[SPEAKER_00]: It's easy to hear your favorite artist on WFPK from wherever you are. [SPEAKER_00]: Listen on your smart speaker, live stream from our website at WFPK.org from Louisville Public Media. [SPEAKER_04]: Hey, hey and welcome to another edition of Kyle Meredith with. [SPEAKER_04]: It's the interview series presented by WFPK, a WFPK.org consequence and the consequence podcast network. [SPEAKER_04]: Thank you as always for making your way here for checking out the episode.
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[SPEAKER_04]: We've had some great guest here lately, DJ Shadow, the Black Appies, Gindi Tartakovsky, legendary animator behind Samurai Jack, Dexter's Laboratory, Star Wars Clone Wars, Hotel Transylvania, etc. [SPEAKER_04]: We talked with the cast of Alien Earth on FX, including Timothy Oliveand, Sidney Chandler, showrunner and creator Noah Holly. [SPEAKER_04]: Let's see who else they might be. [SPEAKER_04]: on Apple TV+.
[SPEAKER_04]: Had that cast of Happy Gilmour II, as well as the Director of Kyle Nuacheck, Michael Clifford from Five Seconds of Summer, Ben Foulds, Caroline Polacheck, cast a zombie for wet leg, Allison Goldfrapp, just an example of what you get when you subscribe to the Kyle Meredith with podcast. [SPEAKER_04]: Let's be Kyle Manit today. [SPEAKER_04]: I am so excited to be saying this. [SPEAKER_04]: My guests are Mark Mothersbaugh and Gerald Kassalee, the founding weird scientists behind Divo.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's the Ohio-born art rock band that turned devolution theory into a career [SPEAKER_04]: Somehow, it got on MTV, Cassely, a visual artist and bassist. [SPEAKER_04]: He brought the biting political set tire, Mark Mothersbaugh, the bespectacle keyboardist, supply the hooks, and the unshakable sense that you might be listening to a children show from a dystopian future.
[SPEAKER_04]: Together, they built a catalog of jerky rhythms of mutant pop and matching hazmat suits influencing everyone from the talking heads to Daphpunk. [SPEAKER_04]: And when they weren't deconstructing pop culture on stage, Mark Mothersboss scored everything from Peewee's Playhouse to the Royal Tenabombs and Jerry Directed Music videos for fellow new wave acts as well as folks like Food Fighters. [SPEAKER_04]: In short, two guys who proved you can dance and panic at the same time.
[SPEAKER_04]: And they are dropping in here to talk about the Netflix documentary, chronicling the band's fifty-year history. [SPEAKER_04]: In fact, the two are going to discuss why it took so long for a devotee to happen. [SPEAKER_04]: The challenge of condensing their complex story into ninety minutes [SPEAKER_04]: and the long career of having to constantly explain the ideas behind their art. [SPEAKER_04]: We'll revisit the Kent State shootings that influenced their formation.
[SPEAKER_04]: They'll share memories of meeting nearly young years after the song Ohio was written and talk about how their sound was inspired by European futurists in the industrial culture of the nineteen seventies. [SPEAKER_04]: Mark and Jerry also going to dive into the upcoming cosmic devolution tour with the B-Fifty Tues. [SPEAKER_04]: We'll talk about the meaning behind farewell maybe as they're saying on this tour. [SPEAKER_04]: And why that reunion record?
[SPEAKER_04]: Something for everybody deserves a whole lot more love. [SPEAKER_04]: All that and more as we talk about the Devo documentary on Netflix. [SPEAKER_04]: It's Kyle Meredith with Mark Mothersbaugh and Gerald Kisalli of Divo. [SPEAKER_04]: Oh, it's great to have you both on here. [SPEAKER_04]: There's a lot happening in the Divo world once again. [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_04]: You've got a new documentary.
[SPEAKER_04]: Well, I also say you're also going on tour with B-Fifty Two, so we're going to talk about that later on, but this new documentary that just arrives on Netflix and first congratulations. [SPEAKER_04]: This is such a great watch. [SPEAKER_04]: You watch. [SPEAKER_04]: I've watched. [SPEAKER_04]: I've watched all of it. [SPEAKER_04]: I've watched all of it. [SPEAKER_04]: And then I've gone back and referenced little parts of it as well. [SPEAKER_04]: So you made it through.
[SPEAKER_04]: Oh, good. [SPEAKER_04]: Good. [SPEAKER_04]: It feels like it's been a long time coming. [SPEAKER_04]: Mark, why why is it taken so long to get a devotee documentary? [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, I don't know. [SPEAKER_01]: We just we never entertained it even. [SPEAKER_01]: We were never thinking about it. [SPEAKER_01]: We were just always moving forward in life.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then [SPEAKER_01]: one day somebody brought it up and we mistakenly got involved and then moved on to a couple different versions of it and [SPEAKER_01]: Here we are with Chris Smith. [SPEAKER_04]: Gerry, I was looking back. [SPEAKER_04]: I mean, because I think you've been talking about other things for a long time, like going back and referencing the beginning was the end of biopic and even the Broadway thing.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_04]: It's like, is that all the road to this or are those, you know, do those live separately, I guess? [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I can only speak for myself, but there are, you know, what you see is a tip of the iceberg. [SPEAKER_02]: There was so many things that I [SPEAKER_02]: kind of was passionate about making happen and they didn't happen. [SPEAKER_02]: And this is a better late than never. [SPEAKER_02]: It's a long and winding road.
[SPEAKER_02]: And yeah, you're trying to distill a complex artistic experience of fifty years into a ninety minute film. [SPEAKER_02]: So what is a documentary? [SPEAKER_02]: It's a document of what the director decides is the focus of what he is interested in. [SPEAKER_02]: You know, it's not the ultimate truth. [SPEAKER_02]: It's just some version of information or truth. [SPEAKER_04]: Would it be fair to say then that the lens that we see here?
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, there's that line that Devo is the most misunderstood band in like history. [SPEAKER_04]: Like that seems to be the version that we get of what we're seeing here. [SPEAKER_01]: not the worst version, but it's always that way. [SPEAKER_01]: It's like everybody sees something different, which is kind of both good and, and also gives both gerian.
[SPEAKER_01]: I have different reasons to go, oh, I wish that was different, but you know, it's always interesting to see someone else's outside view rather than we're both deeply subjective. [SPEAKER_01]: So we do have things that were passionate about. [SPEAKER_04]: But to go with what we got, and I love the story, by the way, because I've always known what Diva was about. [SPEAKER_04]: I mean, you guys have been talking about that for fifty years.
[SPEAKER_04]: How it starts as an art project and then devolution, et cetera, et cetera. [SPEAKER_04]: But to have a career basically of explaining yourselves. [SPEAKER_04]: Which I think is also what we see here. [SPEAKER_04]: It's like it feels like it would be my numbing to be on your end and just time after time after time is like this is what we were about because you've also got catchy songs, but there was the whole thing that was a part of it.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, yeah, we were always trying to explain the substance and you know [SPEAKER_02]: inspiration behind that body of work and I don't think people were very interested in that They rarely printed what we said and I can understand that people you know people don't stop traditional yeah, that's not traditional in rock and roll.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like rock and roll has two or three very basic dumb ideas and then people just you know default to that so [SPEAKER_01]: So they weren't that he's he's absolutely correct people did not want to talk about what we want to talk about all the time. [SPEAKER_02]: They did like tell us about the drugs tell us about the sex let's be honest here. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_04]: I don't remember that part about the documentary and all either. [SPEAKER_04]: That was excellent.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's another version. [SPEAKER_04]: It's the sequel. [SPEAKER_01]: I want that said somebody else in documentary of diva. [SPEAKER_02]: This is the, you know, Mr. Rogers, friendly neighborhood version.
[SPEAKER_04]: When we get though at the beginning of Kent State and how that influenced you, especially Jerry, and going from what you were saying is, you know, being a hippie to eventually, you know, becoming, and I'm using the broad thing here of like post punk, you know, et cetera, et cetera. [SPEAKER_04]: I was thinking about, I was talking with Kim Gordon once, Sonic Youth. [SPEAKER_04]: And she was saying, you know, when I go home, I don't listen to no wave.
[SPEAKER_04]: I don't listen to noise rock. [SPEAKER_04]: I listen to Fleetwood Mac. [SPEAKER_04]: And I was thinking about that as I was watching this because because hearing you, you know, and knowing like [SPEAKER_04]: being in a Hendrix and things like that.
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, because that's the part, again, when we're talking about what the director wants to show, it's not exactly explained, like, how do you go from the hippie rock of the sixties to finding this post punk sound, especially when you in several other bands of the era, recreating something that all ended up being something kind of in this umbrella of post punk? [SPEAKER_01]: The sound clearly important to me. [SPEAKER_01]: It was like, I felt like I wanted to be a pioneer.
[SPEAKER_01]: I wanted to create a sound for the the seventies at the time is what I was thinking. [SPEAKER_01]: I was thinking as much as like, you know, Jimmy Hendrix and Captain Beefhart were the sound of the sixties [SPEAKER_01]: I thought I wanted to have something that related to our time. [SPEAKER_01]: You know, Jerry and I were both really influenced by all of the art movements in the twenties and thirties in Europe.
[SPEAKER_01]: And people like the futurists had already just, we're already making proclamations that the modern orchestra does not include instruments that, you know, can define or illuminate [SPEAKER_01]: our society, our culture, our industrial culture. [SPEAKER_01]: And we were kind of feeling that way with what was happening on TV and what was, you know, we were watching Vietnam on TV, mixed in with Anison and Buffer in commercials.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we were, you know, Jerry and I both had different things that we did for Deval, but for me, sound was really important. [SPEAKER_01]: It was [SPEAKER_01]: I was really looking for a way to create something new in the sound world. [SPEAKER_01]: Jerry was kind of equally interested in video and film at the time. [SPEAKER_01]: And he pushed us into making these short movies that we were making back before there was an MTV. [SPEAKER_01]: And that was great.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, basically every artist has to start off with influences and things that they revere. [SPEAKER_02]: And then they have to move on and find out who they are. [SPEAKER_02]: So you have your influences, and you have your artistic gods, and then you have to realize that now it's up to you to be them, not imitate them. [SPEAKER_04]: And we'll be right back right after this. [SPEAKER_04]: Welcome back, his Kyle Meredith talking with Mark and Jerry of Divo.
[SPEAKER_04]: And then in those crazy moments that we see in this film of you meeting those people. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_04]: Bowie, of course, always keep him with a shoulder right there. [SPEAKER_04]: Neil Young. [SPEAKER_04]: Right. [SPEAKER_04]: How was I, I'm sure this is talked about in the past at some point, but you do meet Neil Young and knowing that you're at Ken State and everything like [SPEAKER_04]: before you met him. [SPEAKER_04]: Like, did that song?
[SPEAKER_04]: Did that song do? [SPEAKER_04]: I'm talking about Ohio, obviously. [SPEAKER_04]: Like, did it do the justice of the moments? [SPEAKER_02]: It wasn't bad.
[SPEAKER_02]: What was really exciting to me and powerful was how quickly [SPEAKER_02]: back then with the way the record business worked and pressing vinyl how quickly that song was out there in the world and on the airwaves that's like a digital era story right they talk about how quickly things can happen now they don't happen anymore quickly than that right and that was nineteen seventy in the US because US like our [SPEAKER_01]: Our music industry was like a big, stupid, lumbering giant.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was opposing Europe. [SPEAKER_01]: You know, they had these smaller labels. [SPEAKER_01]: They had a situation where people did cut a song on Friday and then you'd hear it on the radio on Monday. [SPEAKER_01]: But in the US, that was never the case. [SPEAKER_01]: And so, yeah, hearing at that, that quick of a turnaround was kind of impressive. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_02]: And I'm sure. [SPEAKER_02]: It was only because of the status of Neil Young at that moment in history.
[SPEAKER_04]: Like if you're going to put out that song, we've got to do this now. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_04]: Speak to that moment. [SPEAKER_04]: And what a great moment that was. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_04]: Just knowing that that's, you know, not specifically that song, but you know, that it's all part of your story. [SPEAKER_04]: It's so wild, right?
[SPEAKER_04]: When you get to tell these, especially a fifty-year story of a band like you all, to be able to look at it in this hour and a half package. [SPEAKER_04]: It's crazy. [SPEAKER_04]: How many things just play into each other? [SPEAKER_04]: You know, that made the thing that led to the next thing. [SPEAKER_02]: That's, yeah, we never thought we'd be meeting Neil Young. [SPEAKER_02]: So like seven years after that song, we're jamming with Neil Young.
[SPEAKER_02]: And nobody would have believed that, including myself, if somebody had said, here's what you're going to be doing. [SPEAKER_01]: You go you look back at it's amazing that we were in a recording studio up in San Francisco and [SPEAKER_01]: Everybody had on these, never mind the Bollek shirt that we'd gotten from the sex pistols like the week before or something like that. [SPEAKER_01]: He was jamming with Divo, it was kind of mild.
[SPEAKER_01]: Boogie Boy was in a playpin, playing a synth and singing song that I don't think he'd even put out yet. [SPEAKER_01]: But then he's, like, crunching Doogie Boys, he smashed Boogie Boys playpen with his guitar. [SPEAKER_01]: He was falling on top of Boogie Boy on purpose. [SPEAKER_01]: It was kind of, oh, I'm the non, non what you would think of for Neil Young. [SPEAKER_01]: And that was impressive. [SPEAKER_01]: That kind of really changed my opinion about him.
[SPEAKER_01]: Because I kind of, you know, I wasn't into the Laurel Canyon, Granola, [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, we kind of wanted that stuff. [SPEAKER_02]: And there he was, grandfather of Bernola Rock, completely in the moment and punk. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and then we paid attention to his films, which I'd never, you know, had a chance to see before, and I realized he had this very kind of avant-garde, interesting.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was like Robert Downey's senior kind of style of filmmaking that was kind of cool in a way. [SPEAKER_04]: And then you can see the point in his career where you all became his influence, you know, and those. [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_04]: The other, and I'll wrap around back to the present here too, because I mentioned you guys were going to be touring with B-Fifty, too, so of course comes out of this same scene.
[SPEAKER_04]: First off, the idea of this tour, I think, got it happened. [SPEAKER_04]: I mean, I was reading about how, you know, meeting up at SNL-Fifty and all of that stuff, but the cosmic devolution, which is a good phrase to put on a tour, like, can it mean something? [SPEAKER_04]: I wanted to mean something in the way that Devo actually means something, I guess. [SPEAKER_02]: Well, it's a, it's putting a sugar coating on de-evolution so that de-evolution isn't depressing.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it gives it a tasty optimistic side, which is kind of good for us too, because beyond spending fifty years telling, you know, sounding like we were just, you know, like, crabby and cynical, you know, it's like there is this other side of Divo that is about [SPEAKER_01]: positive mutation and it's about, you know, like, don't just, you know, like stagnate move forward in a positive way in a new time where it really needs it.
[SPEAKER_04]: Does Lena Lovitz fit into that philosophy? [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know. [SPEAKER_01]: I saw her once at the whiskey a go-go in the eighties. [SPEAKER_01]: She has an amazing voice and you know, I think it fits on in the sense of what Jerry was saying about it being kind of like putting [SPEAKER_01]: You know, from our viewpoint, it's putting the candy coating and, you know, inflating some helium balloons and stuff for a dollar, you know, dilution is real, you know, kind of thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: And for them, it's like it's adding art. [SPEAKER_02]: You got to make the medicine taste good. [SPEAKER_01]: I think we complement each other just fine. [SPEAKER_01]: I think there's there's not a I don't think it's it's a bad combination. [SPEAKER_01]: I think it's it's complimentary.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's a dream bill especially for fans of that music and and that's you know [SPEAKER_04]: I don't know, like, pre-internet days, et cetera, et cetera, especially when we're looking back then, you know, when, I don't know, how did it feel? [SPEAKER_04]: I don't want to put words in your mouth. [SPEAKER_04]: I would have expected it would have felt like, I don't know, an oasis, not the band.
[SPEAKER_04]: But an oasis to find another band that sort of subscribe to a similar version of weird that you all did when we talk about mainstream culture. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I mean, people decided P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P [SPEAKER_02]: and both calling it farewell dot dot dot maybe.
[SPEAKER_02]: It takes a long time to say goodbye. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, we're in an age group where you could say good. [SPEAKER_01]: I had any moment. [SPEAKER_01]: So we could say farewell if we wanted or we can say welfare or we can say, yeah, next year we got even better ideas. [SPEAKER_01]: So we'll see what happens. [SPEAKER_04]: Fairly what? [SPEAKER_04]: There's been a lot of bands that laid the groundwork where farewell goodbye can still mean forty years in itself.
[SPEAKER_02]: So we have only played about twenty-eight percent of the markets that want Devo. [SPEAKER_02]: So it'll take a long time to say goodbye. [SPEAKER_01]: If we say goodbye to everybody, yeah. [SPEAKER_04]: I think goodness for us that there's a lot of people out there. [SPEAKER_01]: And then by the time we're getting to the very end of it, then there'll be colonies on Mars that will have to go up and start all over again. [SPEAKER_04]: And we'll be right back right after this.
[SPEAKER_04]: Welcome back. [SPEAKER_04]: He is Kyle Merid talking with Mark and Jerry of Devo. [SPEAKER_04]: And going back to what we were saying at the beginning about it being one person's kind of lens to the story they wanted to tell because we started seeing this stuff that wasn't told, right? [SPEAKER_04]: I loved the reunion record, something for everybody.
[SPEAKER_04]: We played fresh a ton here at WFPK, you know, stuff that, you know, smooth noodle maps and all that, which I think is a fantastic thing. [SPEAKER_04]: Like the reports that I would mention, I wanted to see more of that. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_02]: I like, I like something for everybody I really do. [SPEAKER_02]: I think there are at least four songs on there that are as strong as songs from freedom of choice and oh, no, it's Devo.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, it just didn't matter at that point because the record company failed to bring it to market because they have no juice anymore. [SPEAKER_02]: I remember we went to their rep at Warner's who said, hey guys, would it be okay if I went to radio and presented and pushed for no place like home and we're [SPEAKER_02]: We were just kind of crest falling like he's asking this if that would be all right. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, that's your job, please.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, I think he should hide it. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_01]: You know, but also it was different. [SPEAKER_01]: It's like when the first time we went over to Warner Brothers in seventy eight.
[SPEAKER_01]: it was like this vibrant and everything was happening in that building and every Friday at noon they stopped work and they threw a party in the center opening area and had a lunch party that lasted for the rest of the day and when we went in there for the last time we were there with this album it's like some of the big marketing rooms had like
[SPEAKER_01]: have like my chemical romance t-shirts you know that the merchandise people would left sitting there till my chemical romance went back out on tour and there were just empty rooms and it was like the last bastion of people that you know loved music so much that they were still willing to like work at a record company at that point in time it was like a lot of people that had you know like sad you know like
[SPEAKER_01]: memories of, you know, romantic memories of what it was like in the seventies and eighties and nineties when, uh, when record stores still existed. [SPEAKER_01]: Uh, it was, it was different to go. [SPEAKER_04]: I love that common area at Warner's outside of patio is that home building was legendary. [SPEAKER_04]: And, um, and now nobody works at the record labels anymore. [SPEAKER_04]: So that's what we have. [SPEAKER_04]: That's how we have radio teams.
[SPEAKER_04]: Um, [SPEAKER_04]: So off track, let me compliment you guys one more time. [SPEAKER_04]: The new documentary is fantastic. [SPEAKER_04]: It's so great to see this story being told in the way it has. [SPEAKER_04]: It's on Netflix and everybody should watch it. [SPEAKER_04]: It doesn't times, if not more. [SPEAKER_04]: And I can't wait to see this tour with you all in the B-Fifty, too. [SPEAKER_04]: And I cannot tell you what an honor it is to get to talk to you both.
[SPEAKER_04]: So Jerry, Mark, thank you so much for taking the time today. [SPEAKER_04]: Thank you. [SPEAKER_04]: My thanks to Mark Gerald Devode, the documentary out now on Netflix. [SPEAKER_04]: Thanks to you for checking out the episode. [SPEAKER_04]: Please do hit that subscribe button before you get out of here so you can keep up with all the interviews that I put out. [SPEAKER_04]: Just like this one, you can grab us at Spotify, Apple Podcast, NPR.
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