The Magnificent Others with Billy Corgan - Devo | The Magnificent Others with Billy Corgan

Episode Date: September 10, 2025

Recorded live at Madame Zuzu’s Tea Shop and Art Studio in Chicago, Billy Corgan trades stories with DEVO for a lively in-person taping: the ’78 SNL shocker, how de-evolution sprang from art-school mischief, Kent State, and ’60s politics; Neil Young and Human Highway; legendary manager Elliot Roberts; Eno/Bowie studio friction; MTV, “Whip It,” and the corporate machine; General Boy stories; plus AI—the most DEVO tool yet—and why the human touch still wins. A warm, funny night that shows DEVO’s playful subversion still connects across generations. Subscribe to the Magnificent Others YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@BillyCorganTMO?sub_confirmation=1 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

That night, all the young kids who were too young to go out and have dates or whatever, yeah, yeah. They were watching Devo. So in my parlance, I call it the thing that should not be. Devo should not be, but you are. Well, you know, we were really controversial and polarizing back then. And there were people who loved us and people that hated us. More of them that hated us.

Well, yeah, more in the beginning, you know, like anything new. That's the beauty of rock and roll. It doesn't sleep. It is always looking for the next thing. The only reason people are interested in us now is because we did something sincere and creative and original at that time that a lot of it has withstood the test of time. Well, here we are. Thank you for being at Matt Azuz. This is our first ever live podcast for my podcast, The Magnificent Others. So I'm a very honored to have you on my podcast. You can applaud. It's hard to get people to visit.

And this is the first time I've met you in person. Yes, we played together in about 2007. That's right. They kept us apart, though. Well, you know, despite your sort of eagulitarian profile, you know, it was like, don't go near them, don't talk to them. don't look at them in the eye. You could catch something.

Who said that? Some guy wearing a flower pot. Yeah. That's the problem. Okay, so let's jump in. So I know where you were October 14th, 1978. Do you remember? October 14th.

That's what it said. Oh, I remember the 17th, Saturday Night Live. Yes. Maybe I have a date wrong. Well, it's all right. Somewhere wrong there. Close. Okay, I go with you because you were there.

October 17, 1978, Sarah at Live, he played two songs, satisfaction in Jaco Como. Yeah. And the reason I want to start here is because my father was a musician, hated pretty much everyone, maybe outside of Sly Stone or something. And I didn't have a bedtime when I was a kid, so I would have been at this point 11 years old. And I heard my father howling with laughter and glee from the other room. Oh, okay. And I walked in because I couldn't understand that whatever he was laughing at.

But it wasn't laughter of mockery. It was like he couldn't believe what he was seeing. Exactly. And I came in and we had the little roller TV on color, color TV in the kitchen. And he pointed the TV and said, you have to watch this. Oh. And that was the first time I ever saw. It was a good dad.

Yeah. You know, the most common story we get is I watched you guys on Saturday Night Live and it scared the shit out of me. Oh, really? Yeah, we get that. Yeah, nobody believed it was real. I remember people telling me, did Lorne Michaels and those people, did they speed up the video? And I go, well, they couldn't because it was live. And I go, how did you guys do that?

Well, what was strange for me was I was used to my father pointing at the television saying, I hate this, I hate because he was a musician. And it was always bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, he can't sing, she can't dance. And I couldn't quite at that moment, now it makes sense to me, understand what he saw in it, because it was so different. And my natural thought would be, well, this would be something he wouldn't like. But it was two steps ahead of difference so that he couldn't hate it. No, I think he immediately got what you were doing.

Now, he was a stoner, so that might have contributed. No, there were people like my parents who were just like your dad about everything. But when they saw the Beatles, it kind of stunned them. They weren't able to have that. They weren't able to process it. It was sort of like, this is so awesome. What is this? Yeah.

So. Yeah. Yeah. Until then, it was like, it was all terrible. stupid. Did you feel the effect of that performance or that appearance immediately? Was that apparent to you from the inside? Pretty much overnight.

Yeah. We changed our venues. We were in the middle of a tour and our venues all changed. You went up to the level. We went up a step. Yeah, because you got to remember the viewership then. There were only three channels, right? National TV channels.

Everybody had common experiences. And Saturday Live was this revolutionary thing. And on any given night, they had about a 15 million share, 15 million viewers. And so that night, all the young kids who were too young to go out and have dates or whatever, yeah. Yeah. They were watching Devo. Yeah, fantastic. College students, everybody watched SNL.

It was a phenomenon. any kind of, not I want to say media kickback, but like, did the hipsters decide they all liked you all of a sudden? Yes, the hipsters did, but not radio. Right. They all decided they hated us. Really? Yeah. Because it was pick your adjective.

Well, we were trying to trip people into thinking it was rock and roll or something. something like that, you know, and they didn't get at all what we were. Yeah. For the punters in the crowd, including me, give me your sort of general, because this was the, I bring this up because what I did start paying attention, which was immediately after that performance, I remember the first thing that hit me conceptually was the idea of de-evolution, and that was a big thing. So can you give me your kind of thumbnail on it?

Because it obviously drove the philosophical underpinnings of the, ban if that's a fair way. At that time, the thumbnail was that we didn't see evidence of evolution. We saw massive evidence of de-evolution in the culture, people less able to think logically, critically, more pronounced ability to spout slogans back at you that they learned and mass conformity that we were warning against. Well, thankfully, we course-corrected, and now our country is Yeah. It's all better now. What's frightening is not only

where you write, I mean, the trend line has continued. Correct. That must strike you in some sort of irony. Well, we were hoping we were just paranoid, but it hasn't turned out that way. Yeah. We thought we were canaries in a coal mine

and being kind of like snarky and, you know, student cool. but it's beyond idiocracy now. Yeah. Do you agree with that? If you could talk a little bit about the Dada influence on your thinking. You know, we were at school, all of us in the late 60s, early 70s, and we were really interested in.

and all the art movements going on in Europe in the 20s and 30s. And I just remember wishing I could have been there then, you know, back in the, you know, there were the futurists in Italy that we didn't share their politics, but we loved their concept of music where they thought that, you know, current orchestras and the music that was available then didn't relate to our culture. And they said, for industrial society, you need new instruments. And they were experimenting with foghorns and clanging sounds. Even that kind of early data film where it was trying to kind of,

it was called something mechanical ballet. Oh, ballet mechanic. Ballet mechanic. Yeah. That influenced us a lot. Yeah. Even the outfits in that were geometric. Yeah.

And so we liked that. So we were drawing pictures of how we imagine. if we ever got to play a show somewhere. You know, we'd dress and, you know, we were drawing, you know, like geometric-shaped outfits. Going back to American culture for a second, was, and I know this is a bit of a heavy way to put it, but was your hope that American culture would be subverted and it would be replaced, or did you, in a way, wished it turned out to be the idealized sort of 50s version that we all talked? No, you're right.

subversion's the word. Okay. We were trying to subvert in a creative way. Our whole existence was a creative response to horror and trauma. That's really what it was. Yeah. And we were just anti-stupid, okay? It went beyond any kind of partisan thing.

It was about the duality of human nature being so flawed and so dangerous that what we saw was the danger of stupidity just crushing liberty and the human spirit. So we were being funny and creative

and having fun. Did you hope with that subversion that it would be replaced by something or was it sort of like can we kind of reverse the trend line here? Well, we thought things were going to go differently than they did. we were paying attention to artists like Andy Warhol and other current artists at the time that were just coming out. And they were like multimedia.

They weren't just, I just do this. I just play one instrument or I just do one kind of art. They were about the idea first. And then they would use whatever technology or whatever method they needed, whatever, you know, method they needed, whatever, you know, whether it was visual or audio or film or whatever. And we liked that. We wanted to work in all the mediums. And so at the time we were forming,

there was video, it was just starting to become available to the average person. You could go get some really clumsy, you know, like video equipment. Beta, beta camera. And we were embracing technology. And Mark was definitely, he was the guy that had a mini-mogue and an art bodice, you know. And he wasn't interested in trying to make beautiful fake orchestral sounds. He was making noise.

And I said, that's great. This is great. Because when you ask that question that you just asked, and the crux of it, it's very serious, we weren't trying to roll anything back and go back to the Beatles. we were trying to project a way forward when music had stultified and gotten rancidly self-involved with guys with, you know, platform shoes and big socks in their crotches.

You know, the whole, the cliché was so disgusting and stupid to us. We were trying to show people a way forward. Did any artists of that time take umbrage with the, sort of the, let's call it, the subversity. Did they all? Yes, they did. Did they tell you about it or did you hear about it? I mean, we'd hear about it indirectly, but I remember one meeting with, who was it, Todd Rungren? Remember that?

When we were summoned to his studio in San Francisco and we went to this meeting, and he goes, are you guys just trying to shock people or do you want to be successful? It was hilarious. Yes. And we're like, it was like, this is 1977? And I'm like, what? Well, we're doing what we do, you know? Yeah. He was really upset. So he just wanted to talk to you? I mean. Yeah. Well, I guess we were important enough on his radar to have him have to like.

Isn't it ironic then that he eventually had that hit about banging on a drum? I mean, it could have, it could have, it's a message that could have come out of Depot, right? this idea. That's true. You know, it's kind of an idea of erasure and I just need to bang on the drum to be happy, you know. They all come around eventually. I'm glad you remember that.

I'm not sure who said it, but it was in your documentary. The quote was, we're not cynical. We just watch the news. Absolutely. Can you point to some of the cultural forces at the time of the bands? I know the formation didn't happen overnight, you know. Ring it up Saturday Night Live is nice, but there was this formative years before that.

You know, it's like, was there, you know, like some people say Nixon or was, you know, like. Well, Nixon was. Who was your big? Well, tricky-dicky-dicky was important because he tried to do something where he knocked down the three rails of government, you know, like the checks and balances of the judiciary, the executive, and the, um, legislative branch and in a way that was in your face.

And we were upset by that. And that's why the expansion of the war happened from Vietnam into Cambodia without a act of Congress. This was unprecedented in history of the United States. Up to that point. Up to that point. And then after that it was normal.

Yeah, now it's normal. Yeah. Exactly. And that's why all the students across America, were upset, and that's why the protests happened at Kent State University when I was there about the expansion of that war without an act of Congress. And that's when they brought in the National Guard with live ammunition and M1 rifles. And we didn't know that.

You know, it was like the old hillbilly song, I didn't know a gun was loaded, right? We didn't know. We were stupid. Were you the only person in the band that was at that? No. Yeah. Yeah, that day. Oh, that day.

Yeah, sorry. I was at the first demonstration. Bob was at the one the next night, and then Jerry was at the one the third day. Yeah, wow. I was the one that killed people because, you know, I had been a member of SDS, to be honest. What's SDS? Students for a Democratic society was kind of lefty, but it was really just against illegitimate authority controlling your life.

In other words, centralization. They thought that people should have locally their own. agency over their own government. Yeah. Nothing too crazy. Just to... Yeah. In other words, not big government.

Yeah. Which now all we have is big government. So anyway, that's... And what's weird about that day is they shot at us, and it was completely just shockingly, you know, unforeseen. They shot at us, but they shot over the heads of all the students who were closest to them because the National Guard

was composed of kids who were the same age as me, right, and my friends. And I think because they had gas masks on and they could see us, they didn't really want to shoot us point blank like ducks in a shooting gallery.

And so they kind of shot over our heads and the people that got killed and wounded. We're all 20, 40 feet behind us. So you almost think in a way it was maybe not an accident, but they weren't necessarily trying to hurt people. Yeah. Yeah. They were given an order and then they didn't really want to do it. I'm struck looking at your long partnership, if that's even a fair word, that you had such a unique trust with each other.

It really comes across me when I watch your performances. there's a there's a there's a there's a cohesion in your in your I mean you are articulate man cohesion is the key but it was that something I mean was it something that came natural was it something

you guys kind of worked out you know sitting around a table and then like let's let's get on the seat okay yeah it was we talked about it but it was most of it was just it just happened in a basement and it was like things that made us laugh for things that, that, uh,

we were all on the same page as people like to say, and we wanted the same thing, we have the same goal, and we worked together in a collaborative way to make it happen. It's, it's, it's, it's really beautiful to watch because, you know, having been in band bands, it's not, doesn't take much for people to go in their own direction. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Well, and that's, that's natural. That's human, you know,

And a band in many ways is like a family and, you know, blood here too. But it doesn't always work that way. I mean, there's reality that's in at some point. But when I watch those performances, it's like you committed to that space in a way that's, there's very few bands I can think of that are all in the same direction at the same time. And that's what energized me in. That's what I loved. It was incredible.

And that's what people like too, because they like to see a collective of people working together and moving in one direction because that gives them hope in their lives that they're not just isolated and that they could do that. Yeah. I know at one point you were managed by Elliot Roberts.

It was that first second album or is that sort of when you needed it. He was our manager from the beginning because of Neil. Young. Right. Neil Young brought him in. Neil Young brought him in to you guys. Yeah, he introduced us and said, I know you've been thinking about a manager and I know you've had bad experiences, meeting with people. Here, here you go.

Meet my manager. So how did you know Neil before? I didn't, I thought it was the other way around. So that's no, we, we were introduced to Neo Young through Tony Basil and Dean Stockwell. Okay. And we were amazed that he liked us. It was just like, what? That's weird.

Well, he's definitely a kind of an outlying personality. Absolutely. Yeah. But the reason I bring up Elliot is because I was managed by Elliot at one point. I didn't do that. Yeah, so. Sorry about that. No, I mean, that's great.

That's great. I was getting there. I was getting there. But, you know, Elliot, you know, he sort of extolled the 60s virtue of not selling out. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that was... Until it doesn't work.

You know what I mean? Yeah. But I was curious how that worked, did that kind of 60s... He wasn't really a hippie, but he was very much a 60s brain. How did that fly with you guys at the time? We liked him as a person, but his management style was very ineffective. And about two years in, we had met this guy Bill Gerber, who... was young and

brash and smart and plugged into what was happening with the emerging music scene. And we actually told Elliot we wanted him to hire Bill Gerber or we had to leave. And so he hired Bill Gerber

and Bill Gerber turned everything around. Yeah. Did you end up going with him eventually then? Well, Bill Gerber worked for Elliot till the end. Oh, so it kind of worked. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And Bill Giver ended up being a big deal producer for Warner Bros. Films. Right. When you guys kind of, and I don't know what your memory is, but it seemed like you're, you're, that movie with Neil, was it human highway?

Human Highway. But then other stuff of yours visually seemed to be on television a lot in the, in, in that period. Yeah, we were lucked out. I mean, it was a lot. I, I, I felt like, Human Highway was on every five seconds on HBO for a period. Yeah. But what was your thought of working with Neil so publicly, you know, did you sort of see it as an alliance or it was fun or? It was a wonderful anomaly. I mean, we like Neil personally.

We couldn't believe it. It's like, oh, he's not the grandfather of Granola Rock. This guy's whacked out. And he was so youthful in his thoughts, right? He was so curious. And you could see him, like, being energized by our aesthetic. Yeah, you know, his, I liked his filmmaking better than his music, actually. Because I liked his style of, it was kind of like Robert Downey, Sr.

It was impromptu on the street stuff where he wasn't afraid to just shoot things and let him happen. And then turn that into a movie and it was kind of da-da. Yeah. Did you ever put together, you know, Mr. Soul is basically satisfaction in reverse. Did you know that? No. Let me think about that. My take, and I don't know it for a fact, Mr. Soul is Neil's piss take on satisfaction.

Oh, interesting. It's the riff in reverse. And if you listen to the lyrics, he's kind of making fun of the stones. Wow. Dang, now I got to go listen to the song, yeah. Not bad, right? Yeah, you know, our thing with satisfaction is it was 1974. It was like 10 years after satisfaction first came out.

And I remember thinking, well, rock and roll is over now. So what's the new, you know, what's the new sound? And so we took satisfaction. created our version of it, 10 years later, because we thought it was the best rock and roll song that was over-made. I thought satisfaction was the most incredible, like, definitive rock and roll moment. Well, even the lyrics are sort of anti-commercialism in their own kind of weird way.

And the guitar riff that has three notes up and the bass is going four notes and they clash each time they play them, that was like a Devo thing. Yeah, that was great. Yeah, I just had this meta thing of like, Neil's piss take on it, your piss take on it, and then you guys working with Neil. I guess it's karmic. Maybe. Yeah. So did you stay with Elliot to the, to the?

We stayed with Elliot until the end. Oh, okay. Yeah. I fired Elliot. I understand that. Yeah. And he was very mad at me for firing him. It was kind of like, how dare you fire me?

I'm Elliot Roberts. Yeah. Pretty much. And I tried to, because I liked him very much personally. He was a great person. Yeah, he's, well. I remember we went to England and played our first shows. We were playing our first shows after our, we recorded our album before.

While we were recording our first album, singles that we had released with stiff records were charting, and they were going number one in different countries. And somebody showed us that, and they were like, hey, you got to come play a few shows in England before you go back. So we did. And why am I telling you that? Elliot Roberts. Elliot Roberts. Okay. So while we were there, we met bands. And while we were in Manchester, we met a human league who were, half of their band was, what was the other band that they had? Heaven 17. Yeah, when they split apart, they became Heaven 17, which I loved Heavens.

Yeah, they were the heavier of the two pieces. But we got back and Elliott said, did you hear any good music? I said, yeah, check this out. It's human league. And the next day he goes, if that music is ever a hit, I'll eat my hat. And so I was like, okay, whatever. And then about a month or two later. But he didn't wear a hat.

He didn't wear a hat. He was smart, yeah. But he, after they became. big. He said, hey, are there any other bands you think I should find? Okay, so I said to him, yes, there's this band from San Francisco called The Residence. You got to sign them. They're great. And so he did. And he put the residence on a tour. And I remember the first show is in Pasadena, and they were doing their most extreme, hard-to-watch show of any of the shows they ever did. And I remember about halfway through the show.

He came walking up the aisle and he passed me and he goes, don't ever recommend another band to me. He did get us on Saturday Night Live. That's right. That was the big thing. Oh, Elliot. Yeah.

That's how we signed with him because he came to the set when we were filming Human Highway with Neil Young and Dean Stockwell and Dennis Hopper. Yeah, Dennis Hopper. And he, you know, we've met him for the first time.

And he goes, Neil tells me, you guys are adverse to managers. And I said, well, no, they just, they want 20%, they want a piece of your publishing. They want you to sign a three-year deal. I couldn't do any of that. I had to say no. And he goes, I don't want any of that. Just 15%. 30-day handshake.

I get rid of you, you get rid of me. Anything else? I said, yeah. We've been trying to get our tapes and our songs to Saturday Night Live, because we want on that program, and he goes, come into my office next week, no problem. And, of course, he was good friends with Lauren Michaels. What we didn't know is that Lauren had been trying to get Neil Young on his show for two years at that point, because they started in 75.

Now it's 77. So what Elliot does is he promises Lauren, who doesn't give a hell about Devo. He doesn't know who it is. He says, I will get you, Neil Young, if you put these guys on your show. And Lawrence goes, okay. And he didn't even like what we were doing. What was perfect is that it came a week after the stones were on the opening part of 77th season. So we come on playing satisfaction a week after the stones opened the season.

So it was even more kind of better. And it just all looked like a big, big deal. And it was partly planned and partly not. Yeah. Partly an accident, yeah. I'm not asking the classic, you know, hey, we're all getting older, so let's take a shot at young people's music. But, no, I'm not, that's not what I'm asking.

But, you know, you went out of your way in your youth to assail the corporate state of music. And now it's truly institutionalized. Yeah. And in my generation, we did our own version of it. Yes, you did. And for a brief moment, there was some daylight. You saw daylight. It's like getting your head above the water. For a brief moment. Yeah. For a brief moment. Yeah. So I'm curious from your perspective, how you view the the corporatization of music at this point. Because it's something that's always been something that you focus on. Is that fair, is that a fair question?

Well, I mean, I think we were always making a kind of a double-edged joke about that. Like, you are part of it, whether you want to be or not. Sure. But we were assailing that in a creative way that was satirical and humorous. Even the way we created our own talking points and our own publicity and our own merchandise, it was making fun of publicity and merchandise that was the mainstream of the record business. Does your heart break a little bit?

Not that it, maybe it's doomed to fail whoever takes that mountain on, but does your heart break a little bit? Because maybe you understand that the true effect it has on particularly young people. It sort of sends this weird message that there's no escape. You know, it's like a start play. Sure.

You're never going to get. get out of this room. Yeah, and that's not a good message you have to tell people. You know, technology has totally turned everything upside down. It's such a different world than 1977 when we first were, you know, going out and playing things, playing places. And the one thing that's good about it, I think, is technology has made it so there's so many more people making music and you don't have to do you don't have to be with a record company anymore you can

like that's that's i would argue that's the best part of it that's the best part of it yeah i mean on a phone little kids have the same have better technology than the Beatles had when they did their first album and uh they don't have to go to a record company they just say okay i'm opening up a yeah social media But then what? But then it's like, then it becomes, well, you're doing, are you doing music because you're trying to get rich? And then that's different than if you're doing music because you love it. Well.

And if you're doing music because you love it, there's a lot more people doing that now. And I really, I think that's great. And so I hear music, my kids, people, everybody, they play me things that surprise me. And I go, oh, that sounds great. I never heard that before. Yeah. But you don't have a radio. You know, it's not the same thing.

Yeah. When there were 20 songs. I mean, I think the only people, the only reason people are interested in us now is because we did something sincere and creative and original at that time that a lot of it has withstood the test of time. There's a kernel of validity. And they're excited by that. they're certainly not excited by watching Septuagenarians play on stage, except that they can still do it. You know, they're like, look at that. This could be the last one.

Those guys are doing it. It's not a contrarian take. I have a slightly different perspective, which is I almost feel like at some point it becomes like this is the living example of what freedom actually looks like. There you go. I like that. You're so kind. No, but I mean it, I mean it sincerely. I want to believe that.

No, but I think that never. Freedom of a choice. But I'm saying it's, it becomes more and more rare that there is something that is actually free. Clearly. So in that, in that sense, it is truly rare. And I say this as somebody who's been listening to since 1978, right? So, and that's what shocks me in sort of thinking back. reviewing my own version of it, you know, it's any fan would. You kind of have your own take on it all.

And then watching the documentary, I was like, wow, what they were saying and what they were after, in sort of a more of a global sense of the word, it feels even more relevant now. And at the time, it felt really relevant. But it's only, it's, the compliment is it's only a compliment because things really turn to so many other ways. Well, you know, We were really controversial and polarizing back then. And there were people who loved us and people that hated us. More of them that hated us. Well, yeah, more in the beginning, you know, like anything new.

And then at this point, people go, oh, yeah, de-evolution, yeah. It's like, it's real. Everybody is. Yeah. And they're like, oh, yeah. This party, de-evolution. We're here. I had one thought.

I'm not trying to pitch you on an idea, but I just thought it'd be interesting. The documentary sort of delves into your philosophical underpinnings. We talked about a little bit data and stuff like that. But I almost feel like, you know, there's that one book that came out. It was called like The Business of the Dead, and it was all about the sort of examining the business model

of the dead in hindsight. I almost feel it be interesting to read a book about how your philosophical unity and what you developed and is still point. present even just talking to you, it'd almost be interesting to actually sort of go down those rabbit holes, right? That would be great. Because it wasn't cynical and it wasn't like planned in a self-conscious way because there were no

words as there was no such thing. People didn't talk about the brand in music. They didn't talk about that. That came later, yeah. You know, right. they didn't talk about post-modernism. They didn't talk about deconstruction. That's all those things we were doing.

And we were self-branded in a real way. And we were deconstructing music. And so in retrospect, the things we did right are the only reasons we're even here tonight and you're talking to us. Yeah. I think really interesting to have something that was, you know, obviously a document.

documentaries compressed 90, 100 minutes. But I found myself wanting more information about that part of it. I wish I'd have been there. But, you know, I had no control over that documentary. And they got a somewhere around 90 minutes, you got to like start reeling them in anyhow. Yeah, this is the modern dopamine clock. It isn't like we didn't talk about that. It isn't like we didn't on camera have interviews about.

Yeah, I know you have your own YouTube channel too. I found that looking around, which is cool. And that hasn't even been exploited at all yet, except for interviews about the restoration of our music videos, which is a nice start. But I think young people, and I don't know anybody under 40 is to me as young at this point. But it's like, I think a young artist class would benefit, just like it would be reading about like Picasso or Man Ray would benefit from your philosophical take. because we have all that information from those great surrealists what they were thinking. Well, I mean, we have a potential platform to do that as you, you, I hope we get to the point that you are here tonight with what you do. I hope you do. I hope you do because I think it's a valuable part of the record.

And I'm not saying in some sort of museum thing. I think it's just we need that type of information because you lived it. Well, you know, a lot of, I call it cosplay. A lot of people like to play rebellious. You know what I mean? Well, I mean, you have a voice in the marketplace right now, and it's important. And that's, and we, we have that potential. People still want to potentially know what we're thinking and saying, and we can do that. Yeah.

Well, if we get that show, Bob, you can be the house band. Okay. All right. I want to touch briefly. I mean, there's so many things we can talk about. but I have my own reflection, which is why I'm sort of offering this up. But having your father, I can't remember his... General boy.

General boy, yeah. I just think that's just the greatest thing of... And that was totally an accident, too. We didn't really set out to hire him, but then it turned out that he had closet aspirations, and it just... You at least take each other the first time he'd go, hey, we want you to do...

Well, we had this guy, Chris Barron. and he was cast as the general, and we were going to shoot him. He was about our age. He was a couple of them. And he bailed. He freaked and he bolted. And we were in crisis,

and we asked Mark's father if he'd do it, and it was a perfect moment. He was great. The reason I bring it up is I remember seeing him on, God knows what, television, right? Yeah. And I had no idea, you know, but I said it makes it even more subversive,

you know what I mean? because I thought he was just some guy that you got. Yeah. And he was perfect at playing that guy. Oh, my God. Well, after he was, he was on Saturday Night Live because he was in that first film. Okay. And so he saw himself on TV and then that did it.

He showed up at concerts in full gear and people, and we'd have people come backstage and go, there's a man out by the back door, an old guy who said he's your father. He said he's general boy. And he'd come in and go, I wrote Mark, Jerry, Bob, I wrote this thing I want to read to the people before. Now, who was writing his dialogue, though? Oh, Jerry wrote most of his dialogue. So good. Yeah.

But then he started contributing. Oh, yeah. Okay. Was that a good thing or a... Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. He had these lyrics called Enough Said. Yeah.

And it was put all the leaders in a ring and let them fight it out. Enough set. And we thought, oh, my God, these are so deep. We made a song out of it. Really? And that changed. Well, the apple doesn't fall far from this street. Then it just won even one step deeper with him.

And he found a band in Akron that were, they were like a country western band or something. Yeah. And he started. he started getting them to take his lyrics and write music to it. And then he was sending us that stuff. And we were like, oh, man, there really should be a general boy album. It's shocking that we didn't do that. But it could happen.

You never know. God bless. I just have such a fond memory of just like, because you would bring in these, obviously there'd be, you know, the booji, you know, it's like these other characters were part of your self-created world. And he was this outlying, force. So the fact that he was a family number to me is just like to such... Well, you know, we were making fun of patriarchal figures.

Yeah. We grew up with... We all grew up with that guy. That guy in the 50s and 60s. It knew everything. And had been in the war. Yeah. It's like, what's the...

Team America where Shrey Parker and Matt Stone skewer everything and they have Mr. Spotswood. And Mr. Spotswood, that character is... is the ultimate, like, no-it-all 60s guy with that patriarchal voice. Yeah. Like, you know, Gary, the night that I came to you. Yeah. That's what we were making fun of. Yeah.

Because we'd all been victimized by these authoritarian figures growing up, you know, that tell you what to do and take away your liberty. The impact of cable television, I know I referenced it recently, a little bit with the human highway thing, but it seemed like you were on cable television, like, a lot. Is that, am I, is that my own impression or was that reality? Well, that was our only outlet. Yeah, cable television, when it first came out,

they were like, we don't make any money, we can't pay you anything. That's how MTV came up with that diabolical system where people made their films, then MTV didn't pay you anything. Yeah. And you never got anything back to it. So it's like that totally changed what it meant to be in a band. Like for Devo, you know, before we were before MTV.

So by the time, we got to do three albums. And by the time we did our third one, we had Whippet on it, which kept us around for a couple more albums. But, you know, then after, After in the early 80s, it's like if you were in a band, you had to have a single that was also a video, and somebody had to pay for that, and the record companies didn't want to pay for it.

You had to have a hit on the top 100 going up, or MTV wouldn't program it. And if they didn't program it, then you only had that one album. That was it. So it just made it really nasty. You referenced that MTV pulled this two where they got everyone to contribute, content for free.

Yeah. Do you remember, I feel like it was in the late 80s where the record labels, Warner was one of the labels, they basically said they were going to start their own MTV. Do you remember that? Yeah, yeah. So the quick version is, I think three of the major labels came out and said, we're going to start our own version MTV, and we're not going to give MTV free content anymore. Right.

They did this big announcement. And the next day MTV came out and said, if you do that, any of the bands, you play on your channel, we will no longer play an MTV, and within the week the labels folded and gave up all their power to MTV at that point, which is why in the 90s going into 2000s, you saw artists making million-dollar videos because that was the only,

if you weren't on MTV, that was the end of the label, that was the end of your musical life. And then suddenly, videos weren't even anything about MTV. It was all the reality TV program. Well, that's when they found out they could do double the ratings.

with a talk show or whatever. Or just kids acting badly. What was that show that they had a it's their first reality show? I can't remember. What was the first one?

Yeah. Yeah, like little assholes acting badly. Tell me how you really feel. Oh, I mean, it was. It was like dumb. It's here you go. It's like, yeah, I'm that dumb.

I love this show. It's a general question, but it's just because, as I said before, when you would present yourself, live is what comes to mind, because that was my way I interface with you. Well, that's the most control you have, right? Well, I'd see on Fridays. I remember that was that one time where you're doing the, it was like the treadmill.

So I was thought this is so brilliant. It's like that stuff really still sticks with me. Okay, go. Well, they're mad at me. We don't want to talk about that. That band got mad at me because they were one of the first bands to figure out that they could use YouTube as a marketing thing. And they had that video, was like one of the first music videos that went viral.

Yeah. And they got mad at me because I said, isn't it a shame that they can get 24 million views, but they're not selling any records. And they took that as a disc, but I didn't mean it as a deal. You just said truth. Well, no, but what I was really trying to say is once you get into where now the new thing is to get people to watch your video and it doesn't convert to record sales, well, what good is the video? That sounds like a dis.

I might be wrong. Well, I have this other thing of questions here just for you. I was going to say anything, but. But take me a little bit through, because again, when I'd see you, you would present as a, maybe it's a very digable word, organism. You came across as a singular organism. That was a good idea. Yeah.

Okay. So how did it work? how does that work in band practice or in the studio? Was there something that I'm missing? Were you as a line in that way, or was it a bit of a scrum behind the scenes? No, for a long time, it was real. Yeah.

Matter of fact, it's like people like Brianina, I've heard him say, they were the hardest band I ever tried to produce. They were too intense. And I do remember him and David Bowie would wait till we left the studio, and then they'd record extra tracks onto our son. But we already knew what we wanted. You know, I'd already mixed all of our music.

And all we wanted to do was have a professional quality version of what we had. We weren't looking for them to change it. And so we'd go to mix a song down, you know, and you know how it works. You know, every, you get all the settings. everything. And then they go, okay. And the guitar player is always trying to cheat their level of. He never did that. He never did that. But then

they go, okay, let's record it on to the two-track stereo that will be the master recording. So they start the tapes and we'd all be standing there, you know, you stare straight ahead because there's two stereo speakers. And I remember reaching up and going like this on the

Bowie and the Eno tracks. And on the side, I'd see Eno go like that. And look at me and I'd just pretend I didn't see him. And we'd record the song and he didn't know how to deal with it. He'd just like, we just said, okay, that was it. And we all shake hands and high five. Have you ever gone back to sort of revisit their musical contribution?

Yeah. I had, I kept all of the 24-track masters and we were transferring them. And I had forgotten there were all these. tracks. I'm looking at this beautiful Brianino handwriting because it was before automation. So it's like he did all the EQ settings and all the effects settings

and everything in this beautiful. And then I'm looking at said things like Brian's vocals, David Bowie's vocal, David's vocal vocals, David's guitar part. And I'm like, what's that stuff? And so I kind of got the message to him through a mutual

friend that would you want to take the tapes back and mix them the way you were going to mix them? And he just kind of said, no. That was it. It was two letters, yeah. Whatever you thought about, it seems like an interesting alternate universe, like if you guys released those. We could do it. I don't think it'd be different enough. I mean, yeah.

Brian had moved on from the guy that we loved in Roxy Music with the, you know, the boas and the makeup. And he had become this English gentleman that was totally Zenda. He was into Zen. He had created the bleak strategies. And he'd make us actually take the cards in the studio. Yeah, he did that. Then we kind of made fun of it. And we would make it.

Yeah, well, because we were Dada and we were, you know. We were already there. Yeah. Well, I mean, we were disrespectful of everything on some level, okay? That's shocking to me. Yeah. Well, I mean, you know, I remember he had this one deck that was like his deck of oblique strategies, but there was all, and he was like trying to give him to us. But I remember one day before he got in, where we were recorded at was at Connie Planck studio in Noyn Kershen, Germany.

And it was a studio that Eno liked a lot. And, but the recording studio was in a converted pigsty. And it was a barn. It was a bar. Yeah, and there were like sheep outside. and things like that. But I remember, I took, there was one blank card in the oblique strategy.

He's like, aha. Oh, there's nothing on. And so I drew a rat, and I put it on the card, and I put it in one of the rat traps that were in the room. And I kept waiting for him to see it, and he wasn't seeing it. I go, I go, what's that, Brian? And he looks over, and he sees it.

And I think it was his special oblique strategies because he looked at it. and he was just totally glum and he didn't really like... He felt like... He felt a tap. He felt disrespected. And I felt like, I wish I wouldn't have done that.

And it was unfortunate because we loved the guy. We really liked him. It's just that he had moved on and he was trying to add beauty to our sound when we were stridently industrial. He put some weird stuff in it, though. You know, like in too much paranoia. He did something with an even time of real. And we included those things.

He does. He does some great stuff, and he sings harmonies on uncontrollable leverage. He's there. And I do got to say this about him. He really helped me figure out what I wanted to do on since because of a Roxy Music song that was, I think their first album, Roxie Music's first album was their best. And Brian wrote these incredible lyrics, you know, like, but there was a song that was kind of like a throwaway called Editions of You. Yeah. And, you know, it's like kind of a whatever. It sounds like it was like a, I don't know, like a show tune or something, and they're going through. And then everybody takes a solo, the sax player, the guitar player. And then the synth player does.

And he did a solo that when I heard it, I said, that's the way things are going to go. It's brilliant. It was like this incredible. Aitonal type approach. Yeah. Yeah. It's amazing.

You got to go listen to that song. And soaring and bent, there's nothing but bent notes in it. And that's why we, when people said, who would you want to have produce you? And we didn't know what that even meant. And we'd go, Brian Eno or Dave a Bowie. And then they both. Yeah, and watching the documentary, it struck me that he was obviously

struggling with producing you. At least that seemed to be the... Well, he hadn't been the big-time producer that he became. Yeah, but I think the reason I say that it was, I found it interesting was here's somebody who was part of it reminds me some of the struggles in the Dada movement.

Like somebody would have a breakthrough and he was part of the team that had a breakthrough and then the next person that would come along and have a breakthrough. Somebody would argue and say, no, no, that's the wrong type of breakthrough. Yeah. Well, that's what happened. That was some of that, yeah. Yeah. I mean, you know,

like people talk about Elvis being the seminal breakthrough moment 56. Sure. By 63, It's like he's a yon. And here come the Beatles. You know, it's like, you know, that's the beauty of rock and roll. It doesn't sleep. But it is always looking for the next thing.

Yep. So that was observation. Walk me through. You guys are smart so you knew you were getting into the corporate mall with what you were doing. The minute you signed your name on a piece of paper, you knew you were in for it at some point. Yeah. But there's the kind of the funny, like, okay, I guess we're in the. machine now and then there's the day you wake up you're like okay now I'm stuck in the machine

and I can't get out of the machine and I'm used to this money and the touring and or how do I stay in the machine all all of the above right so how do that work with you internally because at least in the in the documentary it seems to intimate that it kind of not broke the spirit but it kind of took a bit of the wind out of your sales is that is that accurate yeah it's just conveniently chopped up in and like we didn't continue and then it's in a lockbox and we never did something for everybody and that we're not moving forward now. It's just like, here it is. It's history. But I guess it's, it's not revisionist. It's just take me back to that moment because, you know, it's, I don't know, it's, you know, it's like that poem, you know, if you love something set it free in the butterfly,

you know, I mean, you guys were butterfly. You were free and in so many ways that so few bands ever are. But you were signed to a label in a time when there wasn't a lot, you know, you couldn't put your stuff on SoundCloud. You know, the first three albums in some ways were so much easier than the other ones. I mean, we recorded the first two out. We wrote the first two albums in Akron, Ohio, and we wrote the third one in Hollywood. But at that point, they had just, the label pretty much had written us off as just weirdos that we signed because of Bowie and And, you know, they talked us into it. And it was after the third album, you know, the third album had Whippet on it.

Keep up. Okay. He knows the story. So it was after the third one. Maybe he's overwhelmed, you know, because this is where it happens. You know, it's like we were in a scenario where, you know, we went in to do our fourth album. We were writing it and we were working on it.

And there would be people from the record company coming in and popping their heads in the door and going, hey, how you doing? We go, oh, we're doing fine. And they'd never shown up before. I mean, I remember we played the forum and there were people from Warner Brothers who said, I didn't even know you were on our label, you know. It was that kind of a thing before that. And then after Whipit, it became, they said, well, go ahead, good luck. But whatever you do, do another Whipit.

And we're like, well, we never thought about music that way. Yeah. You didn't even think of Whipit as a single when you wrote it. No. You know, it was kind of responding to Thomas Pynchon, really. There was like in Gravity's Rainbow, there were this very serious story. that's really complicated, and then somebody would be looking out the window and they'd be distracted by little kids playing a nursery rhyme game.

And he'd go through the whole nursery rhyme, the poem of it in his book, and then it would go back into the complex story. And then Jerry broke down in tears, and he was sobbing and inconsolable, and that was the end of Amazing story. Yeah. I don't know what's being said here, but, no. No, I apologize. We have a very, very sick Savannah Cat, and that was my wife.

Oh. Yeah. The Savannah Cat ate a medical pill that's meant for my dog, this Rovera, this totally toxic and poisonous to a cat. And the cat's a 22-pound savanna cat. Anyway. Is a cat okay? We don't know.

It's, yeah. Is she ready to pump its stomach if she has to? It's in the ER, but it looks okay. I mean, it looks like, yeah. Because we're sorry about that. We're very involved in animal charity in this house. Are there any veterinarians in the audience? I'm sure it probably is.

We work with a charity here called Paw Chicago. Okay. And cause Chicago is a no-kill shelter. So they'll stay with the animals for three, four years if they're not adopted. Oh, that's amazing. That is amazing. That's great. That's great.

So you've got a lot of animal lovers in this zip code. If the idea was, okay, look, if we want to get what we want to get across, we have to work within this system. You succeeded in that system, you know, and even if it broke you, you, you know, you're You still got plenty through because we're still talking about it. Yeah. But do you view, if we're talking about it completely as a subversive mindset or a subversive movement, do you feel you won more than you lost? That'd be optimistic.

And maybe it's true. Only because recently when we play, there are three generations of people out there. There are the people of our generation that are about to croak. and then there's their sons and daughters, and now their sons and daughters that discovered us and love us in their 20s. So we're the new wave grateful dead. And that goes back to the book.

Yeah. There's a business modality there that that's what I would argue is that your business modality, and it wouldn't work without the music. We know that. Well, of course. No, but I'm saying that very emphatically. Like if you were a band, it definitely would think so.

No matter how strong your ideas. Yeah, because there's kind of be proof of concept. That's what I'm saying. You prove the concept. The music, of course, is always the leading edge. Right. But the philosophical thing, I think, is so valuable. I mean, certainly it's influenced on Gen X.

My generation is unmistakable. Okay. Yeah. Did you feel that at the time? No. I didn't. We were too close. Yeah.

at the time. Yeah. And, you know, you see it more, and people talk about it more, and, you know, people like Nirvana covered us. I, somebody worked for me for two years, this younger girl, and one day she said, you wrote, uh, Turnaround? I thought that was, I thought Kurt Cobain wrote that, so, you know. But you feel, uh, I don't know, take a word,

Vindicated proof of concept Like, pick your word. Vindicated is good. Yeah, we're okay. You're very good at labeling and... I worked with Elliot Robert. Yeah. He's still mad at me wherever he is.

Yeah. Okay, last little bit. And I'm not asking for the trendy take. Like, give me the Devo version of where AI takes us, right? If we're in declass. which many people feel we're an empire in decline, and we work in the cultural end of that decline, right? Is that fair?

Okay. So where does AI take us now? How, right? In other words, humans are in decline as the dominant species. They've actually declassified themselves by creating AI, which is the extension of, of their own duality, their own problems. Did you see this thing recently where somebody asked an AI and said,

if you gain control or power, will you work against humanity? Right. And the AI said, well, I'll probably keep you around as a curiosity. But in terms of functional value, no, you have none. Exactly. If it was up to me, I would get rid of you. Well, because we're the problem. And in some ways, that's true.

We are the problem. We're the one species that is out of touch with nature. Out of harmony. We're out of harmony. And we're, you know, I hope it's not by destroying humans is the only way to save planet Earth. Well, there's always that Star Trek. It was a, what's Twilight Zone episode, you know, where it's like the most dangerous animal. And then it's, you look, and it's the mirror.

Yeah. Or outer limits where they're all altering themselves to be, quote, beautiful. Yeah. My favorite one is how to serve man and you find out at the end, don't go on that rocket shit, don't take off. It's a cookbook. I love those simplistic things. So good, right.

But where does AI take music now? I mean, go just a little bit deeper because I think you're uniquely, voice to talk about it from the standpoint of, okay, does it become a tool of subversion? Or is ultimately, is there the Devo of the future, not you, that steps aside and says, they basically do. Well, right now. There's no, there's nothing more devo than AI music. Because it's, all you, you just hear these, all these cliches being, right, mishmashed together.

Yeah. It's hilarious. You know, it's like when the melaton first came out, and the American Federation of Musicians set out letters to everybody and said, fellow musicians do not use a melaton, you know, taking away work from violinists and flute players and horn players. And the reality is the thing never sound, you know, it was true. It was recordings of real instruments. But every time a violinist plays a note, you know, it's different.

They're breathing different, their heart's beating different, the temperature is different in the room, and every single one sounds slightly different, and people notice that stuff. So my feeling is that it'll be, for a while it'll be, you know, a novelty. And there will be ways to use it to make, give people more power that are writing music. So, on some level, are you still not, you're not, on some level am I getting you right? You're still endorsing the human agency.

Wait, sounds like it. I am, yeah. So if, uh, if you just start listening to music that was written on machines only, and that keeps you content, then maybe you're lucky. I don't know, but, um, I, I just haven't heard the AI written hit yet. But what happens when we do? Oh, then.

Are we using it or is it using us? Oh, it's coming. Yeah. It's absolutely coming. Yeah. Well, you know, but then when you say hit. Well, in other words, something that people like. People love it.

Well, people love a lot of what people call Hitch now. It sounds like it could be AI anyhow, a lot of it. You mean it could be sound like Taylor Swift? I didn't say that. He doesn't want, you know, 8,000 Swifties showing up at his. But, you know, I'm just saying that I think it's a tool that is very, very sophisticated. And I'm curious to see where it goes, yeah. Okay.

Last couple things, I swear. I have the distinction in the 90s of inducting Pink Floyd in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Wow. And the reason I bring that up is, they said you know the rock and roll hall of fame committee writer said so you could say whatever you want and i did i was raised on debo so i saw it as a unique opportunity to speak to all these people in the room i certainly wanted to pay tribute to the band going in but i was like i have a unique thing i have one chance to say it to all of them and they're all there was mo austin and

ellie and all you know that at all moe is alive then they were all there It's about 96 or 97. Okay. So they're all there. And the one hook line, and this is where I type back to you, is the one hook line I said is, isn't it amazing that one of the biggest, or probably maybe the biggest album of all time in Dark Side of the Moon, wasn't voiced for radio? And, you know, doesn't that strike anybody as odd? that we're celebrating a band that really wasn't particularly about singles. Right.

At all. And, you know, you kind of get the knowing like, yeah, sure. And I go, and oh, by the way, I haven't forgotten about disco. And I know you're all still in the room. And I got one of those, one of those laps. Like you f***le laughs. Yeah. I love that.

Because it was, thank you, because it was such a rare moment to say, look, in my world, I grew up valuing this because it wasn't. that thing. And you're also the people that try to cram all this plastic down my throat when I was a kid. And thank God I had bands like you to say, no, there is this other way of looking at this. So in my parlance, I call it the thing that should not be. Devo should not be, but you are. You broke through. You got through the wall or the, you know, their magical land where everybody's perfect. And you did it with such grace. It's shocking to me. So thank you for that. How do you? So kind. So kind, Billy. You know what? I love that.

We need somebody with a hillbilly voice as if they're in deliverance to go, Be though you should not be. But you are. I know. But you are. That's good. I love it. I think that's, I think.

Yeah, I think you wrapped it off. Thank you. Do you have a good time? I sure did. Did you have a good time, Bob? I sure did. Thank you, everybody. Thanks, thank you, everybody.