If you’ve spent five decades trying to explain yourself to people who only want to hear about drugs and sex, eventually you start talking like a guy who's been forced to narrate his own autopsy. “We were always trying to explain the substance and inspiration behind the body of work,” Jerry Casale says, with a kind of exhausted clarity. “And people weren’t very interested in that.” Mark Mothersbaugh jumps in: “Yeah. People didn’t want to talk about what we wanted to talk about. They’d be like, ‘Tell us about the drugs. Tell us about the sex.’”
Spoiler: DEVO has always been more interested in mutation than masturbation.
The band’s long-overdue Netflix documentary—years in the making, delayed by shifting visions and record-industry apathy—is finally out in the world, and both founders are a little surprised it exists at all. “We never entertained the idea,” says Mark. “We were just always moving forward. Then one day someone brought it up, and… we mistakenly got involved.”
Jerry, who’s been chasing other DEVO-adjacent media dreams for years (see: the lost biopic The Beginning Was the End, the Broadway detour), shrugs it off as part of the process. “There were so many things I was passionate about making happen that didn’t happen. This is better late than never.”
But don’t expect it to be the definitive DEVO story. “It’s just one version,” Jerry says. “A documentary is a document of what the director decides is the focus. It’s not the ultimate truth. It’s just some version of information or truth.”
The version we get—courtesy of director Chris Smith—is one that leans hard into the band's misunderstood status, a legacy of conceptual art smuggled into pop form. “We’ve had a career of explaining ourselves,” says Jerry, half-laughing, half-grimacing. “Fifty years of telling people this is what we were about.” Because yes, they had catchy songs, but DEVO was never just “Whip It.” They were a fully-formed postmodern philosophy wrapped in radiation suits, with a mission to warn us all that mankind wasn’t evolving—it was regressing. The de-evolution gospel came wrapped in satire, performance art, film, and industrial-strength synths.
No wonder it was a hard sell.
“Rock and roll has two or three very basic dumb ideas,” Jerry says flatly. “People just default to that.”
There’s a moment in the documentary that traces DEVO’s roots back to Kent State, where Jerry was a student in 1970 when National Guardsmen opened fire on unarmed protesters. That trauma didn’t lead them to punk rage so much as post-punk experimentation. “I wanted to be a pioneer,” Mark says. “I wanted to create a sound for the ’70s like Hendrix or Beefheart did for the ’60s. We were watching Vietnam on TV cut with Bufferin commercials. I was trying to create something new in the sound world.”
He wasn’t looking to replicate the hippie scene. He wanted to torch it.
Their ideas came less from Zeppelin and more from Italian Futurists and Dadaists. “The modern orchestra doesn’t include the instruments that reflect our industrial culture,” Mark says, quoting the manifestos that shaped him. “So we created one.”
And when DEVO wasn’t melting minds with warped synths and man-as-mutant slogans, they were making short films before music videos were even a thing. “Jerry pushed us into film early on,” Mark recalls. “Before there was MTV.”
This kind of discipline came with its own reward: David Bowie. Neil Young. Actual weirdos recognizing fellow travelers. “We never thought we’d be meeting Neil Young,” Jerry says. “Seven years after he wrote ‘Ohio,’ we’re jamming with him in San Francisco. Boogie Boy’s in a playpen, and Neil’s smashing it with his guitar.”
Wait, what?
“He smashed Boogie Boy’s playpen with his guitar and kept falling on top of him on purpose,” Mark explains, sounding like he still doesn’t believe it. “It was kind of… non what you’d think of for Neil Young.”
It reshaped their view of him entirely. “He was the grandfather of granola rock,” Jerry says, “but in that moment, he was punk.”
And it turned out Neil was a secret avant-garde filmmaker too—something Mark only realized much later. “His stuff was like Robert Downey Sr. It was wild. I didn’t expect it.”
Fast forward to now: DEVO is on the road again with fellow art-weird trailblazers the B-52s for the Cosmic Devolution Tour, a phrase that sounds like it was plucked from one of their own manifestos. “It puts a sugar coating on de-evolution,” Jerry says. “Makes it less depressing. There’s this other side of DEVO—it’s about positive mutation.”
“Inflating some helium balloons for a dour truth,” Mark adds.
And then there’s Lene Lovich on the bill, bringing a little operatic mania to the lineup. “It fits,” Mark says. “You got to make the medicine taste good.”
Like DEVO, the B-52s never thought they were weird—they just stuck to their vision. “That’s the similarity,” says Jerry. “We each do a thing that’s as unique as each other. And we’re the only bands left from that era still getting up and doing it.”
Both are calling it a “farewell… maybe” tour. “It takes a long time to say goodbye,” Mark smirks. “We’ve only played about 28% of the markets that want DEVO. It’ll take a long time to say goodbye if we say goodbye to everybody.”
And when that’s done? “Then there’ll be colonies on Mars,” he jokes. “We’ll have to go play those too.”
If the Netflix doc leaves anything out, it’s the some of the later music. Albums like Smooth Noodle Maps and Something for Everybody don’t get much screen time, even though DEVO purists know they hold up. “There are four songs on Something for Everybody that are as strong as Freedom of Choice,” says Jerry. “But it didn’t matter—the label didn’t know how to bring it to market.”
Mark remembers walking into Warner Bros. that final time. “In 1978, it was vibrant. They threw a party every Friday. By the time we came back with Something for Everybody, it was empty rooms and sad My Chemical Romance shirts.”
So yeah. Radio still matters. And yeah, the new doc might not tell the whole story. But after fifty years of being misinterpreted, ignored, and reduced to a flowerpot hat, DEVO is still finding new ways to mutate.
“We never wanted to imitate our influences,” Mark says. “We wanted to be them.”
Watch the full interview above and then check out the clip below.
