Devo mark their return

28/06/2010

Geek-punk veteran frontman Mark Mothersbaugh recalls an incredible double date with Jacko and Warhol

By Laura Kelly

There’s nothing quite like the feeling of being proven right, but when you’ve predicted that the human race is bound to regress – that instead of evolving, we are de-evolving – well, there’s a bittersweet element to correctly foreseeing the dissolution. Thirty years ago it was with this rallying cry that Devo exploded onto the post-punk scene wearing boilersuits and with red flower pots (otherwise known as energy domes) on their heads. In 2010, with the world obligingly going to hell in the foretold handcart, the new-wave pioneers have returned with their first studio album in two decades to act as the “friendly house band on the Titanic”.

The cult act behind hits ‘Whip It’ and ‘Girl U Want’ have finally found their time, explains lead singer Mark Mothersbaugh. “Back then, we were labelled as cynics. But we have come to the realisation that 30 years later people understand de-evolution – they understand what we were about and Devo isn’t so far ahead of our time,” he says.

“We are kind of in our time now. This would’ve been a great time for Devo to have started.”

With the record industry falling apart even faster than the rest of the human race, most bands feel under threat – but Mothersbaugh and the rest of the band saw an opportunity. They’d always been outsiders, mistrusted by labels for their desire to do their own thing – such as making movies for their songs long before MTV existed and subversively trying to use the marketing techniques of Madison Avenue to “sell something worthwhile”.

Labels would ask them what the hell they were doing that for, while rock reviewers reacted with bewilderment or disgust at the temerity to make rock’n’roll with no guitars. Times have changed, however, and with the old sales models in tatters, a band with ideas has become suddenly welcome.

“The record industry as we knew it started disintegrating and it made us interested in exploring what the possibilities would be of putting out a product in 2010,” says Mothersbaugh. “I like it.

“Record companies that at one time pontificated at us about how to put out records and what the record business is all about are now trying to reinvent themselves and find a reason to even exist.

“So they’re much more co-operative and much more interested in experimentation and exploration. That makes it much more interesting for us.”

The ‘product’ they’ve come up with, Something For Everybody, marks the first time Devo have let anyone into their creative cloister, working with Santigold, Greg Kurstin of The Bird and the Bee, and The Dust Brothers’ John King. Its jerky, energetic electro-punk is immediately recognisable and has lost none of its appeal. Indeed, Lady Gaga, Snoop Dogg, LCD Soundsystem and Fatboy Slim have all recently proclaimed themselves fans.  

The process of working with other artists has been so much fun that it’s made Mothersbaugh wish they’d taken more advantage of the collaborations they were offered in the past. He admits he has regrets about being so stubborn when Brian Eno and legendary rock producer Roy Thomas Baker were trying to whip them into shape in the studio. “I wish we would’ve been more open,” he confirms, before detailing one of their great missed chances from way back in 1977, just before their debut album, Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo!, came out.

“Richard Branson flew Bob 2 [guitarist and keyboardist Bob Casale] and me down to Jamaica and he had Johnny Rotten with him,” he recalls, matter-of-factly. Sex Pistols had just broken up and he said Johnny Rotten wanted to join Devo. “If we said he could join the band then we were going to go down on the beach immediately and announce it to the NME and Sounds and Melody Maker who he had flown in for the occasion.

“In retrospect, we should’ve just said yes for the sake of it. We’d have brought him back to Ohio and he’d have hated it because it was too cold. It would all have been over in a week. But it would’ve been funny.”

Devo have been a hit with the cool kids since their very beginning – the second time they played in New York the show was attended by David Bowie, the Rolling Stones, Brian Eno, Jack Nicholson, Dennis Hopper and the whole NY art scene. Mothersbaugh was even invited out to Studio 54 on a “double date” with Andy Warhol.

“The only time in my life I smoked angel dust was by accident and it was on a double date with Andy Warhol and Michael Jackson,” laughs Mothersbaugh. “We all went to Studio 54 and people were passing drugs all over the place.

“Michael Jackson had just finished doing the movie The Wiz and still looked like Michael Jackson back then – he had an Afro and he was still black. He passed me a joint and I thought, well OK, we don’t have marijuana in Ohio so I’ll try it.”

Minutes later Mothersbaugh found himself on the dancefloor as pillars of light were swirling around “like weedcutters” knocking people over and cutting them up. He turned to his date in horror, only to hear her say: “You didn’t smoke any of that angel dust did you?”

A quick glance back to the party showed that nothing was wrong. “The next thing I know she’s telling Andy she’s got to get me back to my hotel room,” he adds with a sigh. “That was my first date with Andy Warhol.”

In later years, Neil Young would ask the band to work with him, while Kurt Cobain said: “Of all the bands who came from the underground and actually made it in the mainstream, Devo are the most challenging and subversive of all.”

Now a 60-year-old dad to two young daughters, Mothersbaugh’s Studio 54 days are behind him but his talents are still in demand. He has settled in LA where, as well as the occasional Devo project, he writes music for TV and film.

Strangely for a musical pioneer, his most famous tune is probably the theme to kids’ cartoon Rugrats. He also has an ongoing creative relationship with Wes Anderson, for whom he scores most of his feature films.

Although he promises that Devo will make it over to the UK as soon as possible to play the new songs for their British fans – “possibly in the Fall” – Mothersbaugh has tired of the road since he adopted his two girls, Hope and Margaret, from China and won’t head out for more than two weeks at a time. “When you have kids it’s a whole different thing,” he explains, apologetically.

Fans who can’t wait for the real live band to hit our shores can keep an eye out for their animated forms in Futurama, however. A friend of Matt Groening’s for years, Mothersbaugh and his bandmates are to appear in the 100th episode of the sci-fi show, which is set in the year 3000, as campaigners for mutant rights.

Is that where they plan to be in 1000 years’ time? “Most definitely, if we’re still alive a thousand years from now we will be marching for mutant rights.”

De-evolution may be real, but it seems some things never change. Whatever happens, the weirdos have to stick together.

Devo’s new album Something For Everybody (Warner) is out now