All language subtitles for DEVO 2024 1080p WEB H264-AccomplishedYak.Hi

[whimsical music playing]

[jarring, hypnotic
music playing]

[man 1] In the past, this
information has been suppressed,

but now it can be told.

Every man, woman, and
mutant on this planet

shall know the truth
about de-evolution.

["Booji Boy's Funeral"
by Devo playing]

-[man 2] Are we rolling?
-[interviewer] Yeah.

[man 2] I don't know if we talked
about this, so I'm gonna talk about it.

Want me to tell the
whole story or...

-[interviewer] Yeah, the whole story.
-Okay.

Um...

Well, a schoolteacher gave
me this pamphlet from 1933.

It was called Jocko-Homo,

and the first page is
a picture of a devil,

and he's got the word
"d-evolu-tion" on his chest,

and he's pointing to a set of stairs
that have all of the sins of man,

the staircase to de-evolution.

It was great information. I
mean, we grew up in America.

We know about the insanity.

It was inflicted upon us.

Part of our message... a
lot of people never got it.

They heard "Whip It," and they
went dancing, and that was it.

And then there were the people

that wanted to know why we
were saying the things we said

or asking the
questions we asked.

["Whip It" by Devo playing]

[man] How do you think the perception
of Devo is throughout America?

We have every kind of
perception possible.

We've been accused of being fascists,
clowns, of fascist clowns, stupid.

That's probably the
most complimentary.

I think Devo may be the
most misunderstood band

ever to show up on the
face of the planet.

♪ Give the past the slip... ♪

[presenter] Here's those
noted eccentrics called Devo.

Listen up, you spuds.

-This is Devo.
-♪ Break your mama's back ♪

[woman] It's gonna
take a little bit

of getting used to the
bizarre music of Devo.

♪ You must whip it... ♪

[reporter] Is Devo the
new wave of the future,

or are they just playing a big
joke on just about everybody?

-♪ You must whip it... ♪
-[reporter] You decide.

Are we not men?

[crowd] We are Devo!

De-evolution is happening, and
we have to be a part of it.

♪ Go forward, move ahead... ♪

[woman] They're all from
outer space or something.

[man] We certainly are like
the band that fell to Earth.

♪ Whip it good ♪

[journalist] They're one of the funniest,
most innovative, non-punk, non-new wave,

not anything actually, but
their own unique group.

You don't categorize them.

♪ Peek-a-boo! ♪

[journalist] You thought that was
the beginning of an introduction?

You're wrong.

Greetings. Mark.

-I'm Jerry.
-I'm Alan.

-Bob 1.
-I'm Bob 2.

And this is Devo.

♪ We are Devo ♪

["Gut Feeling" by Devo playing]

[General Boy] Three billion years
ago, there was no life on Earth.

After millions of years,

the first signs of life
itself began to emerge.

As time passed, life passed,

and new life evolved.

[exhaling]

[doctor] It's a boy!

[commentator] Liftoff!

[John F. Kennedy] We
choose to go to the moon.

This country rode the first waves
of the Industrial Revolution,

the first waves of
modern invention,

and the first wave
of nuclear power.

If this history of our
progress teaches us anything,

it is that man, in his quest
for knowledge and progress,

is determined and
cannot be deterred.

[Neil Armstrong] The
Eagle has landed.

We were seeing a world
that was the antithesis

of the idealized, promised future that
was ginned up in the '50s and '60s.

Man continuing to progress
and evolve and get smarter.

We saw none of that.

What we saw was regression.

People unable to think
critically or think abstractly.

Especially in America.

[Jerry] We're here to
reiterate the well-known fact

that America got
immersed in its own ego.

It indulged itself for being great
without proving to continue to be great.

And we think it's disgusting.

Aren't you awfully young to be so cynical
about what's going on with all of us?

-I don't think we're cynical.
-You're not?

-No.
-We just watch the news.

-[man] A nation born...
-[reporter] ...was shot and killed.

[journalist]
Dr. Martin Luther King.

[man 1] America solves
its problems by shooting.

[man 2] The sense of a
nation destroying itself.

Devo pounds home
an anti-message.

[man 1] Well, if a captain
says the ship is sinking,

people don't call him
a pessimist if it is.

You know, it's like that.

[electricity popping
and crackling]

[evocative music playing]

[Jerry] I credit my time
at Kent State University

as the defining era of my life.

And I have said in the
past, and I mean it,

there would be no
Devo without that.

At that time, I am an idealist.

Because we all grew up
in post-World War II,

believing in endless progress,

the future, flying
cars, domed cities.

But... none of it was real. None of
it was happening. It wasn't true.

And my idealism
is being attacked

because I'm learning
about the war in Vietnam,

the US imperialism
and the hypocrisy,

the dumbing down
of the population.

It was just kind
of overwhelming.

And at that point, sex and
drugs weren't a big deal.

Learning was.

Politics was.

Art was.

I was a graduate
student art teacher.

[Mark] When I grew up,
I remember thinking,

"The world's kinda messed up,

but it's all gonna make
sense when I get older."

And I just stumbled in a
fog to school every day.

At the end of second grade, they
found out I was legally blind,

and I had been legally
blind my whole life.

I got glasses,
and it was amazing

because I'd never seen
anything in focus before.

And I saw the sky, and I
saw clouds, and I saw birds.

And I went home and dreamt
I was gonna be an artist.

And I drew constantly, even
up through high school.

And I had won some local awards,
which allowed me to go to Kent State.

[Jerry] I kept seeing these
graffiti decals on campus,

like a guy with a potato
and puking on the moon.

I wanted to know,
"Who's doing that?"

"Oh, it's this guy named Mark."

And people just thought
he was a strange guy,

but I saw real talent.

And then Jerry came up to me and he
said, "What do potatoes mean to you?"

Then we started
talking about potatoes.

We liked that they were
dirty and asymmetric,

but they had eyes all around.

And we started calling each
other "spud" from "comrade."

But it was also derogatory, like
a "dumb spud," for instance.

And it's exactly what
I was trying to find.

And so he screened
my spud man for me.

[Mark] Little potato men that he could put
on pictures from his high school yearbook

of people that he didn't like.

[chuckling] So that was his
senior thesis at the time,

which I thought was funny.

It was all exciting and also
really, really stressful.

There is a swelling tide of dissent
among the young in America today.

[Mark] Jerry and I protested
the war when we were at school.

I thought we had the ability
to help change things.

And this protest stuff that was going
on was getting more and more real.

[tense music playing]

[Mark] So I marched
down with these people,

and we were standing in front
of this army recruiting center.

I'm there like this, like, "Yeah!"
You know? "Get out of Vietnam."

Then rocks started going from behind
me, over my head, through windows.

So after that, I was kinda
done with the stuff on campus.

And then the next day...

[reporter] On Saturday night,

demonstrators at Kent
State University in Ohio

burned the ROTC
building to the ground.

[Jerry] And then the governor
declared martial law,

which suspends First
Amendment rights.

And he brought in
the National Guard.

It was hardcore times.

That led up to that
big day, May 4th, 1970.

The protest where
the stakes were high.

Nixon had expanded the Vietnam War into
Cambodia without an act of Congress.

The president explained
that the North Vietnamese

have been using sheltered sanctuaries
in Cambodia to strike at South Vietnam.

The time has come for action.

Based on Nixon's actions,

the decision was made to hold
the rally at noon on the commons,

ring the bell, and
the speeches started.

[student] We want to get
America out of all of Asia,

all of Latin America,
all of Africa.

Out of Watts, out of the ghettos
in every city, off this campus.

[Jerry] And the National Guard
surrounded us on three sides.

Leave this area immediately.

[chanting] Strike,
strike, strike, strike!

[Jerry] Within maybe, I don't know,
ten minutes of the order to disperse,

then the tear gas started.

[shouting and chaotic scuffling]

[Jerry] They push us down towards
the practice football field,

and then they circle around,
and they come back up the hill.

[clamoring]

My friends and I are wondering,
"What will they do now?"

"Now they're gonna come back down the
hill and charge us with their bayonets?"

Because they were
lowering their bayonets.

And then the next
thing I know...

[gunshots]

[Jerry] I went into slow
motion, like in a car crash.

[unsettling music playing]

["Ohio" by Neil Young playing]

[Mark] Found out later that there
had been 30-some people shot

and four of them killed.

[Jerry] And I see
two people I know

laying there with blood
running from their bodies.

Allison Krause and
Jeffrey Miller.

[Mark] After the
Kent State shootings,

we thought things were
going to be different.

But instead, it's like
everybody had fallen asleep

and they forgot about
what had happened.

And for us,

it changed our whole outlook
about the world, really.

There's serious
problems with humans.

[Jerry] And of course, what happens
is the accounts were so upside down.

People they interviewed, "They
should've shot more students."

[reporter 1] And at least
some townspeople were saying

the National Guard
troops were nice boys.

[reporter 2] Most felt the students
had brought the trouble on themselves.

[reporter 3] Shortly after the
shooting, the university's president

ordered the school closed.

[Jerry] I mean, for
a lot of students,

you felt like you were a
fugitive in the summer of 1970.

[reporter 4] At nightfall, a curfew
went into effect on the entire town.

[Jerry] And so, I find
myself stuck in Kent,

and I'm kind of zombified.

I had nothing less than what you
could only call a nervous breakdown.

But that's when you
gather yourself.

And I was discussing, debating,

philosophizing with
my good friend,

Bob Lewis.

Jerry, after May 4th,
was not the same.

He was more focused, more
angry, and more determined.

And he and I start forming

the philosophical underpinnings of
what becomes called "de-evolution."

Well, that was a word we used to
start describing what we were seeing.

We thought de-evolution was closer
to the truth than evolution.

It seemed like things were
regressing all the time.

One thing we learned from Kent
was that rebellion is obsolete.

So I wanted to do something new.

-I was looking for concepts.
-[phone ringing]

[Jerry] So Bob Lewis and I start
talking to Mark about de-evolution.

Because he was the real deal.

["Drosera Rotundifolia" by
Mark Mothersbaugh playing]

And he was totally into
it and went for it.

[Mark] They needed
me, and I needed them,

and somehow we're gonna
make something really great.

[Jerry] And now we're bonded.

Now it's like we can't wait to see
each other, we can't wait to talk.

And it started as a literary
and an art movement.

It was always high energy.
There was rapid idea exchange.

And we were excited
by the concept.

It's a completely new Spud.

At first we didn't even talk about
music, we just talked about art.

[explosion]

[Lewis] We wanted to combine
the lofty ideas of art history

with the crassest
expressions of pop culture.

And that was our inspiration.

[loud crash]

[Mark] One of the
things we had in common,

we loved all the art movements in Europe
between World War I and World War II.

So we were fascinated
with the Dadaists.

[man] The beginnings of Dada
were not the beginnings of art,

but of disgust.

[Mark] We were also
influenced by the artists

who were current at that time.
Especially like Andy Warhol,

'cause he was a painter,

and he was a print
maker, and made movies.

We're sponsoring a new band, it's
called The Velvet Underground.

We have this chance to combine
music, art, and films all together.

[Mark] We liked that your
art could be an idea,

and you could use whatever
medium was out there.

["Heroin" by The Velvet
Underground & Nico]

[Mark] The idea was the most
important part of Devo for us.

[Jerry] We drew from a book
called The Beginning Was the End,

or Knowledge Can Be Eaten
by Oscar Kiss Maerth,

who promoted the
theory of de-evolution.

He says that indeed man came
from cannibalistic apes,

who, by eating the brains of
other apes, became insane,

because their physical
brains grew faster.

So that what we are is insane mutant
apes that lost our connection to nature,

which sets us on an increasingly
insane spiraling path.

And soon, Your Honor,
we'll be marching backward!

Backward!

[Mark] We'd found different
references. There was Inherit the Wind.

Devolution is not a
theory, but a proven fact.

[Mark] A chimp's sitting there,
and on one side it says "devo,"

and then on the other
side of him it has "man."

It's like, awesome,
I love that movie.

[Jerry] And we started proselytizing
de-evolution to anyone who listened.

And we were quite fond of
anything related to monkeys,

cannibalism, things
falling apart.

Boom! It was dumped in our laps.

And Professor finds Jocko-Homo, and
then we see Island of Lost Souls.

And it's all coming together.

Are we not men?

[Jerry] We saw people as
those half-mutant beasts.

Irrational, frightened,

ready to kill, and
living in pain.

And then we wanted to turn it into
whatever our art was going to be.

[Jerry] Ideas are easy,

but can you produce anything
that lives up to it?

And so we quit talking so
much, and we started doing.

So let's see if it hits.

[cheering]

Let's see if we're
accepted or rejected.

[Mark] I think a lot of people that
came to see Devo in the early days

had absolutely no idea
what they were gonna see,

and it wasn't anything that they
wanted to see when they saw it.

[guitars tuning]

Everybody was gonna go on
stage and tune their guitars,

and I was gonna do something
that we called a "headache solo."

[piercing, pitch-shifting
synth wails]

[Mark] Well, because it was so loud,
you could tell they didn't like it.

[synth wail continues]

[Mark] Out of the 20-some
people, now there's 12,

and now there's six, and now
there's two people, you know.

And the headache solo
just kept going on and on.

[synth wail continues]

It wasn't our intention

to make it that
punishing, but...

[synth wail continues]

[Mark] It wasn't that bad.

-That's only half of it.
-[chuckling]

[Mark] And what we were doing, actually,
in retrospect, was performance art.

And we wanted to take
it one step further,

so it became Jerry, my
two brothers, and me.

[interviewer] Did you
aspire to be in Devo?

[Mark] Ready, Bob?

No, I did not aspire
to be in Devo,

but, uh, it was
funny and it was odd,

so of course I said, "Sure."

[Mark] And then Jim, I
don't know what else to say,

other than he was
a pioneer in sound.

[bass drum thumps]

[Mark] Jim invented maybe the
first electronic drum set,

and he made that
at a muffler shop.

So nothing was
really off the shelf,

because that's what we
had to do originally.

[Jerry] We were forced into that DIY
aesthetic because we had no money.

[Mark] We thought of
ourselves as common stock,

and everybody had different
kinds of menial jobs

while we were building
up to be a band.

[Bob M.] Jerry and I took
turns delivering meat.

I was a maintenance man
at an apartment building.

[Bob M.] And we would spend
night and day just recording.

[Mark] We would do
everything we could

to not sound like a
typical rock 'n' roll band.

[Jerry] So we said,
"Okay, let's experiment."

Like, what would Devo
music sound like?

And we thought we had found it
in brutalism, in minimalism.

When you hear those early basement
tapes, that's what's going on.

♪ I think I'm only a spudboy ♪

♪ Looking for a real tomato ♪

I think we were just trying
to figure out what we were.

So when we were creating
what we wanted it to be,

we were paying attention to what
was happening all around us.

[interviewer] ...where you got
the inspiration for your music?

[Mark] Akron, Ohio.

[interviewer] Ohio?
Must be a weird place.

[Mark] It's horrible. It's very ugly.
It's kinda like Liverpool. [chuckles]

At one time, Akron was considered
the rubber capital of the world.

We were vulcanizing tires

and sending them up to
Detroit to go on their cars.

[reporter] On the assembly lines,
the average worker earns $5.

-[interviewer] Did you work in a factory?
-No, but we felt like it.

We were surrounded by the
factories and factory reality,

and people that actually
live like machines.

We were reacting to that.

We bought these gray work suits
and clear plastic face masks.

We put those on, looked at it
together, and said, "That looks good."

[Mark] We wanted to look
like cogs in a machine,

like that scene in Metropolis

where guys controlling
this gigantic machine,

but they're just part of
the machine too, really.

We even considered, like,
getting plastic surgery

and... and, like, so
we'd all look more alike.

I don't know, luckily
we didn't do that.

["Mechanical Man"
by Devo playing]

[Mark] Many years
go by, and for me,

I wanted to keep
experimenting with sounds.

My brother Jim started circuit bending
all of our synths and everything.

He would make it do things
it wasn't supposed to do.

[heavy distortion]

[Jerry] But I even knew

that nothing that sounded or
looked like what we were doing

was going to have a chance.

You know, how do you make this digestible
to people without compromising it?

[Mark] We had no idea
what "commercial" meant

or how important it
was to be commercial

or how you became commercial.

So we were curious who was doing
things that were successful.

["Space Oddity" by
David Bowie playing]

[Mark] And Bowie was able to turn from
being a pure artist to a pop artist.

That's success.

♪ This is Major Tom
to ground control ♪

♪ I'm stepping
through the door... ♪

[Jerry] David Bowie gave us hope we
could get a voice in the marketplace,

we could be seen and heard.

[cheering]

So we decided that the only way
we could crack the music business

was to put the whole
vision together.

The marriage of music,
theatrics, and the philosophy

as an entire package.

[Mark] And my good
friend Chuck Statler

was instrumental to starting
the whole Devo video process.

[Statler] I was intrigued
by what Devo was all about,

and got together with Jerry
and pitched him on the idea

of doing some kind
of a music film.

He knew that we were
gonna kinda change

and maybe try to make
it not quite as radical,

and he loved what we were doing.

He wanted to archive the
sound of the four-piece band.

So Jerry and I opened a
graphic design company

just long enough
to make the $3,000

so Chuck could
put this together.

Chuck said at the time, "Let's
make something that lasts."

["Secret Agent Man"
by Devo playing]

We shot In The Beginning Was the
End: The Truth About De-Evolution.

♪ You know I live a life
of danger For the FBI ♪

[Mark] The music was very
abstract, and in a way,

that band was the most
pure-art Devo band.

It's really a shared vision,
because it wasn't a music video,

and we were basing it within our
thinking about a longer piece.

♪ I don't get up off my... ♪

We had two songs, a whacked-out
version of "Secret Agent Man."

♪ I'm a secret agent man ♪

And, um... "Jocko Homo."

["Jocko Homo" by Devo playing]

[Jerry] So Mark reconfigured
the book, the pamphlet,

and Island of Lost Souls,
then came in with the music,

and "Jocko Homo" was one of
the first true Devo songs.

♪ Monkey men all ♪

♪ In business suits ♪

♪ Teachers and critics ♪

♪ All dance the poot ♪

♪ Are we not men? ♪

♪ We are Devo ♪

♪ Are we not men? ♪

♪ D-E-V-O ♪

[Mark] When I got into
something, I just didn't stop.

Everything that had been
stuffed inside my head

just went... [boom]
...like a volcano.

[Jerry] That's what's
interesting about it all,

is that this philosophical
point of view about the world

informed the body of work.

[Mark] We already had felt
like humans were insane,

and so to become enlightened,
something had to happen.

♪ All together now ♪

[Mark singing]

[tuning]

[Mark] What we were trying to do

was expand the way people thought
about the world around them

and who they were.

But we would sometimes
wonder how long it would take

before we'd drive people crazy.

-♪ Are we not men? ♪
-♪ We are Devo ♪

-♪ We must repeat ♪
-♪ D-E-V-O ♪

♪ We must repeat
Okay! Let's go ♪

[crowd cheering]

[music fades]

[Jerry] We shot this film in 1976, and
there was no such thing as MTV yet,

that was a long ways away,

but we were like, "What
do we do with this?"

And nothing happened
whatsoever, nothing.

We were struggling, so I
pretty much left the band.

[Jerry] Our first experimental pro
to-Devo period had run its course,

but I just was not
going to give up.

When my brother dropped out,

we were trying to reinvent the band, you
know. I said, "Well, let's get Alan."

We found Alan putting
up aluminum siding,

and he agreed with
Devo's particular vision.

And then the concepts of Devo's
started replacing my other ideas.

Uh...

[Jerry] Then we added my brother,
because we needed to fill it out.

I just want to make it real
clear that I should always do

what my brother wants me to do.

We wanted the band to be a band that
had committed to the same thing.

The individuals
could come out later.

[Jerry] My brother Bob
worked with radiologists.

He was making good money.

He quit that job for Devo.

At that point, there is no
question in anyone's mind

that this is what we're doing.

And we were like, "Wow."

"We gotta... We gotta figure
out how to get somewhere soon."

-[applause]
-Okay, thank you very much.

[Jerry] We first started getting
hired at this place called The Crypt,

which was right between
Firestone and Goodrich.

We were playing this place,
there was like 20 people,

half of which mistakenly
wandered in after their shift.

And they came in there, damn it,
to hear stuff they wanted to hear.

[bar patron] Play
some rock 'n' roll!

[all] Let's go!

[Bob M.] So we would
lie to these club owners

and tell them we could
do covers of Bad Company.

[music starts]

[Bob M.] We'd get about three songs
into the set, and they'd throw us out.

[bar patron] Fuck you!

[man] Fuck yourself!

I'd go, "No, we got two more sets.
We can keep going if you want."

And they'd be like, "No,
no, no, that's okay."

"Look, I'll pay you the full
amount. Just leave now."

[laughs]

[Mark] It kind of energized us
when we were rejected that way.

It made us stronger.

We thought, "If those
assholes don't like us,

we know we're doing
the right thing."

[bar patron] Fuck you!

Here's some more hippie music.

[interviewer] How long
did you play in Akron

before you started
venturing to other cities?

I think we played
about maybe five.

-[interviewer] Years?
-No, times.

[laughter]

[Mark] Once we started
playing shows, though,

we had nowhere to stay anymore.

Just about everybody

was staying in Bobbie Watson
and Sue Massaro's living room.

It was a tight fit.

There was no central
place for them,

so it was kind of
the headquarters.

There was a lot of support.

And the only joyful thing in our
life was to help make them happen

and see the following
that Devo had built.

[Jerry] Usually our audiences
were about 25 Devo cult followers

that helped us exist
on a day-to-day basis.

There was discussion

that we need to do this in a
bigger, grassroots kind of a way.

[Jerry] We had
written a lot of songs

and decided, for $2,000,
we made our own record

on Booji Boy Records,

our own record label.

We folded the album covers
ourselves, then put the stickers on,

and we put a fake barcode on it

so anybody that would
have scanned that,

it would have cost them the
price of a box of tampons.

I just remember how amazing
it felt to have a record.

"We're on the map."

But we had no distribution, so
I'd get in a car with Bob Lewis

and we'd drive up to Cleveland
and we'd go into a record store,

and we'd go, "Hey, need
any more Devo records?"

And the guy would go,

"Nope, I still have the one
you brought in two weeks ago."

And we'd go, "Okay."

[Jerry] I sent it to all record
companies along with our first video,

and nobody responded.

♪ D-E-V-O ♪

But then the film won an
award for best film short

in the Ann Arbor Film Festival.

People either were horrified
by it or laughed at it,

which is the perfect
response that we wanted.

[Mark] That was kind
of, in some ways,

the start of
recognition for Devo,

because that film then
got added into a circuit,

and it toured.

[Jerry] Kip Cohen of
A&M Records saw it

and offered us $2,000 if
we'd drive out in a van

and play at the Starwood
Theater in Hollywood.

[crowd chanting] Devo!

[Mark] Slash magazine printed stills
from the film right before we hit town,

and the place was packed.

[Jerry] And now a special song!

We've never sang
this except in Ohio.

"I Am a Potato,"

And I'm so hip!

So we thought, "Oh, okay,
we've got a record deal now."

[Jerry] And Devo filed
into his offices at A&M.

He goes, "Guys, guys, guys."

Hey, are we not men?

[Jerry] "Here's
what I want to say."

"You guys, you're just
not my kind of girl."

[both] We're just not
your kind of girl?

You got it, wise guys.

"That's it exactly."

[laughs]

We walked out of
there and Alan Myers,

who had been in the band
for five weeks, goes,

"Well, I feel like maybe we don't
really deserve a record deal."

And we both said, "Don't
ever talk again." [chuckles]

[Jerry] We decided, well, look,
we could always stay in Akron

and make tons of little tiny records
and nobody could be influenced by it.

But instead we said, "Let's
really give Devo the acid test."

I believe in it so much that I think
we could actually survive the industry.

[man] Another thing, those older songs,
they seem a lot slower and stuff.

[Mark] Yeah.

♪ Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Yeah-yeah-yeah-yeah-yeah-yeah! ♪

[Jerry] We were playing at
Akron speed and suddenly,

the world took off.

[Mark] About that time,

we started finding out about
things like the Ramones.

♪ Hey ho, let′s go! ♪

♪ Hey ho! ♪

♪ Let′s go! They're forming
in a straight line... ♪

[Mark] We loved the
Ramones when we heard them.

Their songs are so succinct.

And we were really impressed

that they had done this
reductive synthesis.

Reductive synthesis, that's
the spirit of de-evolution,

and Devo has plenty of it.

Watch carefully.

[Mark] And we started trying
playing our songs faster.

[music tempo increases]

[Mark] And we thought,
"Wait a minute,

these songs are better
when we play them fast."

[Jerry] I had booked
us into CBGB's

and Max's Kansas
City in New York.

So when we first played,
the Dead Boys hated us.

[Mark] Dead Boys were from
Cleveland and they were punk,

and they were anti-intellectual.

"We're not that, we're
not punk like you guys."

-[Jerry] And they attacked us.
-[clamoring]

We had a full
fight on the stage,

which then made us okay.

[Mark] After the first
show we played in New York,

people would go, "Okay, you
gotta go see this band."

♪ Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Yeah-yeah-yeah-yeah-yeah-yeah ♪

["Uncontrollable Urge" playing]

♪ Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Yeah-yeah-yeah-yeah-yeah-yeah ♪

♪ Got an urge, got a surge
And it's out of control now ♪

♪ Got an urge, I wanna purge
'Cause I'm losing control ♪

♪ Uncontrollable urge I
wanna tell you all about it ♪

♪ Got an uncontrollable urge It
makes me scream and shout it ♪

♪ That's right! ♪

[Jerry] We didn't like being called punk
simply because it wasn't just nihilism,

which we thought were
simple-minded and silly to look at,

but that's what Devo
was making fun of.

That's what the irony was about.

Yeah, we're the fluid
in the punk enema bag.

♪ So strong, I
can't let it pass! ♪

♪ I gotta tell
you all about it ♪

♪ I gotta scream and shout it ♪

♪ Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Yeah-yeah-yeah-yeah-yeah-yeah ♪

["Uncontrollable Urge" ends]

[Mark] This one night,
when the show was over,

John Lennon looks at me...

[ding]

...and he stuck his head right
in front of mine, and he went...

♪ Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Yeah-yeah-yeah-yeah-yeah-yeah! ♪

[chuckles]

And took off.

It was my first encounter
with a celebrity,

and "Uncontrollable Urge"
was a deconstructed version

of "She Loves You,"

and an intro that's almost the
same as "I Want to Hold Your Hand."

So I'm sure he knew what
I was up to with it.

[Jerry] I kept finding ways for us to
just skirt the poverty line, you know,

couches to stay on, whatever, spread
the word, and it starts to build.

And it just mushroomed.

[Bob M.] Our guest list
would be all these stars,

Jack Nicholson, Dennis Hopper.

[Mark] John Waters, Iggy Pop.

When people are this good,

you're not gonna be the only
one that's heard about it.

Musically, what they were
doing was better than anyone.

[Mark] And Bruce
Conner called up.

[phone ringing]

He was an artist,

and he asked if he could have
a copy of the song "Mongoloid."

He wanted to make a movie to it. We're
like, "Yeah, that's a great idea."

♪ Mongoloid, mongoloid ♪

♪ Happier than you and me ♪

[Mark] It's like a film collage
of educational film footage

mixed with really
great TV commercials.

Like at one point,
there's a housewife,

and she's on top of a gigantic
roll-on deodorant ball,

and she's going like this,
because it's sticking to her.

["Mongoloid" by Devo playing]

[Bob M.] It was just a great period
where most of the people that saw us

didn't hate us anymore.

Celebrities, famous musicians
were coming to see us play.

For a kid from Ohio,
it was amazing.

[chuckles] It was more
than I could've hoped for.

[music fades]

Very good evening.

My name is David Bowie,

and it gives me great
pleasure to introduce a band

that I believe may well
become a focus point

for American new wave music.

They're from Akron, Ohio.

[cheering]

This is their third encounter
with a New York audience,

and they're the
de-evolution band,

Devo.

[cheering]

[Bob M.] Did the whole career
just change after that moment?

Yeah.

["Mr. DNA" by Devo playing]

[Mark] And after the set was
over, Bowie came backstage,

and he said he'd
like to produce us.

We're like, "Sounds good to us,

because we're sleeping in
an Econoline van tonight."

♪ Wait a minute,
something's wrong ♪

♪ He's the man from the past ♪

♪ He's here to do us a favor ♪

♪ A little human sacrifice ♪

♪ It's just supply and demand ♪

-♪ Mr. Kamikaze ♪
-♪ Mr. DNA ♪

♪ He's an altruistic pervert ♪

-♪ Mr. DNA ♪
-♪ Mr. Kamikaze ♪

♪ Here to spread some genes ♪

♪ Wait a minute,
something's wrong ♪

♪ He's a man with a plan ♪

♪ His finger's pointed at Devo ♪

♪ Now we must
sacrifice ourselves ♪

♪ That many others may live ♪

♪ Okay, we've got
a lot to give ♪

♪ This monkey wants
a word with you ♪

[intense synth playing]

♪ One, two, three, four ♪

-[music fades]
-[crowd cheering]

[Mark] That all happened, and so we
went back to Akron waiting to record.

But Bowie kept delaying it, and
he kept taking on more projects.

And he said,

"You know what? I don't know
when I'm gonna produce you guys."

"I want you to meet Brian Eno."

"Let Brian produce you, and I'll
come by the studio when I can."

We loved everything David and Brian
did together on that album Low.

Brian had moved on from his
wild Roxy Music persona.

He was short-haired, conservatively
dressed, zen kind of guy.

[Jerry] Eno said, "You know what,
guys? We're gonna get a record deal."

"I can take you to
the studio in Germany,

and I'll make sure all
expenses are covered."

That sounded incredible to us.

When we finally made that first record,
we'd had the benefit of weeding out

three years' worth of basement tapes
down to the songs we liked best.

So we were flown to Germany,

were picked up by Conny
Plank, Brian Eno's engineer.

We went down the Autobahn
at about 90 miles an hour

to a little place
called Neunkirchen,

where we were on a
farm with nowhere to go

and nothing else
to do but record.

♪ Slap your mammy down... ♪

[Mark] This recording studio was
actually, you know, converted.

A pigsty and then
there was a big barn.

He said, "Never go in there."

At the time, it
was very strange.

We would get up every morning
and have bizarre German breakfast

with breads and strange party meats
that looked like Monsanto tiles,

and we were all getting sick

and going in around eleven o'clock and
staying there till 11, 12 at night.

[Eno] I liked them
tremendously as a band,

but, um...

Well, Devo were...

the... the most tense people in the
studio I've ever worked with. [laughs]

As time goes on, when we think
about working with Brian Eno,

we like it better and better.

He was really patient with us,

and he was a facilitator,

and he wanted to have
more input than he got.

He was dealing with some hardcore
spud-American devolved radicals,

and we were dealing with
an esoteric Englishman.

[Eno] It was a very
difficult experience

because they had demoed all
of the songs beforehand.

So what we were doing in the studio
was trying to remake these demos.

And trying to recreate something
that somebody else has done

is even more impossible for me.

[Mark] We were so certain of what
our album was gonna sound like,

and we were so
protective about it.

This was our first chance to put on record
what we'd been playing and living with,

and we didn't want to change it.

But David did come by a couple
times and would offer ideas.

Brian would put down tracks.

They wanted to add
stuff. [chuckles]

And so they'd wait
till we were gone,

and then him and David would record
extra vocals and synthesizer parts.

Then when we were mixing, he'd start
playing them and mixing them in.

[Eno] They would
stand behind me.

I'd reach out to
change something,

and I'd feel all
these eyes on me.

[sucks teeth] Like that.

All the flowerpot
men. [chuckles]

[Mark] So when you get the
mix and you agree on it,

you're recording
onto the 2-track.

Then Jerry or I would pull
his tracks down like this,

and I'd see Eno's head snap,

looking at me like, "What
the fuck?" [chuckles]

And he didn't say anything, and
we did the whole album like that.

[Eno] It wasn't their fault.

I was as unskilled a producer

as they were at being
in studios, I think.

[Jerry] The day we were finishing,
somebody comes in and they go,

"Look at this," and we're on
the cover of Melody Maker.

What happened is,

Stiff Records distributed three singles
and they charted all over Europe.

[Mark] Now, representatives from
every record company were coming.

[Jerry] Somebody from Warner
Bros. showed up and said,

"Hey, would you boys
like to have some money?"

"Sounds great."

I kept a chart of what
each label was offering.

[Mark] For us, it was all in
dollar numbers that were abstract.

And we're like...

♪ You know my baby
said, "Sloppy" ♪

[Jerry] Then we negotiated
a Warner Bros. deal

that was really good, but it
was a right of first refusal.

They wanted to wait till the record
was done and they could accept it,

and if they accepted it, we
all knew what the deal was.

If they rejected it, we were
free to do any deal we wanted.

[Mark] Right before we
signed a record deal,

I remember laying in bed going,

"I gotta remember this moment

because this is probably
as good as it gets,

'cause things will go wrong."

And they did.

Bands in the business, they
all have horror stories.

We're certainly
not unique there.

[Jerry] Richard Branson shows up with
a huge Cheshire Cat grin and he says,

"Listen, I want to sign you guys.
I'm gonna make you big stars."

I'm like, "I want
to sign with him."

He signed the Sex Pistols.
That's the coolest band around.

I said, "Well, Richard,
there's a little problem."

"We have a right
of first refusal,

and Warner Bros., today,
heard the mastered record."

"They like it."

He goes,

"Fuck that."

"Don't worry about that.
I'll work all that out."

And Richard is offering
us twice as much money.

[Bob M.] We all got dollar signs
in our eyes and went, "Okay!"

Sure enough... [chuckles]

...as soon as we signed,

Warners injuncted the record
and sued Virgin, sued Devo.

And, uh...

yeah.

Do you go out and poach groups
off other record companies?

Generally not.

The only time we ever came into
anything like that was with Devo,

we signed them the day before
Warners were due to sign them,

and Warners were most upset

on the grounds that they
had a verbal agreement.

So then, of course, this goes into
court for eight months, without us.

We don't get to be involved.
It's between him and them.

[Mark] And the two sides just
hacked out a deal for the world,

each with their own territories.

The total deal equaled exactly what
Warners was gonna give us anyway.

So Richard got us for half
the world for hardly anything.

[Jerry] Unfortunately, we had
no manager, we had no agents.

It never dawned on us that you
hire somebody outside of the band

to protect you in
a record contract.

So anyway,

we should talk about
what did happen right

and what did go well.

[interviewer] Does your Virgin deal
conflict with your Warner deal?

We went into it for the
purposes of cooperation

between big competing
corporations.

We got ideas.

Here, relate to this.

Devo dolls.

At our first marketing meeting we went
to, someone said, "Okay, here's our plan."

"We're gonna do life-size
cutouts of you guys

and put them in all the
important record stores."

And we're like, "Well,
how much does that cost?"

And they go, "Well,
around $5,000."

And, uh, Jerry said, "Could we have
that money to make a video instead?"

["(I Can't Get No)
Satisfaction" by Devo playing]

And they looked at us and they
went, "What would we do with that?"

They didn't know what to
do with it. [chuckles]

It was still years
before MTV came along.

♪ I can't get no ♪

♪ Satisfaction ♪

♪ I can't get me no ♪

♪ Satisfaction ♪

♪ And I try ♪

♪ And I
try-try-try-try-try-try-try-try ♪

♪ I can't get no... ♪

[Mark] "Satisfaction" was the first one
that Jerry got credit for directing.

And we worked with the same team we
worked with before on the first film.

And we all worked together. It was
kind of like The Little Rascals.

[man] Mark, can I see
you look at the camera?

I just wanna see if there's
reflections in the glasses.

My glasses aren't supposed to be
on. Do you wanna see my goggles?

[man] Yeah, looks good.

Right. Okay.

♪ Ba-ba-ba-ba-bum-bum-ba-ba-ba ♪

[Bob M.] "Satisfaction" was important
because it was a way for people to see

what we were doing.

[Jerry] We had to play it for Mick Jagger
to get permission to put it on the record.

And for about 30
seconds, it looked bad.

Um...

Pretty soon he jumped out of his
chair and started dancing around.

Hopping to the back beat up
like a chicken on one foot.

[laughing] We were... We
were relieved and amused.

And we were glad.

♪ I can't get me no... ♪

[Jerry] Warners put their machine
into action for our debut record.

It was well advertised.

Are we not men?

But also, they said, "Dude,
you gotta get a manager."

So Elliot Roberts offered.

[Roberts] I saw
"Satisfaction," and I loved it.

Then I ended up getting phone
numbers and tracking them down.

[Mark] I remember we said,

"If you can get us on Saturday
Night Live, we'll sign with you."

Because that was, like, the most
popular show on TV at the time.

And he went... [scoffs] "Done."

And we were going to start
a tour on the East Coast.

So Warners figured it
would make a lot of sense

to play Saturday Night
Live and then keep going.

[Mark] And we'd never been
on TV, and we were like,

"Ooh, this is pretty crazy."

[Bob C.] What people don't realize
is how stressful that experience is.

Lorne Michaels comes
over in the dark,

turns on a flashlight like
a horror movie, and he goes,

"15 million people are gonna see
this, so don't fucking blow it."

And we're all like, "Okay."

[Jerry] Now you're almost
shitting your pants.

And then they go,
"Two, one, go."

[applause]

[Fred Willard]
Ladies and gentlemen,

Devo.

[Jerry] Obviously, we played that song
faster than we ever had played it.

The adrenaline alone.

-♪ Satisfaction ♪
-♪ I can't get me no ♪

-♪ Satisfaction ♪
-♪ I can't get no ♪

-♪ Satisfaction ♪
-♪ I can't get me no ♪

-♪ Satisfaction ♪
-♪ No-no-no-no-no-no-no-no ♪

-♪ Satisfaction ♪
-♪ No-no-no-no-no ♪

♪ Satisfaction ♪

-♪ I can't get no ♪
-♪ Satisfaction ♪

[music ends]

[cheering]

[Mark] Being on Saturday
Night Live, for us,

it was like coming
out of the shadows.

We were incrementally getting
a little more notoriety.

And just the fact that
it was part of that show

gave it a certain
amount of credibility.

It made a big difference.

[Jerry] Fifteen million
people had seen that,

and suddenly we had to change
venues to larger places.

[tuning]

[interviewer] Do you
think rock 'n' roll itself

is doing anything
to wake people up?

[Mark] When things were just too
screwed up and too repressive,

there was always really good rock
'n' roll there to divert people.

[Jerry] We thought rock 'n' roll was over
because music came back as corporate rock.

Bands like Boston.

Rock 'n' roll, y'all!

[Mark] For the last ten years,

what we saw is that it just
became straight big business

and became establishment,
like everything does.

Rock 'n' roll wasn't effective anymore.
For once, there was no form to replace it.

[Jerry] And we thought we
were musical reporters.

Rise for the anthem.

[Mark] Bands have politics,
whether they admit it or not,

and the kind of attitudes that
you present, people absorb them.

[Jerry] So we should quit being
treated like a rock 'n' roll band,

and sit down and do
press conferences.

We felt like we could change
things in our country.

[interviewer] What kind of
changes for the United States?

We'd eliminate political parties as
the major force of decision-making.

We'd try to base it more
closely on information.

We were taking a
position on the culture,

and we were talking
about things.

[interviewer] But do you think
the package itself is workable?

I don't know.

I mean, people really protect
their freedom to be fat,

and make themselves sick
with bad food and cigarettes,

and buy huge gas-eating cars.

They can't imagine
it any other way.

-[oven bell dings]
-[in high-pitched voice] Here. It's good!

[Jerry] What we're attacking is
the type of traditions we had,

where they took us, and the fact
that they're still going on.

Basically ravaging the land,

work, the machine,

the whole tradition of
Western Christian society.

We don't like it.

[electronic music playing]

Akron was one of the
centers of televangelism.

[evangelist] Say, "Oh, God!"

[Mark] One was Ernest Ainsley.

The healing virtue of
Jesus is flowing to you.

We were surrounded
by ridiculous beliefs

and values and
systems of behavior

that we didn't feel part
of or didn't agree with.

And we set about using
music to restructure things

and report on what
we were looking at.

So we created Dove,
the Band of Love,

this house band for
the religious station.

♪ Well, it's a God-given fact ♪

♪ That you can't go back ♪

[Jerry] We hated opening acts,

and so we were gonna open for
ourselves as Dove, the Band of Love,

and people started
getting really pissed off.

-[crowd cheering]
-Oh, brothers and sisters, praise Jesus!

[Mark] I remember people saying,

"Get the fuck off the
stage, we want Devo!"

"Fuck you, Dove!"

We loved it. [chuckles]

[woman] What's your mother
think about what you're doing?

[Mark] She just wants to
know if I'm eating all right.

[woman] So she's not
worried about you?

No, her brain was stolen
by Christ a long time ago,

so she has no idea
what I'm doing.

My grandparents were from
coal mining families.

And they made fun of my dad and
mom when they joined the church.

They thought that churches were
a trick against poor people.

My parents were
blue-collar Catholics,

strict authoritarians.

I went to a hideous
Catholic school.

So that's the atmosphere
we were growing up in.

♪ You've got praying hands ♪

♪ You've got praying hands ♪

[interviewer] Did you
play at the church?

I did do it a few times. I
really didn't care for it.

That's my Holy
Communion picture.

I had fallen off a skateboard,
so I have two black eyes,

and I was loving it that
I looked like a monster.

We went to church until we
were old enough to say no.

[chuckling]

My dad, I don't think he
really bought into it too much.

[Mark] I think he had a part of
him that could've been an artist.

[Bob M.] So when we gave
my dad a job acting,

oh, my God, he loved that.

He speaks the truth,
and here is more.

Of course, then there was
no stopping him. [laughs]

General Boy is like an anchorman.
He's like, um, Walter Cronkite.

The Devo provides the musical calisthenics
needed to toughen up a world gone soft.

[Mark] Anyhow, he loved
getting to be part of it.

I'm sure it'll help everyone
understand we're all Devo.

Frankly, the band never said
that they didn't like religion

or didn't care for Christianity.

They just said they'd
rather have cancer.

♪ Wash your hands three times a day
Always do what your mom and dad say ♪

♪ Brush your teeth in the following
way Wash your hands three times a day ♪

[music ends]

That's one young lad with
a chip on his shoulder.

[Mark] We were just
trying to figure out

how do you get people to change
their minds about things.

Pachelbel's "Canon" came
on, and I'm hearing...

[humming tune of
Pachelbel's "Canon"]

Then lyrics come
in, and they go...

♪ Hold the pickle
Hold the lettuce ♪

♪ Special orders
don't upset us ♪

♪ All we ask is that you
let us Serve it your way ♪

[Mark] And I realized
that Burger King had taken

one of the most beautiful
pieces of music ever written

and turned it into an
ad to sell hamburgers.

And... it made me
stop for a second.

"Wow, that's incredible."

[Jerry] We were thinking, like, "Who
does change things in this country?"

"Oh, it's Madison Avenue.
That's who changes things."

And they do it through subversion.
They enter your DNA from inside.

So the idea of subversion, that's
how we're gonna change things.

We want to go out to Hollywood
and exist in that toxic scenario.

First, how to dress.

[woman] What new gimmicks
can we expect from the band?

[Jerry] Our gimmick was going
to be wearing blue jeans.

We were looking at the Camel
ad for the Camel smoker.

[announcer] In this fancy, frilly,
you-gotta-have-a-gimmick world,

there's one cigarette
that doesn't go along.

[Jerry] He's the no-nonsense
guy with no gimmick.

-[Mark] No gimmicks.
-[Jerry] That was gonna be our gimmick.

["Come Back Jonee"
by Devo playing]

♪ Hey, come back, Jonee ♪

♪ Gotta come back now, Jonee ♪

♪ Well, come back, Jonee ♪

♪ Jonee, be good ♪

[interviewer] You're
living in Los Angeles now?

We moved to Los Angeles to be
close to Dad... Warner Bros.

When we came to Los
Angeles, I hated it.

It was all just corporate
record company offices,

and just the physical
surroundings are not stimulating.

But in those days, all the
shows were a lot of fun.

And I just want to play good.

["Come Back Jonee"
continues playing]

♪ Hey, come back, Jonee... ♪

[Jerry] Things always change.

The business is changing.
What people want is changing.

And you're going to
your next set of ideas.

The next thing
that'll excite you.

That's when we find out
Neil Young liked us,

and he was so excited about
Devo and wanted to meet us.

[Mark] Jerry nicknamed
him Grandpa Granola.

I mean, I was like
the old timer.

["Hey Hey, My My" playing]

But once I found them, I
glommed right onto them.

We just thought that
was really funny,

because our impression of Neil
Young was all that nature stuff,

and taking pictures with trees.

We're thinking, "This has nothing to
do with our aesthetic and our world."

And then it's like, "Oh,
well, this is Devo."

♪ It's better to burn out ♪

♪ Than to fade away ♪

♪ My, my, hey, hey ♪

[Mark] And he wanted us to be in
some early scenes in his movie.

[Jerry] A film
called Human Highway.

So Neil wrote them into
a number of scenes,

but frankly, he left it in
the hands of Jerry and Mark

to develop their own characters,
and it was very Devo.

[Jerry] We would be employees
in a nuclear waste plant.

And we're just complaining
about our jobs.

That place is already a
goddamn nuclear garden.

Ha! Time to fortify
the old water supply.

[Jerry] And like a typical
musical, we break into song.

["It Takes a Worried
Man" by Devo playing]

♪ It takes a worried man ♪

♪ To sing a worried song ♪

♪ I may be worried now ♪

♪ But I won't be worried long ♪

♪ It takes a worried man ♪

♪ To sing a worried song ♪

♪ I may be worried now ♪

♪ But I won't be worried long ♪

[man] What do you think of
the "No Nukes" thing going on?

[Mark] In the case of nuclear
power, problems are obvious.

But I've also been against
the anti-nuclear people

for their methodology
and their wimpiness.

Because it's, like, hippies sitting
down in front of a power plant

and being carted off to prison, and
then they're released the next day

and they go back to their granola
stores, and nothing happens.

Do you feel it, comrades?

They were so intuitive on
where the country was going

and how they fit in.

But one thing about Devo is they
did not play the corporate game.

And they didn't
with a vengeance.

And that was a problem
with the label.

♪ Got a surprise from my honey ♪

Hello? What's this trash I hear?

[Jerry] Warners didn't
know what to do with us,

and nothing caught radio's
attention on the second record.

And the people that run
things don't like that.

I'll straighten them out.

Okay, or I'm gonna
have to clean house.

[receiver clunks]

[Mark] And they said, "Hey, we don't
care about your fucking five-album deal."

"If this next record doesn't have a
hit on it, it's your last record."

So when we went back into the
studio, we thought, "Screw that."

Our plan was,

"What if we tried to
make a funk album?"

Somebody brought
up Bob Margouleff.

He'd produced Stevie Wonder
stuff with Malcolm Cecil.

I thought, "That's about
as funky as it gets."

We called him up, and he was
interested in working with us.

I've always gravitated towards music
that has some powerful message.

And Devo was that.

[reporter] The thing about Devo is it's
a totally unique artistic discovery.

All these weird sounds,
you've gotta explain all this.

We're using technology
to make caveman sounds.

I mean, everyone thought, "Ha,
ha, ha, how funny they are."

But the subject matter
was far from funny.

They really had
something to say.

[Jerry] And we didn't
think in terms of hits.

We didn't put a song on a
record unless we liked it.

[Mark] I think the album
came out pretty good.

And even Warner Bros. knew.

They go, "'Girl U Want,
' that's the single."

And we're like, "Well, okay."

[Jerry] So they put out
"Girl U Want," and it tanked.

Their attitude was, "Oh, shit,
the song we chose went nowhere."

"What are we gonna do with these guys?"
Warners had one foot out the door.

That was pretty
much gonna be it.

You should tell those spudboys not to
be in a hurry to quit their day jobs.

[continuous monitor beep]

[sustained beep rises in pitch]

["Whip It" by Devo playing]

[man] I would never have guessed
that "Whip It" would be the song.

[Mark] This guy named
Kal Rudman, on his own,

started playing "Whip
It" down in Florida.

[Rudman] People just get tired of
the same kind of music all the time.

You've gotta have new
sounds, something different.

And American industry
has gotten a message.

[Mark] It caught the
ear of several DJs.

[overlapping voices] Devo. Devo.

[Mark] And they put it on, and
it became a hit in dance clubs.

So it's moving up the charts.

And within three weeks,
it was in New York City.

This is Mark from Devo.

Hi, this is Mark from Devo.

-I'm Jerry from Devo.
-[DJ] We're back now with Devo.

[Jerry] And that was
that. Devo exploded.

[reporter 1] The hit single "Whip
It" has snapped America awake.

[reporter 2] It was the
highlight of the summer

because the group
Devo was in town.

[Jerry] All of a sudden, we made this
record company millions of dollars.

[cash register dings]

[reporter 3] Warner Bros.
executives have gathered here today

to present them with an
American gold record.

[Mark] People there were like,

"Oh, I didn't even know
they were on our label."

We congratulate you on
this incredible feat.

Not only a gold album...

Against all odds.

-No.
-[laughter]

Not against all odds.

Our congratulations.

Thank you.

[applause]

[Mark] The record company took
an interest in us after that.

They go, "Do whatever you want to do,
just make sure you do another 'Whip It.'"

[interviewer] You want to ask
a question about "Whip It"?

[man] Some people
say it's about sex.

Some people say it's anti-drugs.

What is it about?

[Jerry] I think the explanations of
the people are much more interesting

than our own reason
for writing the song.

I think we should
leave it like that.

[Jerry] Back then,
everybody thought "Whip It"

was either about
sadomasochism or jacking off.

Everybody wants to whip it.
Old men want to whip it.

-Dogs want to whip it.
-[laughter]

-Especially young people.
-I know that.

They want to whip it.

[Jerry] I thought, "Okay."

And now suddenly, MTV had
popped up in three cities.

Welcome to MTV,

the world's first 24-hour
stereo video music channel.

And Warners said, "Do a video."

[chuckling] It was
suddenly their idea.

We've always thought
in audiovisual terms,

and so, you know, things like
MTV are getting people excited

about seeing the image and
about ideas behind the music.

And I thought, "You know,
if we're gonna do a video,

we might as well, this time,

do exactly what people
think this song is about."

♪ Now whip it ♪

♪ Into shape ♪

[Jerry] So we made a
cheap, exploitive video,

and it's terrible taste.

It's offensive. It's devolved.

And everybody loved it. [laughs]

The inspiration actually came
from a cheesy men's magazine

about this cowboy that
whipped his wife's clothes off

as entertainment
at the dude ranch.

[Mark] We were making
fun of white guys going,

"I'm a misogynist, I'm stupid,

I'm a conspicuous consumer,
and I'm proud of it."

And to be totally frank,

we would have loved it if
everybody got what we were doing.

Unfortunately, that
wasn't the case.

-The song "Whip It" was misunderstood.
-[Jerry] That's why it was big.

-[host] That's why it was big?
-[Jerry] Right.

People thought it was a song
with certain sexual innuendos

and could interpret it as
being convoluted and sick.

[host] That's why they went
out and bought it, you think?

Everything that
sells usually is,

when really it was a song
of moral uplifting value.

Well, it's kind of like a
message to Jimmy Carter,

like a, "You can do it,
Mr. Carter," kind of thing.

I am a candidate for
re-election as president.

Of course he got voted out.

-[cheering]
-[man] Reagan is our projected winner.

[Jerry] Seems like America
can't get enough of cowboys,

genetic defectives with guns who
go around shooting up the landscape

and refusing to pay taxes.

-You know, Ronnie.
-[gunshot]

You wanted law and order in
this town, you've got it.

[Mark] Reagan may have
already moved into office

and we were mildly alarmed

with America becoming
more lopsided.

And so the video just represented our
take on where America was at the time.

[radio DJ] If I get five
calls for "Whip It,"

I will get five calls asking me, "Why
in the f♪♪♪ are you playing Devo?"

[Mark] We expected that.
We exist for that reason.

Do you think there's limits

on what a person should
be able to say in art?

Well, the problem is, who's
establishing the limits?

I mean, no one objects
to The Love Boat.

No one objects to promo
films of Rod Stewart

singing between a girl's legs,

or Meat Loaf grinding up
against a girl in a slit gown.

Because that's all part of
the American experience.

That's their kind of
sex, so they say, "Yay."

But we come on with a
parody of their values,

and I suppose we're asking to be attacked,
because that doesn't please them.

It doesn't reinforce
what they already think.

[Mark] We went on those
shows because we thought

what we want to talk about in music
could be interesting to people.

But it was also as bizarre
as you would imagine.

What are you trying to get across
with your music? Doing rock music.

We're basically a musical laxative
for a constipated society.

[host laughs]

I like that.

-Thank you.
-Thanks, Jack.

-Nice to have you with us.
-Duty now.

Right. Susan?

Okay, as we, uh,
continue today...

[screen shatters]

[Mark] When MTV started off,
they were looking for content

because they wanted
to run 24 hours a day.

They said, "Listen, we
can't pay you for this,

but we're gonna make
you guys big stars."

[Mark] They said, "We're
doing you a favor,

so, you know, if we
like your film enough,

we'll put it on our show."

We were like, "Yeah, this is
gonna be something great,"

because we thought our
films were art films.

And so we thought,

this is gonna make pop
culture more about art.

[Jerry] Sure enough, they
showed all of our videos.

[Mark] We were probably on every hour
because we had the most films of anybody.

And it did pump up our
profile quite a bit.

We got Devo with "Whip It."

-Here's Devo.
-We're Devo.

[Bob M.] Everything
was blowing up

and a lot of people knew
Devo because of MTV.

I think we here at MTV have discovered
perhaps the most outrageous,

if not the most
unexpected, Devo fans.

We are not men, we are Devo.

["Gates of Steel" playing]

[Mark] If you really wanna be
in the entertainment industry,

you have to play the game.

And so we were doing our best

to do that and still be Devo.

Devo is what we have been
and what we will become.

Devo is just the way it goes.

And the way it will be.
The way it always will be.

Well, it's a new thing.
I'm sick of the old stuff.

[interviewer] What is it?

Money. Money. A lot of money.

[interviewer] Is that right? Do
you think it's just another fad?

Uh, yes, I do.

[interviewer] There's a worry that
your music may be coming commercial

to the point that
everyone likes it?

No, it deserves to become commercial.
It deserves to become huge.

It deserves to
become the next thing

because we represent the
way a lot of kids feel,

and we represent the next force.

And it's our duty to
be as big as we can be

and still be viable, you know?

It's the challenge.

How soon will you
become ridiculous?

How soon will you become
the people that you hated?

We knew that we would follow

the same inevitable
arc as any corporation.

We knew that. That's why we
said the beginning was the end.

We knew it. It's inevitable.

But we didn't get the
total picture yet.

That was to come later.

♪ The beginning was the end ♪

♪ Of everything now ♪

♪ The ape regards his tail ♪

♪ He's stuck on it ♪

♪ Repeats until he fails ♪

♪ Half a goon and half a god ♪

♪ A man's not made of steel ♪

[music ends]

[Jerry] It's the
abridged version.

It's Hollywood. Nothing
ever gets finished.

[producer] All right.
Applaud, c'mon!

Whoo!

[Bob M.] Of course, everybody in
the band wanted to promote the band.

Whatever it took.

Didn't matter what
situation it was in.

Our management assured us that
we had to go on Merv Griffin.

The whole idea was very Devo.

It's like Dada.

Devo!

I kind of liked it just
because it was so absurd.

And it must be a thrill to have
a big commercial hit now, huh?

Oh, it is a thrill, Merv.

[laughing]

[Mark] It didn't matter that
we didn't like the shows.

We are talking to Devo,
ladies and gentlemen.

[crowd cheering]

[Mark] Because we were accomplishing
what we had talked about doing

when we said we wanted to infiltrate
subversively into the culture.

We thought, "That's great."

"Housewives are gonna get
subjected to Devo today."

[Jerry] I mean, when you have Dick
Clark asking you about de-evolution,

it's working.

[host] Has this been
going on a long time?

Ever since man began.

"Ever since..." I know what kind
of an interview I'm in for now.

Uh...

[Jerry] And you just
look at us together,

and it really looks like
two different planets.

That's what it's
really about, is like,

what would an alien see
if he spent a few days

hovering just above the surface,
observing human behavior?

You know, people at weenie roasts and
doing all the things they believe in

and the rituals that
they take seriously.

[interviewer] Are
you guys really

out-of-the-world beings that
have been sent down to Earth?

And if so, are you gonna work
within our political system?

[Jerry] The answer is
mutation, not rebellion.

We are anti-stupidity,

but profit motive
overrules information.

And so, wherever
any kind of thing

like profit,
ignorance, stupidity,

fear, greed, is the
deciding factor,

we're against it.

♪ Use your freedom of choice
Your freedom of choice ♪

♪ In ancient Rome... ♪

[Mark] "Freedom from choice"
is the Carl's Jr. billboard

with four hamburgers that are identical
except for a slab of cheese or lettuce.

[Jerry] And it says, "Freedom
of Choice, Carl's Jr."

It's de-evolution.

Because Carl's Jr.
were a staunch,

fundamentalist, right-wing,
anti-choice organization.

That juxtaposition is surreal.

♪ Freedom of choice! ♪

"Freedom of Choice" video featured some
of the top pro skaters at the time.

But I was into them because you
would see them in the magazines

and wearing skate gear.

[Jerry] We loved skating, and
skating was already embracing Devo.

I always liked that skaters, they
were in this whole other world.

It was kinda like how Devo felt.

♪ Freedom of choice ♪

[Bob M.] The idea of "Freedom of Choice"
is you don't want freedom of choice.

You wanna be told what to do.

♪ Freedom from choice ♪

[Bob M.] Freedom from
choice is what you want.

♪ Is what you want ♪

[Jerry] There is a very
organized absurdity to all of it.

It is the junk of the culture

that is an extension
of what Devo is.

[Mark] We like ironic humor.

The Honda commercial
was a great example.

[all] Then choose a scooter that
best expresses your individuality.

[announcer] Honda scooters,
they're everything but ordinary.

[Bob M.] That was weird

to be promoting a motorbike.

So it was just like, let's
see what the next thing is.

That was the old Devo.

The new Devo is much
more traditional.

They no longer wear cereal
bowls on their heads.

[interviewer] The plastic
hairdos now that you wear,

does that attract
the opposite sex?

-[Jerry] Democrats usually.
-[interviewer laughs]

[Jerry] We designed them
after the JFK hairdo.

We feel that nowadays, the
circumstances call for pomp.

True enough, and being the
entrepreneurs that the guys were,

they decided to merchandise
their own Devo material.

Right here.

[Mark] I remember Neil
Young saw it and going,

"Why are you selling
merchandise in your album?"

"That's not cool, man."

I was like, "That
sounds good to me."

♪ We're through being cool... ♪

[Jerry] "Through Being
Cool" was just enjoining

all the disenfranchised
kids to fight back.

And they have laser
guns. [laughs]

[Mark] Part of
what our duty was,

was to activate younger minds.

"Hey, my parents screwed
up, but we can fix it."

While we were putting
together the next album,

Warner Bros. would go
peering around corners,

they'd show up unannounced
at rehearsals and go,

"Hey, how are you
guys doing, man?"

"You got another
'Whip It' coming out?"

To me, trying to do
another "Whip It" was fake,

and I thought we had
strong enough aesthetic

that we didn't need to do it.

Give the past a slip.

It's time to look
for new traditions.

[reporter] Today, at Shirley's
Diner on Lake Street,

they staged their own media event
to start a national concert tour.

-Sherman's Diner?
-[crew member] Shirley's.

Shirley's Diner?

I kept trying to talk Warners
into it, they didn't get it.

[interviewer] Do you
have any memory of why

you would've chosen to do your
media event at Shirley's Diner?

Oh, my God, I really don't
remember why we were there.

We did some absurd
things, you know.

Can we take some orders?

Burger.

So we named our album
New Traditionalists.

We thought, "That's a great
concept, that's Devo."

"We want to start
new traditions."

I mean, you could see
how this could work.

We need new traditions,
not this Reagan crap.

For those who've abandoned
hope, we'll restore hope

and we'll welcome them into
a great national crusade

to make America great again.

There seems to be
just a regressive move

back towards bankrupt
ideas of the past

and romantic notions of the past
that never, in fact, existed.

["Jerkin' Back and
Forth" playing]

♪ I know I let you
tell me what to do ♪

♪ You were confident
you knew best ♪

♪ Now things aren't working
Like you want them to ♪

♪ Your confidence
is what I detest ♪

[Mark] And we want
people to think first.

We think once people become
honest with theirs elves,

look around and realize we
aren't all created equal,

and that things on this
planet aren't that great,

they can make effective changes

that are based on
conscious choices

rather than mindlessly
following the wad around.

[interviewer] Do you think they
understand what you're talking about?

Well, it'd be kind of foolish
to answer that question.

[reporter] The many levels
of meaning the band projects

goes well over the
heads of many rock fans.

[Mark] And the difference between
asking Bob Seger that question

and asking Devo is,

of course they understand it for Bob
Seger because there's no content anyhow.

[Jerry] You can have REO Speedwagon
and all that when you want it,

but if you want something
else, here's Devo.

Devo has often been criticized
for just pointing things out.

-Not offering anything...
-I never criticized, never did.

-I never criticized.
-Didn't say you did.

-Oh!
-[laughter]

[Mark] It wasn't really
going all that successfully,

but the big shock was when
people started asking us,

"Why are you guys wearing
Ronald Reagan hairdos?"

[interviewer] You're
wearing Reagan haircuts,

do they understand
the message at all?

And we're like, "They're not
Ronald Reagan hairdos!" [chuckles]

"They're JFK hairdos."

You can always point to reasons
why things aren't successful.

Well, it's not
marketed correctly.

They didn't really give a shit.

But the one thing that is true

is that no one goes on an
ascending plane forever.

[music ends]

I was happy to be an art band,

but I don't think Warner Bros. was
happy for us to be an art band.

I can forgive you guys
for being artists,

but I can't forgive
you for being stupid.

Yeah!

[Jerry] They'd rather have the artists
be a child that they can help and mold.

Why can't you guys
cut stuff like that?

Well, I guess we like ideas.

[Jerry] And so, Devo, the
big idea got whittled down

to something that a record
company could deal with.

[interviewer] Do you find that the group
has devolved into something much different

than it was in the
initial stages?

In one word, yes.

We predicted that. I mean,
it's safe to predict that.

And we invited everybody
to watch it happen,

and it's happening.

[interviewer] Would you guys talk about
what's going on with the band, or was it...

No.

Like, we were from the Midwest.

You didn't talk about feelings
or anything like that, or...

You just shut up and do it.

[Mark] The reality was that being in
a band was just like being on a job.

And you were on an endless
treadmill that never stopped.

I think "Working in a Coal Mine"
became emblematic of that for us.

[Jerry] It seems so right for Devo,
you know, still working. [chuckles]

♪ Well, I've been working in
a coal mine Going down, down ♪

♪ Working in a
coal mine, whoo! ♪

♪ About to slip down ♪

[Mark] I think we all started feeling
that, "How long can this go on?"

♪ Lord! ♪

♪ I am so tired! ♪

♪ How long can this go on? ♪

♪ Well, I've been working in
a coal mine Going down... ♪

[man] With Devo, when do you have a
holiday? When do you take a break?

[Jerry] Well, we really don't. I
can't remember the last break we had.

[Mark] You know, write an album,
record it, plan the videos,

shoot the videos, plan the tour,

rehearse the tour, go out on
tour, and start over again.

♪ When my workday is over ♪

♪ I'm too tired for having fun ♪

[Mark] It's not as easy to
be in a band as you think.

Everybody in the
band was exhausted,

and it kind of becomes
more like Groundhog Day.

[Jerry] Because it's about
doing something over and over,

and we felt like we were
working for the man.

[Mark] I remember when
cassettes came out,

it cost Warner Bros. less
to make an audio cassette

as opposed to make a vinyl record, so
they made a bigger profit off of them.

But we made 20% less if
somebody buys a cassette.

I walked into the president's
office at Warner Bros. and I said,

"Why is it that I make less
money when you make more money?"

And he goes,

"Because that's the way it is."

[Jerry] It's a tough
position to be in

because we actually know
what keeps us going.

We know what's chasing us,
and we can talk about it.

It doesn't make us any less real. It
doesn't make what we do any less real.

It's just that being self-aware
puts you in a strange position.

[interviewer] But I mean,
are you guys serious?

That'd be the question
that would come up.

Obviously, you have tremendous
sense of humor in your music,

but are you really
serious or not?

[Mark] Damn serious.

There's no doubt about it.

-[interviewer] Right. So what...
-This isn't... Excuse me.

This isn't the kind of thing
you do for the fun of it.

I'm sure everyone here
would attest to that.

Nobody's having any fun
right now, isn't that right?

That's right.

Are you?

He's right, he hit the
nail right on the head.

[Mark] As much as we all
wanted to sell records,

some of us also
really just wanted

to keep working in territory
that hadn't been explored before.

[interviewer] Could you
tell us about the movie?

[Mark] I think we had the
first feature-length version

of a collection of films.

[Jerry] And We're All Devo
was nominated for a Grammy,

for best long-form.

But that was the year

that the Making Michael
Jackson's Thriller came out...

That's another money thing,
nobody's gonna win but him.

[Mark] You know, we spent
$5,000 making Satisfaction.

When Michael Jackson did
Beat It, they spent $100,000

and he had a totally
different setup going on,

and the production
values looked different.

But we're not against trying,

you know, we did what we could.

But then there was also
just hundreds of bands

that were trying to do it.

People watch MTV and they see Billy
Joel and they see all these people

that may sell a lot of records,
but they make terrible videos.

Record companies hired directors
to come in and make films for them.

And Jerry actually
directs our films for us.

[interviewer] Are you still working
with Chuck Statler on the...

[Jerry] Yeah, on the last two, I
directed them, he produced them.

[Mark] If there's one thing
that's really succeeded,

it's making people understand that Devo
is a visual band with something to say,

and that our music is conceived
in terms of visual images.

We're just here to
tell the happy news

that Devo is not ready to gasp
its last breath of air yet.

We're still going down for the count,
and we're fighting all the way down.

Welcome back to the program,
ladies and gentlemen.

Lemme ask you about the
potatoes on the album cover.

Pretty literal.

[Letterman] So pretty much what
it looks like is what it means.

[Jerry] So we come up with album
five and it's Oh, No! It's Devo.

"Not these guys again, I
thought they'd go away."

[interviewer] Is the video as important
a part of the show as the music?

[Jerry] It's integral
to Devo to be visual.

We were a video entity before
we were a working band.

♪ Hello ♪

♪ This is Devo ♪

[Mark] At this point,
everybody's doing videos.

What can we do different?

What about doing a video live?

We have a rear screen projection
that's, like, over 20 feet wide

and about 15 feet high,

of images and storylines
in sync with the music

so that even characters come out
on film and interact with Devo

and sing backup
vocals and so on.

♪ Peekaboo! ♪

♪ I can see you ♪

It took a while to get that
together so that it actually worked.

[Mark] That was something
that nobody had done before.

I could point to something,
and a robot would explode.

It was all timed perfectly.

[Jerry] But of course,
the press slagged us off,

said, "If we wanted to
see a damn video game,

we would've gone
to a video arcade."

"What is this? Give
us rock 'n' roll."

It's unfortunate because we were
once again just a little ahead,

so we got misunderstood.

We were always misunderstood
as trying to cause trouble,

and we just ended up
not being embraced

by the insiders that
ran the business.

So we became kind of the
pioneers who got scalped.

["Peek-A-Boo!" playing]

A lot of people didn't have a
good experience working with Devo.

They were doing things
that were so different.

That was a tremendous asset, then
at some point that very same asset

became a tremendous liability.

[Jerry] Yes, Warners was inept,
but were they worst label? No.

After all, they had given us a lot of
rope where we could hang ourselves.

This is where the wheels
start to come off the tracks.

[train whistle blowing]

You've got to be a little bit disappointed
that MTV no longer plays your videos.

Well, um, once they
went to a new format,

we really became
on the back burner.

[Mark] It became just like
another radio station,

but bigger and more powerful.

[Jerry] Within one year's time,
experimental, low-budget, and fresh videos

are being driven right
back off the air.

And as soon as they went national,
we couldn't get arrested on MTV.

They'd refer to the charts and say,
"Look, man, your song isn't happening."

♪ Everybody It's a good thing ♪

♪ Everybody Wants a good thing ♪

♪ Everybody Ain't it true that ♪

♪ Everybody's looking
For the same thing? ♪

[Jerry] Every video we'd
turn in to them got censored

until finally it
came to a showdown

where we turned in the
video to "That's Good..."

♪ That's good ♪

[Jerry] And I get
a call from MTV,

"Okay, Casale. I know
what you're trying to do."

"I saw the french fry
going through the donut."

And I go, "Well, what's
so bad about it?"

And he goes, "Come on."

And I said, "You come on. What about
the Billy Idol video you just had on?"

And he says, "That's
different." [laughs]

I thought, "Yeah,
that is different."

I felt like it was a moment
out of Spinal Tap or something.

They go, "Well, it's
just too suggestive."

There's a girl, and
she just goes...

Like this, and she's smiling.

They actually rejected
the film for that reason.

[Jerry] But I think the difference
was that in those videos,

the mainstream view
of sex without humor.

It was like as long as everybody looked
like they were having a bad time,

okay, but when a french
fry goes through a donut,

then you got something,
then you're a smart ass.

So after that, MTV turned
their backs on Devo.

I just think the impetus to
combine vision with sound

is always going to be there,
it's an inevitable marriage.

It's responsible for the most
important art form we have,

which is film.

And it will only continue
to be used and developed

in more and more diverse and
sophisticated ways on that level.

And that, no matter what
anybody tries to do to it,

somebody will manage to sneak
through despite the odds,

just as we did for a while.

♪ Everybody It's a good thing ♪

♪ Ain't it true ♪

♪ It's a monumental good thing ♪

[music ends]

[Mark] By the time
we got to Shout,

it was just dissipating,
with the record company.

[Jerry] We turned in the
record, and they hated it.

And then that was that.

Warners said, uh,

"Okay, guys,

you tried,

"but we're going."

So they made us a money offer if
we would not hand in a record.

And they were willing to
take a lawsuit with us,

which again, they knew
they would have lost,

but it probably could have
kept us in court against them

for a number of years.

And Elliot said,
"Listen, take the money."

You know, "I'll get you guys
a deal at another company."

And we took the money and then

Elliot didn't get us a deal
at another company. [chuckles]

[faint buzzing]

["Jocko Homo" playing]

[Jerry] It was just not
time for Devo anymore.

It was like somebody
decided Devo must die.

And no matter what we
did, it didn't matter.

We were operating in a vacuum.

[Mark] Nobody knew what to do
next, so we went to Enigma.

[Jerry] Once we signed
with Enigma Records,

we basically signed our
passage onto the Titanic.

They squandered any and all money they
had and any and all acts they signed,

and we went down with the ship.

[Mark] We thought,
"Okay, here we go."

We were...

done.

♪ Are we not men? ♪

♪ We are Devo! ♪

♪ Whoa! ♪

[Jerry] And again, we didn't
excuse ourselves from the quotient,

we said we're all Devo.

And on one level, it's
not surprising at all.

But it's just depressing
that, you know,

you succumb to the same reality
that you were, um, satirizing.

To add to what Jerry said, I think
that by the time this comes about,

they will have eliminated
us one way or another.

[Mark] Devo will be
taken care of in the...

Oh, yeah.

[interviewer] What did
happen with Alan Myers?

[Mark] We had lost our
deal at Warner Bros.,

he decided he didn't want to
play drums with us anymore.

He didn't want to wear that
stupid red hat anymore.

He wanted to be an adult.

Well, I had a daughter,
and at some point you go,

"Well, I'm gonna need
to make a living."

This doesn't seem to be
coming together anymore,

for several years, financially.

But prior to that,

I enjoyed the mechanical
meets the organic.

But then when it became more
digital, then it lost me.

[Mark] We kept trying things,

but we never, as a band,
really became cohesive again.

[Bob M.] For me, it was just
like the band was already dead.

I didn't really
like the direction

that everything was going
and how it was being written.

[Jerry] So suddenly there
are creative differences

where there had been none.

It didn't officially end,

but you know, in
my heart it did.

I... It felt like we
would never play again.

You know, I mean, we really
kind of separated at that point.

[interviewer] How did
you feel at that time?

[sighs]

Now you, now you...

You know, it's like
you're talking about, now,

what happens to every band.

You're like bacteria
in a Petri dish.

If you watch them, they start
growing, growing, growing,

and then they shrink down
again and they're gone.

♪ Are we not men? ♪

There was nothing going on, so
we started looking for projects.

♪ We must repeat ♪

[Jerry] As a creative person,
you can't stay where you are,

so I started going
into directing.

Hey, look! It's good
old wholesome milk!

When I directed commercials, I tried
to maintain a real Devo spirit.

Tang, baby!

[yells]

[announcer] This is a demonstration
of how people view you at MillerCon.

Results based on studies using

Sports Illustrated swimsuit
model Rebecca Romijn.

[Jerry] I had a long commercial
run, but the clients and the agency,

they don't want you to direct.

You realize that you just have
to, like, suffer the fools gladly,

and I was not the
right guy for that.

[interviewer] You had put your
whole life into this thing?

I sure did.

Sure did.

[phone ringing]

Pee-wee's Playhouse!
Pee-wee speaking!

[Mark] I was lucky that Paul
Reubens and I were friends.

He asked me to score
Pee-wee's Playhouse,

and it was the perfect
introduction to being a composer,

and it just started
me down another path.

Ah!

["Rugrats Theme" by Mark
Mothersbaugh playing]

The two Bobs came and worked
with me doing Mutato Muzika.

It started off in the
living room of his house,

a little corner, until we started
having to have clients in.

"Can we move this out
of here?" [chuckles]

I just remember feeling like,
"Wow, count me in on this."

"This is amazing."

Because it was all
about writing music.

I did something like 200
commercials, films, TV shows.

One day it's Life Aquatic, and
the next day it's Cocaine Bear.

And since we'd always
been about subversion,

I put all sorts of
subliminal messages in it.

I came up with this.

We smell sausage.

...smell sausage.

We smell sausage.

Jesus loves you.

Jesus loves you.

-Jesus loves you.
-[laughs]

So I started putting
that in everything I did.

I put it in Rugrats, I put
it in, uh, TV commercials,

I put it in Devo songs.

Any time I had a chance, I put
"We smell sausage" in reverse.

[Max Ernst] I was born with a
very strong feeling of freedom.

That means also with a very
strong feeling of revolt.

Revolt and revolution
is not the same thing.

But when you are
born into a period

where so many events
invite you to get revolted,

it is absolutely natural
that the work you produce

is a revolutionary work.

["Beautiful World"
by Devo playing]

[Jerry] We're sure ending this on
a very depressing note, aren't we?

[groans]

[laughter]

♪ It's a beautiful
world we live in ♪

[Jerry] It's frightening that
the things we talked about,

about de-evolution and
people getting dumber

seems to be true.

When a problem comes
along, you must whip it.

[Jerry] I mean, Beavis and Butthead
are just the mass marketing of idiocy,

but it plays so well.

This is not how we wanted to
be right at all. [chuckles]

Not at all.

We sure wish we had been wrong.

[Mark] You know,
the funny thing is,

is we always had this optimistic
side to us where we thought,

"You know what? People
are gonna get it."

"We're not gonna drive
the car off the road."

And now it's kinda
like, I don't know.

♪ It's a wonderful
time to be here... ♪

We're doing this
because it's our duty.

When we say "Duty now for the
future," we really mean it.

It's our responsibility
to communicate.

There's a few things you must know
before this evening's event ends.

Protect yourself from the
ninnies and the twits.

The enemy is at the gate.

And the enemy is the
human mind itself,

or lack of it, on this planet.

[Mark] But just the fact that
Devo is a part of the culture

tells me that we did
do something right.

Doc, uh, is that a Devo...

Never mind that now,
never mind that now.

[Mark] There was substance to what we
did that withstood the test of time.

This is a Devo song.

♪ It's a beautiful
world we live in ♪

♪ A sweet romantic place ♪

♪ Beautiful people everywhere ♪

♪ The way they show they care ♪

♪ Makes me want to say ♪

♪ It's a beautiful world ♪

♪ It's a beautiful world ♪

♪ It's a beautiful world ♪

♪ For you ♪

♪ For you ♪

♪ For you ♪

♪ It's not for me ♪

[interviewer] What would
make you all happy?

[chuckles]

We want people movers.

[interviewer] Like they
have at Disneyland?

[Mark] Yeah.

[interviewer] Do you think things
are ever gonna get any better?

They get better because people
believe they get better.

People have pretty much allowed things
to happen to them for a long time,

and so we've gotten to
here where we are now.

[Mark] Part of our message,
the first 50 years,

were that humans are
the unnatural species.

I think the next 50,

our message might be
mutate, don't stagnate.

It's gonna be about
thinking positively

on how to move forward.

-♪ It's a beautiful world ♪
-♪ For you ♪

-♪ It's a beautiful world ♪
-♪ For you ♪

-♪ It's a beautiful world ♪
-♪ Not me ♪

♪ It's a beautiful world ♪

♪ It's a beautiful world ♪

♪ It's a beautiful world ♪

♪ It's a beautiful world... ♪

♪ One dumb thing
is how it starts ♪

♪ One dumb thing
is all it takes ♪

♪ One dumb thing
leads to another ♪

♪ One dumb thing
is how it started ♪

♪ One dumb thing
is all he says ♪

♪ One dumb thing
led to another ♪

♪ Now it's over 'cause
of one dumb thing ♪

♪ A glance, a stance,
a broken romance ♪

♪ A disconnected telephone ♪

♪ What's behind it?
How to define it? ♪

♪ Makes the world go round
And around and around ♪

♪ One dumb thing
is how it started ♪

♪ One dumb thing
is all she did ♪

♪ One dumb thing
led to another ♪

♪ One dumb thing
is the beginning ♪

♪ One dumb thing It never ends ♪

♪ One dumb thing goes
right on making ♪

♪ More and more of
one dumb thing ♪

♪ A glance, a stance,
a broken romance ♪

♪ A disconnected telephone ♪

♪ What's behind it?
How to define it? ♪

♪ Makes the world go round
And around and around ♪

[music fades]