
Speaker 2: somewhere in there.

358
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Speaker 1: Do you still appreciate the British invasion of that music?

359
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Speaker 2: Oh? Yeah, I mean, you know, it's like I got

360
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Speaker 2: kids and a wife that are into Sono's and every

361
00:18:57,436 --> 00:18:59,636
Speaker 2: all the different you know, Spotify's and everything, and I

362
00:18:59,716 --> 00:19:02,076
Speaker 2: just I just work on music all the time, so

363
00:19:02,156 --> 00:19:04,676
Speaker 2: I don't I rarely go back and listen to music.

364
00:19:05,356 --> 00:19:08,396
Speaker 2: But a couple of weeks ago, we were sending Sono's

365
00:19:08,596 --> 00:19:11,796
Speaker 2: system up in our dining room or something, and my

366
00:19:11,836 --> 00:19:13,876
Speaker 2: wife is getting frustrated and she left, and so I

367
00:19:13,956 --> 00:19:17,196
Speaker 2: was like figuring it out and as I was figuring

368
00:19:17,196 --> 00:19:21,036
Speaker 2: it out. Somehow, I started tripping into all these sixties

369
00:19:21,756 --> 00:19:24,676
Speaker 2: era brit songs, and I started listening to him again,

370
00:19:24,676 --> 00:19:27,716
Speaker 2: and I was going like, Oh, the Kinks, that guitar sound,

371
00:19:27,956 --> 00:19:32,996
Speaker 2: nobody's ever gotten that, that guitar sound from Girl, you

372
00:19:33,036 --> 00:19:35,316
Speaker 2: know you really got the car or all the Day

373
00:19:35,356 --> 00:19:38,716
Speaker 2: or all the night. I decided, how did he get those? Yeah,

374
00:19:38,756 --> 00:19:43,116
Speaker 2: they got these sounds that nobody else ever really totally got.

375
00:19:43,236 --> 00:19:45,796
Speaker 2: And and I started listening to all these other songs

376
00:19:45,876 --> 00:19:49,396
Speaker 2: and and I spent a couple hours listening to a

377
00:19:49,436 --> 00:19:51,756
Speaker 2: British Invasion again a couple of weeks ago. Maybe that's

378
00:19:51,756 --> 00:19:55,556
Speaker 2: why I'm talking about it now, because I stumbled on

379
00:19:55,636 --> 00:19:59,436
Speaker 2: it again and then and I found it equally wonderful.

380
00:20:00,156 --> 00:20:01,916
Speaker 1: We have to pause real quick break, and then we'll

381
00:20:01,916 --> 00:20:04,876
Speaker 1: come back with more of my conversation with Mark Mothers BA.

382
00:20:09,276 --> 00:20:12,756
Speaker 1: We're back with more from Mark mothers By. So many

383
00:20:12,796 --> 00:20:15,636
Speaker 1: people have a similar story of, you know, the Beatles

384
00:20:15,676 --> 00:20:17,956
Speaker 1: sort of opening their mind to music and what it

385
00:20:17,996 --> 00:20:21,236
Speaker 1: can be. And I feel like the British Invasion sort

386
00:20:21,236 --> 00:20:24,396
Speaker 1: of became by default the gold standard of music, and

387
00:20:24,436 --> 00:20:27,396
Speaker 1: it's the thing that was always referenced to but if

388
00:20:27,396 --> 00:20:29,036
Speaker 1: you actually go back and listen to it, I think

389
00:20:29,236 --> 00:20:30,956
Speaker 1: there's things are worth going back to, like the guitar

390
00:20:31,076 --> 00:20:34,436
Speaker 1: sound from the Kinks, like to have that distortion sound.

391
00:20:34,436 --> 00:20:37,316
Speaker 1: It's just it's not like overdriven, it's not overpower and everything,

392
00:20:37,316 --> 00:20:40,196
Speaker 1: but it's still just it's so fucking awesome. It's still

393
00:20:40,276 --> 00:20:42,436
Speaker 1: this great raw sound, like you know.

394
00:20:43,516 --> 00:20:47,916
Speaker 2: Okay. So years later, Neil Young was kind of curious

395
00:20:47,956 --> 00:20:51,076
Speaker 2: about Devo, and so we ended up in one of

396
00:20:51,076 --> 00:20:54,076
Speaker 2: his films. But before that, I'd worked with a with

397
00:20:54,716 --> 00:20:58,996
Speaker 2: a director that directed the film Human Highway it's called,

398
00:20:59,356 --> 00:21:02,716
Speaker 2: and I had written off Broadway music nineteen seventy nine.

399
00:21:02,716 --> 00:21:05,796
Speaker 2: I'd written this music that he he made. He did

400
00:21:05,796 --> 00:21:08,836
Speaker 2: an off Broadway ian Esco play. I don't know. He's

401
00:21:08,876 --> 00:21:12,516
Speaker 2: a writer from the I don't know what year that

402
00:21:12,676 --> 00:21:16,836
Speaker 2: was forties or fifties or ian Esco. But Russ Tamblin

403
00:21:17,116 --> 00:21:20,116
Speaker 2: did a one man play and Dean Stockwell directed it

404
00:21:20,276 --> 00:21:23,196
Speaker 2: and he needed music, so I wrote music for him.

405
00:21:23,196 --> 00:21:26,236
Speaker 2: And then when he worked on the Neil Young movie,

406
00:21:26,356 --> 00:21:28,836
Speaker 2: they asked Devo to be in their film and we were.

407
00:21:29,076 --> 00:21:32,996
Speaker 2: And then when Neil was scoring it, Dean Stockwell gave

408
00:21:33,636 --> 00:21:36,276
Speaker 2: Neil all this music I'd written for him for this

409
00:21:36,876 --> 00:21:39,716
Speaker 2: off Broadway Plane, And so half of the score in

410
00:21:39,876 --> 00:21:43,196
Speaker 2: Human Highway's Electronics stuff I did, and the other half

411
00:21:43,796 --> 00:21:46,996
Speaker 2: is stuff that Neil did and Neil was And you

412
00:21:47,036 --> 00:21:49,516
Speaker 2: can tell the difference because Neil wrote stuff that sounded

413
00:21:49,996 --> 00:21:53,396
Speaker 2: a little more like Gary Newman.

414
00:21:53,796 --> 00:21:55,716
Speaker 1: And the stuff intef It did.

415
00:21:55,556 --> 00:21:57,596
Speaker 2: It was interesting, and then the stuff I wrote it

416
00:21:57,636 --> 00:22:02,676
Speaker 2: sounds a little more like like eight years earlier than

417
00:22:02,756 --> 00:22:05,116
Speaker 2: pee Wee's Playhouse. When I started scoring Peewa's playoff, it

418
00:22:05,156 --> 00:22:07,316
Speaker 2: sounded more like it was gonna like what pee Wee's

419
00:22:07,316 --> 00:22:08,156
Speaker 2: Playhouse became.

420
00:22:08,516 --> 00:22:13,716
Speaker 1: You guys in Neil A my my is mind blowing.

421
00:22:14,236 --> 00:22:17,036
Speaker 2: Oh the footage is good, you know, It's like, well.

422
00:22:17,916 --> 00:22:19,636
Speaker 1: It's the fucking coolest thing ever.

423
00:22:20,276 --> 00:22:22,116
Speaker 2: When we did the film, we were kind of like

424
00:22:22,476 --> 00:22:24,596
Speaker 2: we were kind of like assholes, you know, and we

425
00:22:24,596 --> 00:22:27,196
Speaker 2: were like it was like the same week or one

426
00:22:27,236 --> 00:22:29,516
Speaker 2: week after the sex Pistols had broke up, who were

427
00:22:29,596 --> 00:22:32,756
Speaker 2: my favorite band at the time, and uh, and we

428
00:22:32,836 --> 00:22:35,396
Speaker 2: hung out the night that the sex Pistols broke up.

429
00:22:35,476 --> 00:22:38,276
Speaker 2: They came over to this house where Devo was staying

430
00:22:38,676 --> 00:22:41,076
Speaker 2: because we were playing at mabuh guards a little punk

431
00:22:41,076 --> 00:22:45,476
Speaker 2: club the night after they played their last show, and yeah,

432
00:22:45,516 --> 00:22:48,476
Speaker 2: I remember I didn't know they were breaking up then

433
00:22:49,316 --> 00:22:50,596
Speaker 2: maybe they didn't even.

434
00:22:50,476 --> 00:22:52,716
Speaker 1: Were you friends with them, or they just happened to

435
00:22:52,716 --> 00:22:53,316
Speaker 1: come over that and.

436
00:22:53,396 --> 00:22:55,716
Speaker 2: We just they knew that we liked them, and they

437
00:22:55,876 --> 00:22:59,436
Speaker 2: liked us as a matter of fact, a really crazy thing.

438
00:22:59,436 --> 00:23:03,916
Speaker 2: About a year or so later, we signed with Warner

439
00:23:03,956 --> 00:23:08,996
Speaker 2: Brothers in the US and Richard Branson for Europe because

440
00:23:09,556 --> 00:23:11,836
Speaker 2: I thought he was cool because he had signed the

441
00:23:12,196 --> 00:23:14,276
Speaker 2: sex Pistols, I thought, and he was our age. We

442
00:23:14,276 --> 00:23:17,436
Speaker 2: were all twenty five, you know, in seventy seven. Then,

443
00:23:17,836 --> 00:23:20,716
Speaker 2: you know, we knew we were gonna sign with Branson,

444
00:23:21,156 --> 00:23:24,356
Speaker 2: and we had like one of the worst snowstorms in

445
00:23:24,396 --> 00:23:27,556
Speaker 2: Akron ever. And at this point, nobody in Devo has

446
00:23:27,556 --> 00:23:30,756
Speaker 2: an apartment anymore because we don't have jobs. We only

447
00:23:31,076 --> 00:23:33,156
Speaker 2: were like now we're just driving to New York to

448
00:23:33,196 --> 00:23:37,116
Speaker 2: play at Maxis Kansas City or CBGB's or we would

449
00:23:37,156 --> 00:23:39,116
Speaker 2: get in our Occonno line and we'd drive out to

450
00:23:39,556 --> 00:23:43,276
Speaker 2: the West coast and we play La San Francisco, San Diego,

451
00:23:44,076 --> 00:23:45,756
Speaker 2: and that was it. That was all, you know. There

452
00:23:45,796 --> 00:23:48,716
Speaker 2: was nowhere in between for us to play except a

453
00:23:48,756 --> 00:23:52,556
Speaker 2: club in Cleveland that we shared with Dead Boys and

454
00:23:53,196 --> 00:23:57,276
Speaker 2: per Ubu. So it's like Bob Caselli and I are

455
00:23:57,316 --> 00:24:00,076
Speaker 2: sleeping in this girls living room. He's kind of in

456
00:24:00,116 --> 00:24:02,356
Speaker 2: this room that's like a off of the living room,

457
00:24:02,396 --> 00:24:05,356
Speaker 2: like it's like like a greenhouse room or something, because

458
00:24:05,356 --> 00:24:08,396
Speaker 2: it had windows all around. But it was cold in there.

459
00:24:09,156 --> 00:24:13,516
Speaker 2: And I remember the morning that we got a call

460
00:24:13,556 --> 00:24:16,996
Speaker 2: from Richard Branson. The window had blown open, and Bob

461
00:24:17,036 --> 00:24:20,916
Speaker 2: Gosally was on this couch out in that room and

462
00:24:21,476 --> 00:24:24,116
Speaker 2: he was covered with snow underneath, and he was trying

463
00:24:24,156 --> 00:24:27,316
Speaker 2: to huddle underneath a blanket. And I was in a

464
00:24:28,236 --> 00:24:30,596
Speaker 2: sofa that was like, you know, twenty feet away, and

465
00:24:30,636 --> 00:24:34,596
Speaker 2: I'm looking and I go, oh my god. And Branson

466
00:24:34,636 --> 00:24:36,556
Speaker 2: called and said, hey, how would you like to come

467
00:24:36,596 --> 00:24:41,716
Speaker 2: down to Jamaica. You know that sounds pretty good? He goes, yeah,

468
00:24:41,876 --> 00:24:43,156
Speaker 2: just come on down for the front of it.

469
00:24:43,436 --> 00:24:45,236
Speaker 1: So did you have passports?

470
00:24:45,476 --> 00:24:48,876
Speaker 2: Yes, we had because we had already recorded the album.

471
00:24:49,196 --> 00:24:53,316
Speaker 2: Branson became interested in us because while we were in

472
00:24:53,356 --> 00:24:59,156
Speaker 2: Germany recording our first album, we had let Stiff Records

473
00:24:59,196 --> 00:25:02,356
Speaker 2: put out three singles and they all charted. They all

474
00:25:02,396 --> 00:25:06,636
Speaker 2: went number one in a different country was crazy, like uncontrollable.

475
00:25:06,756 --> 00:25:08,916
Speaker 2: Urge was number one in Yugoslavia at the same time,

476
00:25:09,196 --> 00:25:11,836
Speaker 2: Mongoloid was number one in France at the same time.

477
00:25:12,316 --> 00:25:16,516
Speaker 2: Satisfaction was in the top ten in England and Social

478
00:25:16,516 --> 00:25:20,036
Speaker 2: Fools was in the top ten in Germany and I

479
00:25:20,116 --> 00:25:23,636
Speaker 2: loved it. Jockohomo was in the top twenty in Scotland

480
00:25:23,676 --> 00:25:27,676
Speaker 2: and I just thought, Chockohomo, that's a perfect country for it.

481
00:25:27,716 --> 00:25:31,236
Speaker 2: For Scotland's a perfect country for Chockoholmo. Anyhow so he

482
00:25:31,396 --> 00:25:35,596
Speaker 2: flew to you know, to Germany where we're recording, and

483
00:25:35,676 --> 00:25:38,956
Speaker 2: talked to us into signing with him, and created this

484
00:25:38,996 --> 00:25:42,116
Speaker 2: whole big problem because Warner Brothers didn't want to give

485
00:25:42,156 --> 00:25:44,436
Speaker 2: us up for Europe. And it doesn't matter now. But

486
00:25:45,756 --> 00:25:49,676
Speaker 2: so Bob Casselli and I fly down to Jamaica and

487
00:25:49,756 --> 00:25:52,076
Speaker 2: you know, we get off the plane and it's it's

488
00:25:52,116 --> 00:25:54,916
Speaker 2: a it's kind of rough. You know, the road between

489
00:25:54,996 --> 00:25:59,636
Speaker 2: the airport and Kingston there was like a I remember

490
00:25:59,636 --> 00:26:02,676
Speaker 2: a dead great Dane that was in rigamortis on the

491
00:26:02,716 --> 00:26:04,596
Speaker 2: side of the road. Nobody had bothered to move it. It

492
00:26:04,676 --> 00:26:07,276
Speaker 2: was just in a riga mortis pose with its legs

493
00:26:07,356 --> 00:26:13,036
Speaker 2: up and we got to this hotel and Richard Branson

494
00:26:13,076 --> 00:26:15,676
Speaker 2: and a bunch of guys Simon and other people that

495
00:26:15,916 --> 00:26:18,996
Speaker 2: you know, South Africans that he'd started virgin with were

496
00:26:19,036 --> 00:26:21,876
Speaker 2: all sitting on the sofa and they were rolling these

497
00:26:21,916 --> 00:26:27,676
Speaker 2: gigantic joints, which you know, I'd never seen that much

498
00:26:27,796 --> 00:26:30,516
Speaker 2: marijuana before. You know, it's like an akron akron. It

499
00:26:30,556 --> 00:26:33,676
Speaker 2: was always like about three fourths oregano. Anyhow, by the

500
00:26:33,716 --> 00:26:37,476
Speaker 2: time it got to you, So he rolled these joints

501
00:26:37,476 --> 00:26:40,196
Speaker 2: and they're passing them around. Everybody's taking hits off of

502
00:26:40,236 --> 00:26:44,316
Speaker 2: these giant joints. And I never was a smoker, but

503
00:26:44,356 --> 00:26:46,036
Speaker 2: I gave it a try. I took a couple of puffs.

504
00:26:46,036 --> 00:26:48,276
Speaker 2: And then Bob Casally was a smoker, so he's just

505
00:26:49,276 --> 00:26:51,556
Speaker 2: doing big hits. And then they'd come back to us

506
00:26:51,596 --> 00:26:54,956
Speaker 2: and we were smoking this stuff, and you know, we're

507
00:26:54,996 --> 00:27:00,956
Speaker 2: talking about nothing, and finally Richard goes, hey, the sex

508
00:27:00,996 --> 00:27:03,556
Speaker 2: Pistols broke up, and you know, now I'm starting to

509
00:27:03,556 --> 00:27:06,236
Speaker 2: get high. I'm like getting talking about Yeah, we hung

510
00:27:06,236 --> 00:27:08,036
Speaker 2: out with them the night that they broke up. You know,

511
00:27:08,116 --> 00:27:12,996
Speaker 2: I Saidancy and Steve Jones, everybody was over at this

512
00:27:13,076 --> 00:27:17,916
Speaker 2: house where we were in the apartment where they made

513
00:27:17,996 --> 00:27:20,876
Speaker 2: the magazine Search and Destroy, this really cool punk magazine

514
00:27:20,876 --> 00:27:22,516
Speaker 2: in San Francisco. If you don't know it, you should

515
00:27:22,556 --> 00:27:25,596
Speaker 2: check it out. And we were sleeping on piles of

516
00:27:25,916 --> 00:27:29,076
Speaker 2: Search and Destroy magazines because they let us stay there

517
00:27:29,076 --> 00:27:32,796
Speaker 2: for freeze because we didn't make enough playing a show

518
00:27:33,156 --> 00:27:36,916
Speaker 2: at a punk club to get a hotel room. So

519
00:27:37,796 --> 00:27:40,636
Speaker 2: we're talking. He goes, we go, yeah, it's really a

520
00:27:40,636 --> 00:27:42,996
Speaker 2: shame they broke up. They were so great. They were

521
00:27:43,036 --> 00:27:45,196
Speaker 2: our favorite band. And I'm like at this point, I'm

522
00:27:45,316 --> 00:27:47,996
Speaker 2: just like blabbing away, and he goes, well, I'll tell

523
00:27:48,036 --> 00:27:53,716
Speaker 2: you why you're here. I've got Reporters, some Melody Maker,

524
00:27:54,156 --> 00:27:58,396
Speaker 2: Sounds and New Music Express, the three English papers, they're

525
00:27:58,436 --> 00:28:01,596
Speaker 2: all in the hotel right now, and Johnny Rotten is here.

526
00:28:02,156 --> 00:28:05,836
Speaker 2: Johnny Rotten wants to join Devo. If you want, we

527
00:28:05,876 --> 00:28:08,156
Speaker 2: can go down to the beach right now and make

528
00:28:08,156 --> 00:28:12,316
Speaker 2: an announcement, uh and signed something on the beach and

529
00:28:13,076 --> 00:28:17,516
Speaker 2: Johnny Rotten can join Devo. And I remember at that point,

530
00:28:17,716 --> 00:28:19,756
Speaker 2: all of a sudden, like I hit this brake and

531
00:28:19,796 --> 00:28:23,876
Speaker 2: I'm like and I'm like, oh, and I'm looking at

532
00:28:23,956 --> 00:28:27,636
Speaker 2: Richard and he's like staring intently at me with this

533
00:28:27,796 --> 00:28:30,596
Speaker 2: crazy look on his face, because even to him it

534
00:28:30,676 --> 00:28:32,596
Speaker 2: must have sounded kind of crazy in a way to

535
00:28:32,676 --> 00:28:36,356
Speaker 2: say that, you know, And he's smiling really wide, and

536
00:28:36,396 --> 00:28:39,996
Speaker 2: I'm like, oh my god, his teeth are protruding like

537
00:28:40,036 --> 00:28:43,196
Speaker 2: a brain eating ape. And I just remember, like I

538
00:28:43,236 --> 00:28:46,436
Speaker 2: started stuttering and sputtering, and Bob is like totally smashed.

539
00:28:46,476 --> 00:28:49,276
Speaker 2: He doesn't even have anything to say about anything. He's

540
00:28:49,356 --> 00:28:52,236
Speaker 2: just so high. He's like whatever, I don't know what

541
00:28:52,276 --> 00:28:55,356
Speaker 2: we're talking about. And I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa whoao. No, No,

542
00:28:55,436 --> 00:28:58,596
Speaker 2: we love we love the band, and I love Johnny Rotten.

543
00:28:58,636 --> 00:29:01,276
Speaker 2: He's so amating. But but you know, Devo, we're something.

544
00:29:01,476 --> 00:29:03,436
Speaker 2: You know, we're different, and we're we have our own

545
00:29:03,476 --> 00:29:05,716
Speaker 2: thing and we but we love them and we think

546
00:29:05,756 --> 00:29:10,276
Speaker 2: that's and that's that's actually really uh, you know, complimentary,

547
00:29:10,276 --> 00:29:12,636
Speaker 2: that he would even think that, or that you guys

548
00:29:12,676 --> 00:29:15,436
Speaker 2: think that's a good idea. I bet you know. We

549
00:29:15,436 --> 00:29:17,356
Speaker 2: we've worked so hard on what we do and we

550
00:29:17,436 --> 00:29:20,636
Speaker 2: have something that we really know what it is. And

551
00:29:20,636 --> 00:29:22,876
Speaker 2: then they're all looking at me like, oh, they thought

552
00:29:22,876 --> 00:29:25,316
Speaker 2: they were going to do this big crazy stunt. You

553
00:29:25,356 --> 00:29:27,876
Speaker 2: know it was going to be like like the stunts

554
00:29:27,876 --> 00:29:31,716
Speaker 2: that they'd done with, you know, like Sue Catwoman and

555
00:29:32,196 --> 00:29:35,116
Speaker 2: Vivian Westwood and Malcolm and these people. They always had

556
00:29:35,156 --> 00:29:39,036
Speaker 2: these outrageous ideas on how to how to like freak

557
00:29:39,076 --> 00:29:41,956
Speaker 2: everybody out or get their attention. You know. I was

558
00:29:41,996 --> 00:29:44,236
Speaker 2: not up for that at all, and I just remember thinking,

559
00:29:44,436 --> 00:29:46,716
Speaker 2: oh shit, are we Does that mean we don't have

560
00:29:46,756 --> 00:29:49,556
Speaker 2: any place to stay now? Because I don't have any money.

561
00:29:49,156 --> 00:29:51,516
Speaker 2: I can't even afford to take it back.

562
00:29:51,676 --> 00:29:52,476
Speaker 1: But what did happen?

563
00:29:52,516 --> 00:29:52,716
Speaker 2: Did you?

564
00:29:52,916 --> 00:29:54,676
Speaker 1: Did you just crash that? Like they were cool? Like

565
00:29:54,676 --> 00:29:55,756
Speaker 1: what okay? Find Well, we.

566
00:29:55,756 --> 00:29:57,716
Speaker 2: Hung out for a week and they took us to

567
00:29:57,796 --> 00:29:59,556
Speaker 2: these places. They took us to this place called the

568
00:29:59,636 --> 00:30:03,916
Speaker 2: Headonist Club, and I'd never been to anything. I'd never

569
00:30:03,956 --> 00:30:06,876
Speaker 2: been anywhere out of a high out of Ohio except

570
00:30:06,876 --> 00:30:09,676
Speaker 2: for Germany. And then we played three shows in England

571
00:30:09,676 --> 00:30:12,356
Speaker 2: on the way back to the US. But that's all

572
00:30:12,716 --> 00:30:14,716
Speaker 2: all we'd ever done. Nobody had ever been to anything

573
00:30:14,916 --> 00:30:16,996
Speaker 2: like on a Like when we went to the head

574
00:30:16,996 --> 00:30:19,636
Speaker 2: In this club that was for people with money, you know,

575
00:30:19,716 --> 00:30:22,676
Speaker 2: that was more middle class and upper class people. There

576
00:30:22,676 --> 00:30:25,476
Speaker 2: weren't any blue collar workers there except the ones that

577
00:30:25,476 --> 00:30:25,996
Speaker 2: were working.

578
00:30:26,996 --> 00:30:29,236
Speaker 1: Was Johnny Rotten around for all that stuff? No, he

579
00:30:29,876 --> 00:30:30,516
Speaker 1: left once.

580
00:30:30,556 --> 00:30:33,236
Speaker 2: What he thought? I think it was like once we

581
00:30:33,276 --> 00:30:36,156
Speaker 2: didn't say, hey, let's get together. It's like he was like,

582
00:30:37,036 --> 00:30:38,836
Speaker 2: fucking Richard, what a jacket?

583
00:30:39,116 --> 00:30:39,316
Speaker 1: You know.

584
00:30:39,836 --> 00:30:42,036
Speaker 2: It's like he couldn't he couldn't believe that Richard did that.

585
00:30:42,156 --> 00:30:44,196
Speaker 1: I think what was the vibe in the in the

586
00:30:44,276 --> 00:30:47,756
Speaker 1: apartment of Search and Destroy then I that they broke up?

587
00:30:47,836 --> 00:30:49,476
Speaker 1: Was it weird? Was it cool?

588
00:30:49,556 --> 00:30:51,356
Speaker 2: I mean what it was like there was all sorts

589
00:30:51,356 --> 00:30:53,276
Speaker 2: of people in there, all hipsters, you know, it was

590
00:30:53,316 --> 00:30:56,556
Speaker 2: all the hipsters from San Francisco. Yeah, there was every

591
00:30:56,676 --> 00:31:00,436
Speaker 2: kind of craziness that you could think of was happening

592
00:31:00,476 --> 00:31:03,876
Speaker 2: in that. And luckily I had this one room with newspapers,

593
00:31:03,876 --> 00:31:05,996
Speaker 2: and it was small enough I could just go in

594
00:31:06,036 --> 00:31:08,196
Speaker 2: there and lay on a stack of newspapers. And finally

595
00:31:08,316 --> 00:31:10,956
Speaker 2: about four five in the morning, I got a few

596
00:31:10,996 --> 00:31:13,836
Speaker 2: hours sleep and before we had to play later the

597
00:31:13,916 --> 00:31:14,636
Speaker 2: next night.

598
00:31:14,516 --> 00:31:17,196
Speaker 1: And Man and Sid and Nancy were there, and that

599
00:31:17,276 --> 00:31:18,556
Speaker 1: must have been yeah, yeah.

600
00:31:18,356 --> 00:31:21,516
Speaker 2: They were Sid. Sid was like he'd walk up to

601
00:31:21,596 --> 00:31:24,916
Speaker 2: a table or a countertop that had like a beer

602
00:31:24,956 --> 00:31:27,396
Speaker 2: bottle or a glass with liquid in it, you know,

603
00:31:27,436 --> 00:31:29,916
Speaker 2: like half a glass of beer or something or and

604
00:31:29,996 --> 00:31:33,796
Speaker 2: he'd just slowly start moving it on purpose so that

605
00:31:33,916 --> 00:31:37,996
Speaker 2: everybody could see that he was slowly with his finger

606
00:31:38,476 --> 00:31:41,236
Speaker 2: going like this, pushing it closer to the edge of

607
00:31:41,276 --> 00:31:44,236
Speaker 2: the table, and then it would fall him break and

608
00:31:44,276 --> 00:31:45,956
Speaker 2: then he'd look around to see if anybody was going

609
00:31:45,996 --> 00:31:48,796
Speaker 2: to get excited about it, and nobody cared, you know,

610
00:31:48,836 --> 00:31:50,636
Speaker 2: nobody cared that he was doing it, and he just

611
00:31:50,716 --> 00:31:53,596
Speaker 2: kind of was like bummed out. It was. I guess

612
00:31:53,596 --> 00:31:57,076
Speaker 2: that was his idea of a h of icebreaker or

613
00:31:57,996 --> 00:32:01,636
Speaker 2: like like like let's start talking now or something. But yeah,

614
00:32:01,676 --> 00:32:02,436
Speaker 2: it was interesting.

615
00:32:02,996 --> 00:32:08,076
Speaker 1: Wow. Man. You were managed also by Neil's manager, Elliott Robertson.

616
00:32:08,356 --> 00:32:12,076
Speaker 2: Yeah. After that, however, it was kind of wild. You know.

617
00:32:12,716 --> 00:32:16,596
Speaker 2: He had stories, you know about the Rainbow, which was

618
00:32:16,676 --> 00:32:19,156
Speaker 2: right down the street to his office, which is what

619
00:32:19,276 --> 00:32:21,476
Speaker 2: the room I'm in right now is like not that

620
00:32:21,556 --> 00:32:23,636
Speaker 2: far away from where we're talking about, because I'm on

621
00:32:23,716 --> 00:32:27,116
Speaker 2: a sunset strip. I've been here for about thirty years.

622
00:32:27,196 --> 00:32:29,436
Speaker 1: I mean, I just assumed in my mind because Nickelodeon's

623
00:32:29,436 --> 00:32:30,796
Speaker 1: I didn't know if that was like when I started

624
00:32:30,796 --> 00:32:32,916
Speaker 1: scoring Rugrat, I mean, I don't know why that would

625
00:32:32,916 --> 00:32:34,996
Speaker 1: be the reason you moved there, but succurred. Uh.

626
00:32:35,436 --> 00:32:38,436
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was in my house. I had a bedroom

627
00:32:38,436 --> 00:32:42,116
Speaker 2: in my house that was my scoring room. It was

628
00:32:42,116 --> 00:32:45,916
Speaker 2: an extra bedroom, and I started doing more and more music,

629
00:32:45,996 --> 00:32:48,556
Speaker 2: and then I did a couple I did my first

630
00:32:48,556 --> 00:32:52,796
Speaker 2: Wes Anderson A movie in that house, and I was

631
00:32:52,836 --> 00:32:56,036
Speaker 2: doing commercials and why I ended up moving out of

632
00:32:56,036 --> 00:32:58,036
Speaker 2: the house because I liked working in the house. But

633
00:32:58,956 --> 00:33:02,276
Speaker 2: one day I was doing a Pepsi commercial and the

634
00:33:02,996 --> 00:33:05,196
Speaker 2: Chili Peppers were playing for me and I only had

635
00:33:05,236 --> 00:33:10,436
Speaker 2: him for like three hours, and my neighbors had called

636
00:33:10,436 --> 00:33:13,636
Speaker 2: the police, and the police came over and I go, please,

637
00:33:13,716 --> 00:33:15,756
Speaker 2: let me just do one more take. I need one

638
00:33:15,796 --> 00:33:17,956
Speaker 2: more take. Let me just do one more pass. And

639
00:33:17,956 --> 00:33:20,756
Speaker 2: they wouldn't let me. So I had to like use

640
00:33:20,796 --> 00:33:23,276
Speaker 2: an older take and it worked out in the end.

641
00:33:23,316 --> 00:33:25,796
Speaker 2: But it was like I thought, well, that's you know. Now,

642
00:33:25,836 --> 00:33:28,676
Speaker 2: I know everybody hates me. So I started So I

643
00:33:28,716 --> 00:33:32,476
Speaker 2: started looking for a new place to move to. And

644
00:33:33,516 --> 00:33:36,476
Speaker 2: while I was doing that, I just the neighbors that

645
00:33:36,596 --> 00:33:39,916
Speaker 2: lived closest to me. I bought them bouquets of flower

646
00:33:40,036 --> 00:33:43,516
Speaker 2: once a week. I bought them each a bouquet, and

647
00:33:43,676 --> 00:33:46,116
Speaker 2: you know, it's all like about half dozen houses. And

648
00:33:46,276 --> 00:33:48,876
Speaker 2: then finally I got out of there after about four

649
00:33:48,956 --> 00:33:52,356
Speaker 2: or five months because I found this building that I'm

650
00:33:52,396 --> 00:33:54,156
Speaker 2: sitting in right now, thirty years ago.

651
00:33:54,476 --> 00:33:57,916
Speaker 1: Amazing. How did you end up in La to begin with?

652
00:33:57,996 --> 00:33:59,996
Speaker 1: How did La sort of become your home base?

653
00:34:00,596 --> 00:34:05,076
Speaker 2: Well? We did this film. Chuck Statler directed it. It

654
00:34:05,116 --> 00:34:07,756
Speaker 2: was the first Devo film. It had two songs on it,

655
00:34:08,516 --> 00:34:12,636
Speaker 2: Chock a Home and Secret Agent Man. And the reason

656
00:34:12,756 --> 00:34:15,836
Speaker 2: he made the film, you know, he thought, well, what

657
00:34:15,836 --> 00:34:18,116
Speaker 2: if this band isn't together next year? What if they

658
00:34:18,156 --> 00:34:21,236
Speaker 2: don't stay together? Because Jerry had his concerns about well

659
00:34:21,236 --> 00:34:24,716
Speaker 2: this I don't know, Mark likes this really weird shit,

660
00:34:24,956 --> 00:34:27,876
Speaker 2: you know, so there was something like that going on.

661
00:34:28,356 --> 00:34:29,836
Speaker 2: So he said, well, I'm going to make a film.

662
00:34:29,876 --> 00:34:31,516
Speaker 2: So we did. And then but what do you do

663
00:34:31,596 --> 00:34:34,956
Speaker 2: with a film in nineteen seventy five? Nothing, So but

664
00:34:35,036 --> 00:34:37,676
Speaker 2: he entered it in the ann Arbor Film Festival and

665
00:34:37,756 --> 00:34:41,356
Speaker 2: at one first place for short film, so that put

666
00:34:41,396 --> 00:34:46,116
Speaker 2: it on a tech traveling tour before seventy six was out.

667
00:34:46,556 --> 00:34:51,876
Speaker 2: It was on a tour of cities and somebody who

668
00:34:51,916 --> 00:34:56,596
Speaker 2: had just signed Tubes saw that film with us in it,

669
00:34:56,676 --> 00:35:00,396
Speaker 2: and they went, oh, wait a minute, is this another Tubes?

670
00:35:00,636 --> 00:35:03,796
Speaker 2: And so he gave us two thousand dollars to drive

671
00:35:03,836 --> 00:35:07,356
Speaker 2: out there in our occonoline ban and he put us

672
00:35:07,436 --> 00:35:09,276
Speaker 2: up for a month and we rehearsed. Then we at

673
00:35:09,276 --> 00:35:13,076
Speaker 2: a showcase and we decided, you know, since we were

674
00:35:13,076 --> 00:35:16,996
Speaker 2: in the film, that maybe, I mean, I thought we

675
00:35:16,996 --> 00:35:18,716
Speaker 2: were going to go to New York because to me,

676
00:35:18,796 --> 00:35:20,996
Speaker 2: I felt really a kindred spirit with New York.

677
00:35:21,356 --> 00:35:23,956
Speaker 1: But I assume if you're an art student and you

678
00:35:23,956 --> 00:35:26,436
Speaker 1: know you're into sort of experimental thing, you're just gonna

679
00:35:26,476 --> 00:35:27,756
Speaker 1: go to New York and skip l A.

680
00:35:27,916 --> 00:35:28,156
Speaker 2: Yeah.

681
00:35:28,236 --> 00:35:28,476
Speaker 1: Why.

682
00:35:28,636 --> 00:35:32,676
Speaker 2: Well what happened was is just just the film industry

683
00:35:32,756 --> 00:35:36,036
Speaker 2: was out here, and we thought, well, maybe they'd do

684
00:35:36,116 --> 00:35:38,076
Speaker 2: a film with us, you know, because we had ideas

685
00:35:38,076 --> 00:35:41,316
Speaker 2: for films, and Jerry wanted to direct films. He really

686
00:35:41,716 --> 00:35:45,476
Speaker 2: wanted that, and so that's how we ended up here.

687
00:35:45,516 --> 00:35:47,636
Speaker 2: It was and it was cheaper. It was cheaper.

688
00:35:47,676 --> 00:35:50,556
Speaker 1: You know, it'd be interesting to view an alternate timeline

689
00:35:50,596 --> 00:35:51,556
Speaker 1: where you did.

690
00:35:51,596 --> 00:35:53,996
Speaker 2: Stay and we went to New York, yeah, yeah, or

691
00:35:54,036 --> 00:35:55,916
Speaker 2: one where we stayed in Akron and we were just

692
00:35:55,956 --> 00:36:00,756
Speaker 2: like there wasn't like a receptive atmosphere in Ohio. Let

693
00:36:00,796 --> 00:36:03,436
Speaker 2: me put it that way. It's like like there were

694
00:36:03,556 --> 00:36:08,316
Speaker 2: very few places that we could perform, and nobody wanted

695
00:36:08,316 --> 00:36:11,436
Speaker 2: to hear original music and Akron at that time. They

696
00:36:11,516 --> 00:36:15,196
Speaker 2: wanted They came to clubs to hear their favorites. And

697
00:36:15,236 --> 00:36:19,476
Speaker 2: so what we even started doing is we would like

698
00:36:19,756 --> 00:36:22,516
Speaker 2: call clubs up and ask them if they need a band.

699
00:36:22,556 --> 00:36:24,556
Speaker 2: They go, well, what are you guys doing. We'd lie

700
00:36:24,596 --> 00:36:26,716
Speaker 2: and we'd say we were a cover band. Then we

701
00:36:26,836 --> 00:36:29,716
Speaker 2: come out and we'd be in like Janitor outfits, and

702
00:36:29,716 --> 00:36:32,316
Speaker 2: then we'd play like, all right, here's another one by

703
00:36:32,356 --> 00:36:37,236
Speaker 2: fog At it's called Uncontrollable Urge. And then you know,

704
00:36:38,396 --> 00:36:42,236
Speaker 2: after the first set, you know, oftentimes more often than not,

705
00:36:42,396 --> 00:36:46,076
Speaker 2: we never got to finish our second set or third set.

706
00:36:45,356 --> 00:36:49,276
Speaker 2: And at a place they would tell us we had

707
00:36:49,276 --> 00:36:53,076
Speaker 2: to leave, or they would pay us to leave. They say, well,

708
00:36:53,076 --> 00:36:54,956
Speaker 2: here's your money. Now, you can have your fifty dollars,

709
00:36:55,276 --> 00:36:57,036
Speaker 2: and we go, no, but we've got more. Two more

710
00:36:57,116 --> 00:36:59,236
Speaker 2: hours were the music for you, and they go, that's okay,

711
00:37:00,356 --> 00:37:01,076
Speaker 2: that was enough.

712
00:37:01,716 --> 00:37:05,076
Speaker 1: It's cooler to be doing that in an environment like that, though,

713
00:37:05,076 --> 00:37:07,156
Speaker 1: there an environment with everyone is just trying to out

714
00:37:07,156 --> 00:37:09,676
Speaker 1: weird with another. You know, I like that. You know

715
00:37:09,836 --> 00:37:13,316
Speaker 1: that you guys were truly the just complete odd boss

716
00:37:13,356 --> 00:37:16,556
Speaker 1: of the area. You know clearly wasn't to be popular.

717
00:37:16,636 --> 00:37:17,196
Speaker 1: You guys weren't.

718
00:37:18,716 --> 00:37:21,516
Speaker 2: There wasn't much of a music scene back then, and

719
00:37:21,556 --> 00:37:25,276
Speaker 2: there was no camaraderie. I was in before I was

720
00:37:25,276 --> 00:37:29,156
Speaker 2: in Devo. I was in a band with Chrissy Hine.

721
00:37:30,076 --> 00:37:32,756
Speaker 2: It wasn't our band, so we were in it for

722
00:37:32,836 --> 00:37:34,916
Speaker 2: like we I think we played one or two shows

723
00:37:34,916 --> 00:37:38,596
Speaker 2: at the most and then it split up. Is But

724
00:37:38,636 --> 00:37:41,516
Speaker 2: other than that, I experimented with a lot of different

725
00:37:41,556 --> 00:37:44,756
Speaker 2: musicians and I kept looking for the sound that I

726
00:37:44,796 --> 00:37:47,756
Speaker 2: wanted to do. And then I had already known Jerry

727
00:37:47,796 --> 00:37:51,556
Speaker 2: from school. We had collaborated on visual art projects before,

728
00:37:51,636 --> 00:37:55,236
Speaker 2: and then we started talking about music together. And then

729
00:37:55,836 --> 00:37:58,676
Speaker 2: he and this friend of his who was like this

730
00:37:58,796 --> 00:38:01,636
Speaker 2: guy Bob Lewis. To me, bob Lewis was like, I

731
00:38:01,676 --> 00:38:04,036
Speaker 2: felt like it was Peabody and Sherman when we were together,

732
00:38:04,116 --> 00:38:07,196
Speaker 2: because he seemed like a human encyclopedia. I like that guy.

733
00:38:07,396 --> 00:38:11,716
Speaker 2: But Jerry and Bob found this book called The Beginning

734
00:38:11,996 --> 00:38:15,236
Speaker 2: was the End? How man came into being through cannibalism,

735
00:38:15,876 --> 00:38:19,756
Speaker 2: and it was this crazy book that was basically preaching

736
00:38:19,796 --> 00:38:25,676
Speaker 2: the evolution and saying that humans were the unnatural species.

737
00:38:25,796 --> 00:38:28,516
Speaker 2: And it was kind of like how we already felt

738
00:38:28,516 --> 00:38:32,596
Speaker 2: because we'd been through Kent State where we thought, yeah,

739
00:38:33,116 --> 00:38:34,916
Speaker 2: we shouldn't be over there. I can't think of one

740
00:38:34,996 --> 00:38:37,236
Speaker 2: Vietnamese person I want to kill, so why are we

741
00:38:37,316 --> 00:38:40,996
Speaker 2: doing this? Let's stop it, you know, and and then

742
00:38:41,356 --> 00:38:43,476
Speaker 2: you know, you find out when the government gets irritated

743
00:38:43,516 --> 00:38:46,996
Speaker 2: with you enough, they just kill you. So we had

744
00:38:47,036 --> 00:38:49,836
Speaker 2: this kind of we were kind of pissed off about

745
00:38:50,596 --> 00:38:54,876
Speaker 2: humans on planet Earth and our felt like we weren't

746
00:38:54,916 --> 00:38:57,476
Speaker 2: like a natural species at all, that we were the

747
00:38:57,516 --> 00:39:01,236
Speaker 2: one species at odds with nature in general, you know,

748
00:39:01,276 --> 00:39:03,716
Speaker 2: and we were destroying the planet. You know. It's like

749
00:39:03,876 --> 00:39:05,596
Speaker 2: it wasn't like we wanted to sit there and beat

750
00:39:05,596 --> 00:39:08,836
Speaker 2: a book and you know, say that, and it's like

751
00:39:09,396 --> 00:39:12,236
Speaker 2: that to be part of our esthetic and that people

752
00:39:12,276 --> 00:39:14,916
Speaker 2: would know that that was our you know, our thoughts

753
00:39:14,996 --> 00:39:19,556
Speaker 2: about things that humans were unnatural and humans needed to change.

754
00:39:20,196 --> 00:39:23,476
Speaker 1: Is that where the performing with masks and just the

755
00:39:23,516 --> 00:39:26,876
Speaker 1: different looks came from. Was that a way to sort of.

756
00:39:26,996 --> 00:39:29,876
Speaker 2: I'll tell you what happened with masks is none of

757
00:39:29,996 --> 00:39:32,796
Speaker 2: us had any money. You know, we all had crappy jobs.

758
00:39:32,876 --> 00:39:35,876
Speaker 2: I worked in an apartment building as a maintenance man.

759
00:39:36,716 --> 00:39:38,716
Speaker 2: It was a one hundred year old building, so it's

760
00:39:38,756 --> 00:39:41,756
Speaker 2: like somebody's drain had be stopped up and I'd take

761
00:39:41,796 --> 00:39:44,916
Speaker 2: off the U joint down underneath the you know, the sink.

762
00:39:45,556 --> 00:39:50,796
Speaker 2: My brother and Jerry delivered meat for some meat company,

763
00:39:50,836 --> 00:39:52,836
Speaker 2: and then Jerry had a job at as a janitorial

764
00:39:52,836 --> 00:39:56,796
Speaker 2: supply place for a while, which was actually really beneficial

765
00:39:56,916 --> 00:40:01,556
Speaker 2: because he found in one of the catalogs these hazardous

766
00:40:01,596 --> 00:40:04,836
Speaker 2: waste material outfits that we went, oh my god, that's

767
00:40:04,876 --> 00:40:07,156
Speaker 2: perfect for us. You know. They were like they were

768
00:40:07,156 --> 00:40:11,796
Speaker 2: like our anti superhero out fit, you know, these yellow suits.

769
00:40:11,836 --> 00:40:15,996
Speaker 2: And once we put an elastic waistband around the waist

770
00:40:15,996 --> 00:40:18,556
Speaker 2: and cinched it in, it turned us into who we were,

771
00:40:18,596 --> 00:40:20,836
Speaker 2: which looked like, looked like we could be cleaning up

772
00:40:21,116 --> 00:40:24,076
Speaker 2: you know, nuclear slop where we could be you know,

773
00:40:24,156 --> 00:40:27,556
Speaker 2: like picking through body parts at a plane crash, you know.

774
00:40:28,396 --> 00:40:31,916
Speaker 2: And they were inexpensive. They were like four bucks or

775
00:40:31,916 --> 00:40:34,516
Speaker 2: something at the time to buy one of these plastic

776
00:40:34,556 --> 00:40:38,196
Speaker 2: suits and one of the masks I found at this

777
00:40:38,676 --> 00:40:42,036
Speaker 2: Novely shop in Canton, Ohio, which is close to Akron,

778
00:40:42,516 --> 00:40:45,836
Speaker 2: was this rubber baby face mask, and so I became

779
00:40:46,076 --> 00:40:50,436
Speaker 2: Boogie Boy, who we referred to him as the infantile

780
00:40:50,556 --> 00:40:54,436
Speaker 2: spirit of de Evolution, and that stuck with us, and

781
00:40:54,476 --> 00:40:56,796
Speaker 2: Boogie Boy ended up coming out and still does. He

782
00:40:56,796 --> 00:40:58,996
Speaker 2: still comes out on stage every night.

783
00:40:59,636 --> 00:41:01,756
Speaker 1: And your dad used to come out as part of

784
00:41:01,796 --> 00:41:03,996
Speaker 1: this stuff. General Boy, Oh.

785
00:41:03,956 --> 00:41:07,116
Speaker 2: Yeah, he was totally obsessed with it. He had this

786
00:41:07,716 --> 00:41:12,316
Speaker 2: I think he had this hidden desire to be an artist,

787
00:41:12,476 --> 00:41:14,796
Speaker 2: you know. I think he really wanted to be creative

788
00:41:14,796 --> 00:41:18,996
Speaker 2: in some way. He played clarinet and it even got

789
00:41:19,116 --> 00:41:22,716
Speaker 2: a little overboard at our first when we on our

790
00:41:22,716 --> 00:41:25,716
Speaker 2: first tour, he wanted to go on tour with us.

791
00:41:25,756 --> 00:41:28,756
Speaker 2: He wanted to manage the band, and I'm like, you know,

792
00:41:28,836 --> 00:41:32,836
Speaker 2: mid twenties, I'm thinking my dad go on tour with

793
00:41:32,956 --> 00:41:36,236
Speaker 2: the That's the last thing I want. Yeah, I'm thinking,

794
00:41:36,396 --> 00:41:39,276
Speaker 2: you never want my dad on tour with the band.

795
00:41:39,356 --> 00:41:41,276
Speaker 2: That sounds and it's too bad we didn't. He had

796
00:41:41,356 --> 00:41:43,876
Speaker 2: much better business acumen than any of us.

797
00:41:44,596 --> 00:41:46,956
Speaker 1: There'll be more of my interview with Mark Mothersbaugh after

798
00:41:47,116 --> 00:41:55,876
Speaker 1: one last quick Break, We're back with Mark Mothersbaugh. Is

799
00:41:55,876 --> 00:41:58,956
Speaker 1: it true you guys, Verson of Jockohoma performed Jockohoma opening

800
00:41:58,996 --> 00:41:59,676
Speaker 1: for son Raw.

801
00:42:00,236 --> 00:42:03,036
Speaker 2: Yeah, we opened for son Raw. That was amazing. That

802
00:42:03,156 --> 00:42:06,476
Speaker 2: was like seventy five I think it was in Cleveland,

803
00:42:06,556 --> 00:42:08,956
Speaker 2: and I remember we'd never been around a band that

804
00:42:09,236 --> 00:42:11,796
Speaker 2: a record dealer that was this prestigious as son Raw.

805
00:42:12,196 --> 00:42:14,836
Speaker 2: And so I remember like before we went on stage,

806
00:42:14,836 --> 00:42:16,676
Speaker 2: I was listening to these guys talk that were in

807
00:42:16,716 --> 00:42:19,836
Speaker 2: the band, you know, and they're like saying, yeah, that's

808
00:42:19,836 --> 00:42:24,516
Speaker 2: son Raw. He's like getting a big head, you know,

809
00:42:24,556 --> 00:42:27,236
Speaker 2: he's got such a big head. And he's like, it's

810
00:42:27,236 --> 00:42:29,556
Speaker 2: not cool, man. It's like, you know, he took a

811
00:42:29,596 --> 00:42:34,516
Speaker 2: taxi here from the hotel. Then he says, yeah, the

812
00:42:34,556 --> 00:42:36,276
Speaker 2: rest of the rest of the band all had to

813
00:42:36,276 --> 00:42:41,316
Speaker 2: take the RTD from downtown to wherever this auditorium was

814
00:42:41,316 --> 00:42:43,556
Speaker 2: we were playing at. And I'm like, Wow, that's what

815
00:42:43,596 --> 00:42:45,956
Speaker 2: it's going to be like when I get when our

816
00:42:45,996 --> 00:42:48,956
Speaker 2: band gets a record deal, We're going to take the

817
00:42:49,076 --> 00:42:51,396
Speaker 2: RTD to get to the to get to the show.

818
00:42:51,916 --> 00:42:52,156
Speaker 1: Yeah.

819
00:42:52,356 --> 00:42:54,116
Speaker 2: I remember thinking that. I thought I thought, oh, I

820
00:42:54,116 --> 00:42:56,556
Speaker 2: thought it was all like David Bowie I thought it

821
00:42:56,596 --> 00:43:00,636
Speaker 2: was all glamorous, but Son Raw was so amazing because

822
00:43:01,396 --> 00:43:04,836
Speaker 2: he played his keyboard like it wasn't like he was

823
00:43:04,876 --> 00:43:08,916
Speaker 2: like playing notes or anything. He was playing clusters of sounds.

824
00:43:09,756 --> 00:43:15,236
Speaker 2: And I was so impressed. Yeah, because it was more

825
00:43:15,276 --> 00:43:20,076
Speaker 2: percussive than it was melody. The songs were just incredible.

826
00:43:20,316 --> 00:43:23,516
Speaker 2: And but when he played like that, I started doing it.

827
00:43:23,556 --> 00:43:26,716
Speaker 2: Boogie Boy started copying him. I started I started playing

828
00:43:26,716 --> 00:43:28,996
Speaker 2: my synthesizer like this. There were songs that I could

829
00:43:29,036 --> 00:43:31,236
Speaker 2: do that on. Yeah, it was interesting. We got in

830
00:43:31,316 --> 00:43:33,716
Speaker 2: a we got in a fight with the with the

831
00:43:33,756 --> 00:43:37,676
Speaker 2: audience at night. They were they were DJs from w

832
00:43:38,636 --> 00:43:41,316
Speaker 2: MMS I think it was, and yeah, we were dressed

833
00:43:41,356 --> 00:43:44,356
Speaker 2: like janitors and then they were all dressed like Dracula

834
00:43:44,476 --> 00:43:48,916
Speaker 2: and vampires and mummies and Frankenstein and where we look

835
00:43:49,036 --> 00:43:53,756
Speaker 2: like the total opposite of like Halloween. And uh, they're

836
00:43:54,276 --> 00:43:59,036
Speaker 2: all doing nitrous oxide and Margarita's and they're getting really

837
00:44:00,276 --> 00:44:03,996
Speaker 2: drunk and aggressive. And at one point, after about three

838
00:44:04,076 --> 00:44:10,316
Speaker 2: or four songs in like My Woman sub Human, she

839
00:44:10,436 --> 00:44:14,356
Speaker 2: can't walk, she can't talk, she just sits by a

840
00:44:14,396 --> 00:44:17,716
Speaker 2: sign that says I love you, and they were just

841
00:44:17,756 --> 00:44:21,116
Speaker 2: driving him crazy. They hated our music and at one

842
00:44:21,156 --> 00:44:22,956
Speaker 2: point some DJ jumped up on stage.

843
00:44:22,956 --> 00:44:26,516
Speaker 3: You're gonna let these people continue to prostitute music like this,

844
00:44:26,916 --> 00:44:30,796
Speaker 3: And they started throwing paper cups with Margarita's in it

845
00:44:30,876 --> 00:44:35,716
Speaker 3: at us and yeah, we ended up getting in fistfights

846
00:44:35,756 --> 00:44:38,196
Speaker 3: with with with them, with DJs.

847
00:44:38,636 --> 00:44:41,196
Speaker 2: You know, it's crazy. And then sun Rack came out.

848
00:44:41,476 --> 00:44:49,876
Speaker 1: I mean, if you can be too abstract for sun rock,

849
00:44:46,796 --> 00:44:52,036
Speaker 1: like these guys are out to the lunch, let's get

850
00:44:52,116 --> 00:44:52,796
Speaker 1: some ron.

851
00:44:52,876 --> 00:44:57,836
Speaker 2: You know, like what. I found an audio cassette that

852
00:44:58,196 --> 00:45:00,596
Speaker 2: our sound man had put in them in a tape

853
00:45:00,596 --> 00:45:03,636
Speaker 2: recorder and he recorded that show and it's really good.

854
00:45:03,796 --> 00:45:04,436
Speaker 2: It's really good.

855
00:45:04,516 --> 00:45:05,516
Speaker 1: You hear it, you hear it.

856
00:45:08,276 --> 00:45:11,356
Speaker 2: Yeah, maybe we should good, but it's but it devolves

857
00:45:11,356 --> 00:45:15,556
Speaker 2: into the fighting and uh, just the insane chaos of

858
00:45:15,556 --> 00:45:16,036
Speaker 2: our set.

859
00:45:16,076 --> 00:45:17,836
Speaker 1: And they were like, oh, you guys should put that out,

860
00:45:17,836 --> 00:45:18,876
Speaker 1: that'd be amazing.

861
00:45:19,436 --> 00:45:22,356
Speaker 2: But we were kind of like, uh, we were kind

862
00:45:22,396 --> 00:45:25,356
Speaker 2: of lightning rods for hostility. We loved it. We would like,

863
00:45:25,836 --> 00:45:27,956
Speaker 2: we think if we're pissing these people off or doing

864
00:45:27,996 --> 00:45:30,756
Speaker 2: something right, Yeah, that was It was kind of that

865
00:45:30,836 --> 00:45:33,756
Speaker 2: kind of approach. But I remember Jockohomo I would just

866
00:45:33,836 --> 00:45:36,036
Speaker 2: keep going up to people and going, are we not men?

867
00:45:36,636 --> 00:45:38,596
Speaker 2: You know we are? Do you are we not men?

868
00:45:38,756 --> 00:45:40,756
Speaker 2: Until they were like sick of it. It was like

869
00:45:40,996 --> 00:45:43,876
Speaker 2: if it took twenty minutes. I would just provoke people

870
00:45:43,956 --> 00:45:45,396
Speaker 2: until they would want to fight with us.

871
00:45:45,436 --> 00:45:48,436
Speaker 1: And did you find like humor in this stuff? Like

872
00:45:48,516 --> 00:45:50,716
Speaker 1: did you were you a fan of comedy or humor

873
00:45:50,836 --> 00:45:51,356
Speaker 1: or anything like that?

874
00:45:51,396 --> 00:45:55,756
Speaker 2: Oh? Yeah, we took and we took our humor seriously, okay,

875
00:45:55,796 --> 00:45:57,916
Speaker 2: And we were serious about our humor. You know. That's

876
00:45:57,956 --> 00:46:01,676
Speaker 2: why I was attracted to people like SubGenius because when

877
00:46:01,676 --> 00:46:06,156
Speaker 2: they first came out, the Church of the SubGenius, they're

878
00:46:06,156 --> 00:46:08,756
Speaker 2: early pamphlets. They didn't have enough stuff out to let

879
00:46:08,836 --> 00:46:12,076
Speaker 2: you know, oh if they were serious or not. And

880
00:46:12,116 --> 00:46:14,476
Speaker 2: I was just hoping they were serious. And and so

881
00:46:15,156 --> 00:46:18,396
Speaker 2: it was back in the days where like we would

882
00:46:18,436 --> 00:46:21,236
Speaker 2: like read a National Inquirer and we'd read a poem

883
00:46:21,276 --> 00:46:25,956
Speaker 2: by John Hinckley junior, uh for for Jodie Foster, and

884
00:46:26,956 --> 00:46:29,516
Speaker 2: they'd say he's says here he's in the Maryland, but

885
00:46:29,596 --> 00:46:32,436
Speaker 2: does the hospital? And Jerry and I would call it

886
00:46:32,836 --> 00:46:36,076
Speaker 2: Maryland be does the hospital and say we're in the

887
00:46:36,076 --> 00:46:38,716
Speaker 2: band Divo could we talk to John Hinckley And they go, well,

888
00:46:38,796 --> 00:46:41,316
Speaker 2: let me see, and then you'd wait a couple of

889
00:46:41,316 --> 00:46:44,316
Speaker 2: minutes and they go, yeah, he wants to talk to you,

890
00:46:45,036 --> 00:46:48,156
Speaker 2: and uh, we'd get on the phone with John Hinckley goes,

891
00:46:49,036 --> 00:46:51,836
Speaker 2: I have your first album. You know. I remember saying

892
00:46:51,876 --> 00:46:53,596
Speaker 2: to him. You know, we saw we read this poem

893
00:46:53,596 --> 00:46:56,916
Speaker 2: you wrote called I Desire, and uh, we were wondering

894
00:46:56,956 --> 00:46:59,676
Speaker 2: if you would mind if we use those as lyrics

895
00:46:59,716 --> 00:47:03,036
Speaker 2: for a devo song. He goes, let me hear it, okay,

896
00:47:03,756 --> 00:47:05,956
Speaker 2: and so we said, yeah, before we do itnthing, we'll

897
00:47:06,036 --> 00:47:08,036
Speaker 2: let you hear it. And so we wrote the song

898
00:47:08,076 --> 00:47:10,876
Speaker 2: called I Desire with John Hinckley junior lyrics. Of course,

899
00:47:11,476 --> 00:47:15,516
Speaker 2: if you're trying to impress your record company, don't do that.

900
00:47:15,636 --> 00:47:17,996
Speaker 1: Don't do that. Don't don't write a song with the

901
00:47:19,276 --> 00:47:20,876
Speaker 1: would be presidential as sets.

902
00:47:22,356 --> 00:47:24,396
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was not. He was not a favorite in

903
00:47:24,396 --> 00:47:26,516
Speaker 2: the country at the time, but the but the his

904
00:47:26,756 --> 00:47:29,076
Speaker 2: poems were so good. His poetry was so good.

905
00:47:29,356 --> 00:47:32,556
Speaker 1: I love it. I wanted to ask you something because

906
00:47:32,556 --> 00:47:35,396
Speaker 1: I got to take photos of you one time, maybe

907
00:47:35,796 --> 00:47:37,236
Speaker 1: ten years ago for something.

908
00:47:37,356 --> 00:47:40,636
Speaker 2: Oh, I was poll dancing at the time to make

909
00:47:40,716 --> 00:47:41,396
Speaker 2: some extra money.

910
00:47:41,476 --> 00:47:43,836
Speaker 1: Yeah, yes, it was there. It was that time and

911
00:47:43,876 --> 00:47:46,836
Speaker 1: you were talking to somebody and I long felt I

912
00:47:46,836 --> 00:47:51,436
Speaker 1: overheard that Joni Mitchell attacked you in a stairwell one time.

913
00:47:52,556 --> 00:47:55,236
Speaker 1: I didn't know if I heard this right or well.

914
00:47:55,116 --> 00:47:57,716
Speaker 2: She didn't attack me, But what happened was was she

915
00:47:57,796 --> 00:48:01,396
Speaker 2: had the same manager as Neil Young and uh we

916
00:48:01,436 --> 00:48:05,196
Speaker 2: did our second album and I was up at his office.

917
00:48:05,236 --> 00:48:10,916
Speaker 2: It's just down the street here, but she's like, hey,

918
00:48:11,156 --> 00:48:13,716
Speaker 2: are you that guy from Divo? I go, I'm that

919
00:48:13,756 --> 00:48:16,916
Speaker 2: guy from Diva. And she goes, I'm going to be

920
00:48:16,956 --> 00:48:19,676
Speaker 2: in a movie and they want me to hold a

921
00:48:19,716 --> 00:48:23,836
Speaker 2: ghetto blaster on my shoulder and put a song on

922
00:48:23,836 --> 00:48:26,836
Speaker 2: on the ghetto blaster. And I was like okay, and

923
00:48:26,876 --> 00:48:29,876
Speaker 2: she goes, I want to put your song on it, Swelling,

924
00:48:29,916 --> 00:48:33,916
Speaker 2: Itching Brain. And I'm like, wow, great, Why would you

925
00:48:33,916 --> 00:48:36,316
Speaker 2: pick swelling? Because I'm thinking that's such a radical song,

926
00:48:36,516 --> 00:48:38,836
Speaker 2: you know, on that album, it's like the most radical

927
00:48:39,276 --> 00:48:41,156
Speaker 2: I go, why would you pick swelling sher brain? Because?

928
00:48:41,276 --> 00:48:47,156
Speaker 2: And she went because it's the most obnoxious, horrible, irritating

929
00:48:47,276 --> 00:48:51,796
Speaker 2: song I've ever heard in my whole life. I said, well,

930
00:48:51,876 --> 00:48:54,916
Speaker 2: be my guest blasted away.

931
00:48:55,756 --> 00:48:58,116
Speaker 1: It was at the end of it that was it

932
00:48:58,156 --> 00:48:58,916
Speaker 1: meant she walked away.

933
00:48:59,876 --> 00:49:02,076
Speaker 2: The only other thing that happened after that is her

934
00:49:02,116 --> 00:49:04,916
Speaker 2: manager who was who was at NILS at that time.

935
00:49:06,156 --> 00:49:10,476
Speaker 2: He stayed managing with her years later after after Ron

936
00:49:10,516 --> 00:49:13,396
Speaker 2: and Elliott split ways, he was still working with her

937
00:49:13,516 --> 00:49:17,116
Speaker 2: and he called me up once and said, hey, this

938
00:49:17,276 --> 00:49:19,636
Speaker 2: is like in the last ten years even I don't

939
00:49:19,636 --> 00:49:22,476
Speaker 2: remember what year, maybe eight years ago, and he said, hey,

940
00:49:22,636 --> 00:49:26,716
Speaker 2: Jonie wants to get into a film scoring. He says,

941
00:49:26,756 --> 00:49:29,636
Speaker 2: do you have any do you know anything I should

942
00:49:29,676 --> 00:49:32,276
Speaker 2: tell Heim? I go, you know what you tell Joni?

943
00:49:32,556 --> 00:49:34,396
Speaker 2: If she wants to come over to my green building,

944
00:49:34,516 --> 00:49:36,316
Speaker 2: come over to this studio. I would love to show

945
00:49:36,356 --> 00:49:38,516
Speaker 2: her while I'm working on something. And if she has

946
00:49:38,516 --> 00:49:40,716
Speaker 2: a film she wants to work on, I will help

947
00:49:40,756 --> 00:49:42,636
Speaker 2: walk her through it. I'll show her you know how

948
00:49:42,636 --> 00:49:44,836
Speaker 2: to do it and make it easy for And she

949
00:49:45,036 --> 00:49:48,356
Speaker 2: was like, what the swelling and chein brain guy, No way,

950
00:49:48,516 --> 00:49:51,796
Speaker 2: I'm not doing that. It was like them, so we

951
00:49:51,876 --> 00:49:56,956
Speaker 2: never She never let go of disliking it.

952
00:49:57,356 --> 00:50:00,556
Speaker 1: She joking, do you know it? Maybe it's better not

953
00:50:00,596 --> 00:50:01,956
Speaker 1: to know. Maybe two notes.

954
00:50:02,396 --> 00:50:05,516
Speaker 2: She's a little bit e centric, you know, she was.

955
00:50:05,956 --> 00:50:08,516
Speaker 2: People would tell you that in some situations she was

956
00:50:08,596 --> 00:50:11,676
Speaker 2: probably very hard to work with. Just super talented. I mean,

957
00:50:11,716 --> 00:50:13,636
Speaker 2: you know that goes without saying, but.

958
00:50:13,836 --> 00:50:16,356
Speaker 1: Yeah, do you still talk to Neil ever or you

959
00:50:16,396 --> 00:50:19,116
Speaker 1: got like the band and Neil as any.

960
00:50:18,716 --> 00:50:22,596
Speaker 2: Actually, there's a chance he might get interviewed for a

961
00:50:22,636 --> 00:50:25,436
Speaker 2: Devo documentary to see what he thought about Devo, because

962
00:50:25,476 --> 00:50:28,396
Speaker 2: that could have because it could be funny, because because

963
00:50:28,516 --> 00:50:31,836
Speaker 2: I don't know if we were exactly what he thought

964
00:50:31,876 --> 00:50:35,036
Speaker 2: we were, but he was he was pretty interesting, you know.

965
00:50:35,076 --> 00:50:37,156
Speaker 2: I think back about it that he was doing hey hey,

966
00:50:37,236 --> 00:50:39,516
Speaker 2: my my, then he gets Devo to come do it,

967
00:50:39,716 --> 00:50:42,156
Speaker 2: and then but we're doing it in a recording studio

968
00:50:42,236 --> 00:50:45,796
Speaker 2: in San Francisco, and all the band has like oompa loompa,

969
00:50:45,876 --> 00:50:50,196
Speaker 2: pinhead hats on and boogie boys singing it sitting sitting

970
00:50:50,316 --> 00:50:53,716
Speaker 2: in a diaper with a minimog on my lap singing,

971
00:50:54,116 --> 00:50:57,876
Speaker 2: and I changed the words to instead of Johnny Rotten,

972
00:50:57,956 --> 00:51:03,196
Speaker 2: I said Johnny the Spud or something. But he crashed

973
00:51:03,196 --> 00:51:06,156
Speaker 2: my playpen. He destroyed my playpen that I used to

974
00:51:06,196 --> 00:51:09,716
Speaker 2: take on stage with me because he was playing and

975
00:51:09,756 --> 00:51:12,316
Speaker 2: he just smashed. He just started falling on it and

976
00:51:12,356 --> 00:51:15,036
Speaker 2: smashing it and I couldn't see very well because I

977
00:51:15,076 --> 00:51:18,676
Speaker 2: had a latex mask on, but I'm like looking at him, going, oh,

978
00:51:18,676 --> 00:51:21,516
Speaker 2: that's kind of crazy. He's like, he's kind of getting

979
00:51:21,556 --> 00:51:24,836
Speaker 2: pretty punk for a Grandpa Granola, which was what Jerry

980
00:51:24,916 --> 00:51:25,636
Speaker 2: used to call him.

981
00:51:25,676 --> 00:51:28,956
Speaker 1: Grafa Granola. Yeah, that's an intense performance of the song

982
00:51:29,076 --> 00:51:31,076
Speaker 1: in the movie. It's in Superno.

983
00:51:31,196 --> 00:51:33,556
Speaker 2: Well, what's funny, I'll tell you something funny about it.

984
00:51:33,596 --> 00:51:36,636
Speaker 2: To pay for our first film, Jerry and I started

985
00:51:36,676 --> 00:51:40,796
Speaker 2: a company called Unit Services in downtown Akron, and it

986
00:51:40,876 --> 00:51:44,036
Speaker 2: was a graphic design shop and mostly what we did

987
00:51:44,156 --> 00:51:47,036
Speaker 2: is we talked people and letting us do the signs

988
00:51:47,036 --> 00:51:48,796
Speaker 2: for their shops in this place because there were like

989
00:51:48,796 --> 00:51:52,596
Speaker 2: thirty other companies coming in and they we'd designed signs

990
00:51:52,596 --> 00:51:55,516
Speaker 2: for him. But we got this one job for a

991
00:51:55,596 --> 00:51:59,916
Speaker 2: muffler company, Midas Muffler, and we came up with the

992
00:51:59,916 --> 00:52:03,916
Speaker 2: logo rust Never Sleeps and they loved it and they

993
00:52:03,916 --> 00:52:06,476
Speaker 2: wanted T shirts. So so they wanted a hundred T

994
00:52:06,556 --> 00:52:10,316
Speaker 2: shirts and I bought like one hundred one just enough

995
00:52:10,356 --> 00:52:12,276
Speaker 2: so we'd have one that we could do a sample on.

996
00:52:12,876 --> 00:52:16,156
Speaker 2: And so I'm in the basement where I lived and

997
00:52:16,236 --> 00:52:19,436
Speaker 2: I'm I'm getting ready to print. I go, okay. I

998
00:52:19,476 --> 00:52:21,716
Speaker 2: tried it on the one extra shirt and it was

999
00:52:21,756 --> 00:52:25,156
Speaker 2: wrinkly looking. I went, oh no, So I changed the

1000
00:52:25,156 --> 00:52:28,316
Speaker 2: ink a little bit and cleaned the screen, and then

1001
00:52:29,036 --> 00:52:30,676
Speaker 2: I was looking for that. So I found a couple

1002
00:52:30,676 --> 00:52:33,356
Speaker 2: of my T shirts and a towel and I started

1003
00:52:33,356 --> 00:52:35,596
Speaker 2: printing on them. And then I printed. I had a

1004
00:52:35,836 --> 00:52:37,916
Speaker 2: pair of underpants and I just printed it on the

1005
00:52:38,396 --> 00:52:41,316
Speaker 2: seat of the underpants, rus never Sleeps. And so that

1006
00:52:41,436 --> 00:52:45,476
Speaker 2: was the underpants boogie Boy was wearing in the playpen

1007
00:52:45,236 --> 00:52:49,396
Speaker 2: when we were recording together. If Boogie Boy would have

1008
00:52:49,396 --> 00:52:51,676
Speaker 2: flipped over, you would have read it. But he never

1009
00:52:51,716 --> 00:52:55,396
Speaker 2: flipped over in the movie. But he called me up

1010
00:52:55,436 --> 00:52:58,476
Speaker 2: a few weeks later and he said, hey, Mark, that

1011
00:52:58,636 --> 00:53:02,036
Speaker 2: rust Never sleeps. Do you mind if I use that

1012
00:53:02,156 --> 00:53:04,916
Speaker 2: for the title of my next film. I go, no, No,

1013
00:53:05,156 --> 00:53:07,636
Speaker 2: that'd be great, And so that's how. So then he

1014
00:53:07,716 --> 00:53:10,356
Speaker 2: made a film called Rus Never sleep based on a

1015
00:53:10,396 --> 00:53:14,156
Speaker 2: Midas muffler gig that helped pay for the first debo film.

1016
00:53:14,316 --> 00:53:16,956
Speaker 1: Yeah, the connections between you guys are interesting, between the

1017
00:53:17,036 --> 00:53:19,636
Speaker 1: Kent State connection and him right in Ohio and and

1018
00:53:19,676 --> 00:53:23,196
Speaker 1: then giving him Russ Never Sleeps as the title and

1019
00:53:23,196 --> 00:53:24,076
Speaker 1: it's like that, you.

1020
00:53:24,076 --> 00:53:26,756
Speaker 2: Know that funny Well he was. He was an interesting guy.

1021
00:53:26,796 --> 00:53:29,236
Speaker 2: He was much more interesting guy than then we gave

1022
00:53:29,316 --> 00:53:31,676
Speaker 2: him credit for. At the time we were kind of

1023
00:53:31,716 --> 00:53:32,716
Speaker 2: punky assholes.

1024
00:53:32,756 --> 00:53:35,436
Speaker 4: What can I say real quick, I wanted to ask

1025
00:53:35,476 --> 00:53:39,516
Speaker 4: you about Robert Margolef, who, Yeah, as someone who is

1026
00:53:40,036 --> 00:53:43,396
Speaker 4: vary into synthesizers, how was he as a person who

1027
00:53:43,556 --> 00:53:46,076
Speaker 4: I mean it seems to be I mean the Tanto

1028
00:53:46,196 --> 00:53:50,916
Speaker 4: machine and I mean, what a kind of bizarre, strange

1029
00:53:50,956 --> 00:53:53,196
Speaker 4: guy and doing all this classic records of Stevie and

1030
00:53:53,236 --> 00:53:55,156
Speaker 4: then work with you guys.

1031
00:53:55,716 --> 00:53:58,076
Speaker 2: To me, he was the most of all the of

1032
00:53:58,116 --> 00:54:01,516
Speaker 2: all the producers outside producers that we used to work

1033
00:54:01,516 --> 00:54:05,596
Speaker 2: on debo records, he was the most successful and the

1034
00:54:05,636 --> 00:54:09,636
Speaker 2: smartest and uh taught me more than any of the

1035
00:54:09,676 --> 00:54:13,076
Speaker 2: other producers did. And yeah, the fact that he went

1036
00:54:13,116 --> 00:54:19,876
Speaker 2: between like Stevie Wonder and the original Neotombril Orchestra Tonto.

1037
00:54:20,036 --> 00:54:23,316
Speaker 2: You know, it's like, that's why we asked him to

1038
00:54:23,396 --> 00:54:25,316
Speaker 2: work with us in the first place, because we were

1039
00:54:26,156 --> 00:54:30,236
Speaker 2: don't laugh, but we thought freedom of choice was funky divo.

1040
00:54:30,436 --> 00:54:32,916
Speaker 2: We thought that was We thought, okay, what if Devo

1041
00:54:32,996 --> 00:54:34,996
Speaker 2: did funk, what would it sound like? And that's what

1042
00:54:35,036 --> 00:54:37,756
Speaker 2: we came up with, which wasn't I mean, I can't

1043
00:54:37,756 --> 00:54:40,436
Speaker 2: say it's a very funky album, but you know it was.

1044
00:54:40,556 --> 00:54:43,276
Speaker 2: It was our attempt at it. And so we wanted

1045
00:54:43,516 --> 00:54:46,236
Speaker 2: a guy who was familiar with funk but also familiar

1046
00:54:46,316 --> 00:54:50,596
Speaker 2: with electronics. And he was the perfect guy. And I

1047
00:54:50,676 --> 00:54:53,476
Speaker 2: still stay in touch with him. He's he's really smart.

1048
00:54:53,556 --> 00:54:58,676
Speaker 2: He's really he's really articulate. Still and uh and uh,

1049
00:54:58,916 --> 00:55:01,316
Speaker 2: somebody's looking for a great producer. He's a he's a

1050
00:55:01,316 --> 00:55:02,076
Speaker 2: good guy to use.

1051
00:55:02,236 --> 00:55:05,556
Speaker 1: Is he still experimenting with stuff and sounds.

1052
00:55:05,196 --> 00:55:10,316
Speaker 2: And mostly yeah, And lately it's been head phones where

1053
00:55:10,356 --> 00:55:13,156
Speaker 2: you feel like you're an Atmost. It's like it's like

1054
00:55:13,196 --> 00:55:16,476
Speaker 2: an alternate to the Utmost system, but a headphone version

1055
00:55:16,476 --> 00:55:20,076
Speaker 2: of it. And and he can spread sounds all, you know,

1056
00:55:20,316 --> 00:55:24,396
Speaker 2: really wide when you're in these headphones. That's the last

1057
00:55:24,396 --> 00:55:28,276
Speaker 2: thing stuff. Yeah, spatial audio. Yeah, I guess that's what

1058
00:55:28,316 --> 00:55:32,076
Speaker 2: it's called. And that's the last thing I remember him

1059
00:55:32,116 --> 00:55:34,476
Speaker 2: calling me about being really enthusiastic about.

1060
00:55:34,996 --> 00:55:38,196
Speaker 1: I was listening because Robbie Robertson died recently, and so

1061
00:55:38,196 --> 00:55:40,436
Speaker 1: I listened to the first couple of band records, fun

1062
00:55:40,476 --> 00:55:42,076
Speaker 1: to back for the first time in a long time,

1063
00:55:42,836 --> 00:55:44,316
Speaker 1: and the narrative on the band was that like they

1064
00:55:44,356 --> 00:55:48,036
Speaker 1: made everyone want to go back to like roots music essentially,

1065
00:55:48,116 --> 00:55:51,836
Speaker 1: you know, like stupid all back. But because of Garth Hudson,

1066
00:55:51,916 --> 00:55:55,236
Speaker 1: the organist, there was always really weird sounds you would

1067
00:55:55,236 --> 00:55:57,396
Speaker 1: never hear in like a country record or like an

1068
00:55:57,396 --> 00:56:00,356
Speaker 1: Americana record. And I just never picked up on that

1069
00:56:00,436 --> 00:56:02,516
Speaker 1: when I used to listen to him, I didn't know

1070
00:56:02,756 --> 00:56:04,956
Speaker 1: if you listened to them, and you know, that.

1071
00:56:04,996 --> 00:56:07,196
Speaker 2: Was the part that I picked up on. I liked

1072
00:56:07,356 --> 00:56:11,836
Speaker 2: all the eccentricity. I was not into country. Country when

1073
00:56:11,836 --> 00:56:13,476
Speaker 2: I was in high school was the music I got

1074
00:56:13,476 --> 00:56:15,476
Speaker 2: my ass. That was a soundtrack to me getting my

1075
00:56:15,556 --> 00:56:18,676
Speaker 2: ass kicked by by kids that wanted me to be

1076
00:56:18,756 --> 00:56:21,316
Speaker 2: more like them or something or like or to be

1077
00:56:22,156 --> 00:56:25,116
Speaker 2: less of a weirdo. So I never was a fan

1078
00:56:25,196 --> 00:56:28,996
Speaker 2: of country and but I liked those albums, and I

1079
00:56:29,036 --> 00:56:32,836
Speaker 2: loved some of the lyrics like take a load off, Crainy,

1080
00:56:33,396 --> 00:56:36,956
Speaker 2: that's to me that was just kind of absurdly hilarious,

1081
00:56:37,836 --> 00:56:42,116
Speaker 2: you know, some of that stuff. And I liked Big Pink.

1082
00:56:42,196 --> 00:56:43,996
Speaker 1: I thought that was a good big pink that's cool

1083
00:56:44,036 --> 00:56:48,556
Speaker 1: right there. Yeah, any other like early like keyboard or

1084
00:56:48,596 --> 00:56:50,356
Speaker 1: synth inspirations.

1085
00:56:50,396 --> 00:56:55,276
Speaker 2: I loved Walter Carlos's Clockworkgorns soundtrack. I thought that was

1086
00:56:55,676 --> 00:56:59,876
Speaker 2: incredibly genius and that probably helped make me even more

1087
00:57:00,036 --> 00:57:03,596
Speaker 2: aware of soundtracks then, you know, because that was that

1088
00:57:03,756 --> 00:57:07,556
Speaker 2: music was uh it was Beethoven mostly, but it was

1089
00:57:07,636 --> 00:57:10,916
Speaker 2: like it sounded so good and nobody's ever used a

1090
00:57:10,956 --> 00:57:14,396
Speaker 2: vocorder again the way he did it, and in that movie,

1091
00:57:14,476 --> 00:57:17,436
Speaker 2: I would defy you to find something that sounds like that.

1092
00:57:17,516 --> 00:57:22,036
Speaker 2: It's so incredible. And then, uh, I think for me,

1093
00:57:23,116 --> 00:57:26,476
Speaker 2: I remember listening to a Roxy music album the first

1094
00:57:26,636 --> 00:57:28,996
Speaker 2: I think it was the first one, and the lyrics

1095
00:57:29,036 --> 00:57:31,956
Speaker 2: were good on everything back then. Uh, I'm less of

1096
00:57:31,956 --> 00:57:36,756
Speaker 2: a fan of when it turned into avelon. I loved

1097
00:57:36,796 --> 00:57:41,116
Speaker 2: all the I loved all the early stuff like Inflatable Dolly,

1098
00:57:41,796 --> 00:57:43,596
Speaker 2: you know, stuff like that was to me, it was

1099
00:57:43,596 --> 00:57:46,956
Speaker 2: like it was like creepy and cool. But uh, I

1100
00:57:46,996 --> 00:57:49,156
Speaker 2: was listening to the song. It was like a throwaway

1101
00:57:49,236 --> 00:57:53,996
Speaker 2: song on Roxy music album called Editions of You and

1102
00:57:53,996 --> 00:57:56,716
Speaker 2: and so there's a saxophone takes a solo and goes

1103
00:57:56,796 --> 00:58:02,676
Speaker 2: d and then then the guitar player gets a solo,

1104
00:58:02,716 --> 00:58:04,876
Speaker 2: and then Eno gets a solo, and I didn't know

1105
00:58:04,876 --> 00:58:09,516
Speaker 2: who Eno was, and I hear this Moulton montm motum motum. Yeah,

1106
00:58:10,156 --> 00:58:14,156
Speaker 2: he did the solo that I went, that's the best

1107
00:58:14,316 --> 00:58:18,556
Speaker 2: electronic music since solo I've ever heard in a rock

1108
00:58:18,596 --> 00:58:20,916
Speaker 2: and roll song or a pop song. I thought that

1109
00:58:20,996 --> 00:58:22,876
Speaker 2: was incredible. It made me want to meet him. It

1110
00:58:22,956 --> 00:58:25,516
Speaker 2: made me want to see see what he used, and

1111
00:58:25,676 --> 00:58:28,716
Speaker 2: made me want to talk to him. And that's when

1112
00:58:29,596 --> 00:58:30,076
Speaker 2: I just was.

1113
00:58:30,236 --> 00:58:30,516
Speaker 1: I was.

1114
00:58:31,676 --> 00:58:33,356
Speaker 2: You know, when people asked me who I wanted to

1115
00:58:33,556 --> 00:58:39,076
Speaker 2: produce Divo, I said Brian ENO's first choice, and so

1116
00:58:39,876 --> 00:58:41,996
Speaker 2: that's how that happened. But his I just thought he

1117
00:58:42,276 --> 00:58:46,076
Speaker 2: was like the early pioneer that did it. I think

1118
00:58:46,116 --> 00:58:49,276
Speaker 2: that song is like if you were looking for for

1119
00:58:49,476 --> 00:58:54,236
Speaker 2: electronic pop, new wave punk or whatever that music was.

1120
00:58:54,476 --> 00:58:56,236
Speaker 1: I don't know, I don't know how to classify it.

1121
00:58:56,516 --> 00:58:58,716
Speaker 2: I know his solo it was like very It was

1122
00:58:58,796 --> 00:59:01,276
Speaker 2: just totally abstract, that's what was and that was so

1123
00:59:01,436 --> 00:59:04,316
Speaker 2: great about it. And it was abstract with electronics. And

1124
00:59:05,436 --> 00:59:09,396
Speaker 2: as much as I thought Satisfaction was the episode center

1125
00:59:09,516 --> 00:59:12,476
Speaker 2: of rock and roll, is the best song ever, matter

1126
00:59:12,516 --> 00:59:14,836
Speaker 2: of fact, that's why we we did our version of it,

1127
00:59:14,876 --> 00:59:16,716
Speaker 2: because it was ten years later, and I thought, well,

1128
00:59:17,916 --> 00:59:22,876
Speaker 2: it's about time to reinterpret and update that song, you know,

1129
00:59:23,076 --> 00:59:25,676
Speaker 2: to match what's going on now. And I mean Bob

1130
00:59:25,756 --> 00:59:31,276
Speaker 2: Casally actually was the started playing that riff out of nowhere,

1131
00:59:31,356 --> 00:59:33,396
Speaker 2: and within an hour we'd put the song together, and

1132
00:59:33,476 --> 00:59:36,076
Speaker 2: then I was singing on it, Satisfaction. But I had

1133
00:59:36,116 --> 00:59:39,116
Speaker 2: always I thought Satisfaction was perfect because I thought, well,

1134
00:59:39,116 --> 00:59:43,196
Speaker 2: it's ten years it's time to reinterpret what pop music is.

1135
00:59:44,196 --> 00:59:47,076
Speaker 1: Was Jerry into your you know, because early on, I

1136
00:59:47,156 --> 00:59:50,156
Speaker 1: mean Jerry listening to the sounds can be very bluesy

1137
00:59:50,356 --> 00:59:52,876
Speaker 1: and very I mean if I had like almost like

1138
00:59:52,916 --> 00:59:57,156
Speaker 1: a garage rocky thing. Was he into your experiment doing sounds?

1139
00:59:57,236 --> 01:00:01,996
Speaker 2: And I think maybe less than I was into the

1140
01:00:02,076 --> 01:00:05,556
Speaker 2: blue thing. I loved having a blues a blues progression

1141
01:00:05,676 --> 01:00:08,036
Speaker 2: underneath things I was writing because it gave me a

1142
01:00:08,156 --> 01:00:11,716
Speaker 2: chance to do really distract things with great rhythms to it,

1143
01:00:11,876 --> 01:00:15,676
Speaker 2: you know. And and I could take really abstract sounds

1144
01:00:16,236 --> 01:00:19,036
Speaker 2: and you know, mortar blasts, ray guns. I could put

1145
01:00:19,116 --> 01:00:21,876
Speaker 2: like ray gun sounds, you know, like in uh Space

1146
01:00:21,956 --> 01:00:31,796
Speaker 2: Girls for instance, and these warbly sounds moll and you know,

1147
01:00:31,996 --> 01:00:34,116
Speaker 2: so what he was doing kind of worked with that

1148
01:00:34,316 --> 01:00:34,956
Speaker 2: pretty good.

1149
01:00:35,156 --> 01:00:37,956
Speaker 1: Like automodown, you know, it would be and then.

1150
01:00:37,876 --> 01:00:40,636
Speaker 2: The synth was like that's automodown. Is a good example

1151
01:00:40,716 --> 01:00:43,716
Speaker 2: of like that's the sun raw approach because that was

1152
01:00:43,996 --> 01:00:53,516
Speaker 2: he oh, don't boot bo't. It was like it was

1153
01:00:53,556 --> 01:00:56,356
Speaker 2: like playing it like so that they were so that

1154
01:00:56,476 --> 01:00:59,996
Speaker 2: they were noises and they were like more percussive with

1155
01:01:00,116 --> 01:01:02,276
Speaker 2: a little bit of with a little bit of you know,

1156
01:01:02,476 --> 01:01:05,676
Speaker 2: like uh melody, and you know in the sound, you know,

1157
01:01:05,676 --> 01:01:08,516
Speaker 2: because you'd hear notes in it, but they'd be you know,

1158
01:01:08,636 --> 01:01:10,076
Speaker 2: like in to mow Down, they were kind of like

1159
01:01:10,156 --> 01:01:12,476
Speaker 2: car horns. They sounded like three or four It sounded

1160
01:01:12,476 --> 01:01:14,316
Speaker 2: like three or four car horns hitting at the same

1161
01:01:14,436 --> 01:01:16,076
Speaker 2: time in different pitches.

1162
01:01:16,476 --> 01:01:18,156
Speaker 1: That's a song I've returned to you a lot. That's

1163
01:01:18,196 --> 01:01:18,836
Speaker 1: such a question.

1164
01:01:19,676 --> 01:01:21,556
Speaker 2: That's a good song and that has and that has

1165
01:01:21,676 --> 01:01:24,476
Speaker 2: Jerry's rhythm, his bas rhythm going on in it. Yeah, yeah,

1166
01:01:24,476 --> 01:01:26,116
Speaker 2: I love that song. I love that song too.

1167
01:01:26,356 --> 01:01:29,436
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's an incredible one. Do you have an opinion

1168
01:01:29,836 --> 01:01:35,116
Speaker 1: on the sort of progression of electronics in music the

1169
01:01:35,196 --> 01:01:36,436
Speaker 1: way it's evolved over time.

1170
01:01:36,996 --> 01:01:43,636
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think, uh, pop music is on some levels stupid.

1171
01:01:44,036 --> 01:01:46,556
Speaker 2: You know, no matter what era you're talking about, even

1172
01:01:46,596 --> 01:01:49,116
Speaker 2: the stuff I liked, there was a stupid side to

1173
01:01:49,196 --> 01:01:51,596
Speaker 2: a lot of it. But the thing about pop music

1174
01:01:51,996 --> 01:01:55,956
Speaker 2: is pop music. It's important to kids that are that

1175
01:01:56,076 --> 01:01:58,476
Speaker 2: are like just coming of an age, whatever age that is,

1176
01:01:58,556 --> 01:02:01,556
Speaker 2: if it's eleven or if it's nineteen or anything, where

1177
01:02:01,636 --> 01:02:05,956
Speaker 2: they go the world is insane, nothing makes sense to me.

1178
01:02:06,956 --> 01:02:09,036
Speaker 2: Who am I? Where am I? And then you find

1179
01:02:09,636 --> 01:02:12,516
Speaker 2: something like and for some people it's Taylor Swift, you know,

1180
01:02:12,556 --> 01:02:14,876
Speaker 2: they find it in Taylor Swift, some people with the Beatles,

1181
01:02:14,916 --> 01:02:19,236
Speaker 2: and some people it's Neil Young or it's Jimi Hendrix.

1182
01:02:19,276 --> 01:02:22,716
Speaker 2: But this music is like where you go and you go, Ah.

1183
01:02:22,996 --> 01:02:26,316
Speaker 2: I feel this reminds me of when I needed a refuge.

1184
01:02:26,516 --> 01:02:29,036
Speaker 2: You know, It's like for Devo, it's like, you know,

1185
01:02:29,196 --> 01:02:31,356
Speaker 2: there was a time where I was kind of like, well,

1186
01:02:31,476 --> 01:02:33,676
Speaker 2: I don't like playing the same songs. You know, these

1187
01:02:33,676 --> 01:02:35,476
Speaker 2: are songs I wrote when I was twenty five. That's

1188
01:02:35,516 --> 01:02:38,316
Speaker 2: like years almost fifty years ago. Now, why don't people

1189
01:02:38,316 --> 01:02:39,636
Speaker 2: want to hear the new stuff? But you know the

1190
01:02:39,716 --> 01:02:43,196
Speaker 2: reality is if the ghost of David Bowie came up

1191
01:02:43,236 --> 01:02:47,636
Speaker 2: to me tonight and went, ooo, Mark, I'm going to

1192
01:02:47,716 --> 01:02:51,956
Speaker 2: do a concert for you and you only. It's going

1193
01:02:52,076 --> 01:02:57,076
Speaker 2: to be a brand new album. Nobody's ever heard these songs.

1194
01:02:57,396 --> 01:03:00,116
Speaker 2: It's all about everything that's going on in the world now,

1195
01:03:00,276 --> 01:03:06,596
Speaker 2: Donald Trump, you know, Joe Biden, Ukraine, or it's going

1196
01:03:06,676 --> 01:03:09,556
Speaker 2: to be Spiders and Mars, the live show that blew

1197
01:03:09,636 --> 01:03:12,956
Speaker 2: your mind. You're going to see that exact, absolute, exact

1198
01:03:13,036 --> 01:03:15,716
Speaker 2: same show and you can sit anywhere in the audience

1199
01:03:15,756 --> 01:03:18,836
Speaker 2: you want. I go. I'll take Spiders some Mars and

1200
01:03:19,036 --> 01:03:21,676
Speaker 2: you can save your brand news stuff for somebody else,

1201
01:03:21,796 --> 01:03:25,276
Speaker 2: you know. And and so I understand it when kids

1202
01:03:25,316 --> 01:03:27,556
Speaker 2: come up and go you know, people picked on me

1203
01:03:27,636 --> 01:03:29,996
Speaker 2: and they called me devo when I was in high school.

1204
01:03:30,636 --> 01:03:33,996
Speaker 2: But I loved your music and I love that stuff now.

1205
01:03:34,156 --> 01:03:35,796
Speaker 2: And what does you know?

1206
01:03:35,996 --> 01:03:37,156
Speaker 1: What does a.

1207
01:03:37,316 --> 01:03:39,676
Speaker 2: Blockhead mean to you or something like that you know?

1208
01:03:39,876 --> 01:03:43,316
Speaker 2: Or or what does gut feeling mean? And you instead

1209
01:03:43,356 --> 01:03:45,276
Speaker 2: of going I wrote that when I was twenty five.

1210
01:03:45,276 --> 01:03:47,556
Speaker 2: I don't fucking remember, you know. It's like you know,

1211
01:03:47,676 --> 01:03:49,796
Speaker 2: it's like you go, well, you know.

1212
01:03:49,876 --> 01:03:51,796
Speaker 1: You talk to him about it, and then in some

1213
01:03:51,916 --> 01:03:54,396
Speaker 1: instances do you also just hate to try to remember

1214
01:03:54,556 --> 01:03:58,156
Speaker 1: what your access twenty five year old mark emotions like.

1215
01:03:58,436 --> 01:04:00,236
Speaker 1: It seems like a lot of work to try to

1216
01:04:00,916 --> 01:04:03,476
Speaker 1: go back and rehash shit and pinpoint then.

1217
01:04:03,396 --> 01:04:05,636
Speaker 2: Well, you know what we did, choose a weird life

1218
01:04:05,676 --> 01:04:09,516
Speaker 2: for ourselves, you know, because because that's what I'm going

1219
01:04:09,556 --> 01:04:12,276
Speaker 2: to be doing, you know, until we end up stop touring.

1220
01:04:12,356 --> 01:04:15,236
Speaker 2: You know, it's like we're gonna the part we will

1221
01:04:15,316 --> 01:04:17,916
Speaker 2: play new songs and people will be polite and sit

1222
01:04:18,036 --> 01:04:21,476
Speaker 2: through them, and then uh, and then they'll get to

1223
01:04:21,556 --> 01:04:23,956
Speaker 2: the stuff that they wanted to hear. You know, You'll

1224
01:04:24,356 --> 01:04:28,196
Speaker 2: you'll play uncontrollablege or you'll play Satisfaction and there they'll

1225
01:04:28,236 --> 01:04:30,996
Speaker 2: lose their minds, you know, And I like that, that's

1226
01:04:31,036 --> 01:04:33,836
Speaker 2: what you know. And so for me, it's like I

1227
01:04:33,916 --> 01:04:37,236
Speaker 2: write a lot of music for myself that nobody ever hears.

1228
01:04:37,636 --> 01:04:40,516
Speaker 2: Sometimes I put it out, like I put out one

1229
01:04:40,596 --> 01:04:44,876
Speaker 2: set of six forty five's called Mutant Flora, and that

1230
01:04:45,036 --> 01:04:48,316
Speaker 2: was music that I'd written for Taikawatiti what was the

1231
01:04:48,396 --> 01:04:51,276
Speaker 2: name of that movie, thor Ragnarok, you know, stuff like that.

1232
01:04:51,436 --> 01:04:54,756
Speaker 2: Or then I did a box I did a set

1233
01:04:54,956 --> 01:04:57,996
Speaker 2: called the Most Powerful Healing Music in the entire world.

1234
01:04:58,636 --> 01:05:00,116
Speaker 2: And it was like I'd be working on a Wes

1235
01:05:00,236 --> 01:05:03,956
Speaker 2: Anderson film or something Lego or something, and I my

1236
01:05:04,036 --> 01:05:07,396
Speaker 2: head would start, you know, getting tighten, and I just

1237
01:05:07,476 --> 01:05:10,676
Speaker 2: go into the lunch room here. It's over over there,

1238
01:05:10,676 --> 01:05:13,556
Speaker 2: about thirty feet and I had a home organ from

1239
01:05:13,596 --> 01:05:16,236
Speaker 2: the eighties set up there and I would just do

1240
01:05:16,356 --> 01:05:21,516
Speaker 2: stream of consciousness, easy listening home organ music, and I

1241
01:05:21,596 --> 01:05:25,236
Speaker 2: did a six album set of it. I might re

1242
01:05:25,436 --> 01:05:25,836
Speaker 2: release that.

1243
01:05:25,916 --> 01:05:28,236
Speaker 1: You got to put out like a library of just stuff,

1244
01:05:28,476 --> 01:05:32,276
Speaker 1: like a online library accessible whatever, you know.

1245
01:05:32,796 --> 01:05:37,476
Speaker 2: You know, I'm thinking, I'm totally thinking that I'm putting

1246
01:05:37,516 --> 01:05:39,716
Speaker 2: out a set of books. And the first one's coming

1247
01:05:39,756 --> 01:05:44,156
Speaker 2: out in December, and the next one though, it's going

1248
01:05:44,196 --> 01:05:46,996
Speaker 2: to be about sixteen hundred pages. It's gonna be super fat,

1249
01:05:47,276 --> 01:05:49,396
Speaker 2: and it's going to be big pages, and it's all

1250
01:05:49,516 --> 01:05:53,036
Speaker 2: art and I'm gonna put QR codes in it and

1251
01:05:53,716 --> 01:05:56,916
Speaker 2: where I could put music you could listen to while

1252
01:05:56,916 --> 01:06:00,156
Speaker 2: you're looking through the book and videos and stuff like that.

1253
01:06:00,556 --> 01:06:02,956
Speaker 1: Well, look forward to seeing the books. That's cool, man. December. Well,

1254
01:06:03,076 --> 01:06:06,076
Speaker 1: I can't wait to see that. And it's a pleasure

1255
01:06:06,116 --> 01:06:08,596
Speaker 1: talking to you. Thank you so much, Thank you you too,

1256
01:06:11,196 --> 01:06:13,116
Speaker 1: Thanks to Mark Mothers Bob for sharing some of those

1257
01:06:13,236 --> 01:06:16,956
Speaker 1: incredible stories. You can hear our favorite songs from Devo

1258
01:06:17,076 --> 01:06:19,756
Speaker 1: and Mark's solo career on a playlist at broken record

1259
01:06:19,796 --> 01:06:23,636
Speaker 1: podcast dot com. Subscribe to our YouTube channel at YouTube

1260
01:06:23,676 --> 01:06:26,396
Speaker 1: dot com slash broken record Podcast, where you can find

1261
01:06:26,716 --> 01:06:29,596
Speaker 1: all of our new episodes. You can follow us on

1262
01:06:29,676 --> 01:06:33,556
Speaker 1: Twitter at broken Record. Broken Record is produced with help

1263
01:06:33,596 --> 01:06:36,516
Speaker 1: from Lea Rose and Eric Sandler. Our show is engineered

1264
01:06:36,676 --> 01:06:40,996
Speaker 1: by Echo Mountainer. Broken Record is a production of Pushkin Industries.

1265
01:06:41,116 --> 01:06:43,356
Speaker 1: If you love this show and others from Pushkin, consider

1266
01:06:43,436 --> 01:06:47,636
Speaker 1: subscribing to Pushkin Plus. Pushkin Plus is a podcast subscription

1267
01:06:47,756 --> 01:06:50,996
Speaker 1: that offers bonus content and adfly listening for four ninety

1268
01:06:51,076 --> 01:06:55,236
Speaker 1: nine a month. Look for Pushkin Plus on Apple podcast subscriptions.

1269
01:06:55,916 --> 01:06:58,556
Speaker 1: And if you like this show, please remember to share, rate,

1270
01:06:58,676 --> 01:07:01,636
Speaker 1: and review us on your podcast app. Our theme musics

1271
01:07:01,716 --> 01:07:03,876
Speaker 1: by Kenny Beats. I'm Justin Rischman.