WTF with Marc Maron Podcast - Episode 807 - Mark Mothersbaugh

Episode Date: April 30, 2017

Although Mark Mothersbaugh co-founded Devo, he didn't think it was a band at first. To Mark and his bandmates, Devo was an art movement. Mark sits down in the garage to talk about his upbringing in Akron, attending Kent State University when the National Guard shooting happened, the unexpected success of Whip It, and the unforeseen creative rejuvenation he experienced while scoring television shows, films and animation, beginning with Pee-Wee's Playhouse. Sign up here for WTF+ to get the full show archives and weekly bonus material! https://plus.acast.com/s/wtf-with-marc-maron-podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hi, it's Terry O'Reilly, host of Under the Influence. Recently, we created an episode on cannabis marketing. With cannabis legalization, it's a brand new challenging marketing category. And I want to let you know we've produced a special bonus podcast episode where I talk to an actual cannabis producer. I wanted to know how a producer becomes licensed, how a cannabis company competes with big corporations, how a cannabis company markets its products in such a highly regulated

category, and what the term dignified consumption actually means. I think you'll find the answers interesting and surprising. Hear it now on Under the Influence with Terry O'Reilly. This bonus episode is brought to you by the Ontario Cannabis Store and ACAS Creative. It's a night for the whole family. Be a part of Kids Night when the Toronto Rock take on the Colorado Mammoth at a special 5 p.m. start time on Saturday, March 9th at First Ontario Centre in Hamilton.

The first 5,000 fans in attendance will get a Dan Dawson bobblehead courtesy of Backley Construction. Punch your ticket to Kids Night on Saturday, March 9th at 5 p.m. in Rock City at torontorock.com. all right let's do this how are you what the fuckers what the fuck buddies what the fucking ears what the fucksters what the fuckadelics what's happening i'm mark maron this is my podcast wtf and you're listening to listening to it. I'm now sitting in a hotel room in Minneapolis. This is coming to you on Monday morning, but it's Sunday morning for me. And I am waking up after recording my new Netflix special, Too Real. How do you like that?

Netflix special, Too Real. How do you like that? The Marc Maron Too Real tour just came to a head last night doing two shows to record a special for Netflix here in Minneapolis. And I know I've been talking about it. Obviously, if you listen to the show, you know we were moving towards this. But I got to say, it went pretty fucking good it went I you know I want to say I'm proud of myself I'd like to say also that you know I did my job and I enjoyed it I want to say all those things because they're all true there was a lot going on but I'll tell you about it today on the show is a Mark Mothersbaugh who many of you know from the band Devo. I was pretty excited to talk to Mark. Again, this happens sometimes. Yeah, sure. I love Devo. Who doesn't love Devo? Devo is very important, very important in the life of some people, people my age remember

the Devo thing when we were younger and kind of of followed it through. But, you know, Mark has done a lot of stuff and has a lot of stories and is a really kind of a genius guy. So I was happy to talk to him. And also, I want to say, if you're not signed up for my mailing list, you should go do that. Go to WTF pod dot com and sign up, because if you're not signed up, then you've missed out on a chance to win an advanced copy of our new book. Waiting for the punch words to live By from the WTF podcast. There's a sweepstakes only for people who got today's newsletter to win one of 50 advanced copies of the book. So good job to all of you who are already signed up and get my little missives every week. And if you weren't signed up, go do it now because we'll be running more promotions before the book comes out.

Sign up at WTFpod.com. So let's get into it. What exactly happened? I mean, you know this has been coming. I've been moving towards this for weeks and I've been talking to you about bringing that hour and a half, hour 45 down to about 65 to 70 minutes of stand-up. And I was sort of slacking on doing that because I get on stage and I just want to keep going. And I don't know, it locked in over the last few days, these Midwest shows. For some reason, I mean, there's good reason. I love playing out here in the Midwest.

The shows leading up to the show, I did at the Orpheum uh in Milwaukee which is an amazing theater and the dressing room is probably the best um the best dressing room ever there's a whole common area they've got records they got a record player they got an espresso bar they got separate rooms where you can hang out in the theater's gorgeous the staff is amazing and you know it was nice and that was a you know that was the first show I, that I really tried to lock in to the 70 Minutes. And then we went to Madison, me and my opener, this leg of the tour, Amber Preston, the amazing Amber Preston, the Midwest's own Amber Preston. And we did the Pabst in Madison, which was amazing, even though there was a lot of cement involved at the Pabst. I've never been to a theater, and I don't't know when it happened but the actual stage floor is poured concrete

made me a little nervous but uh because you know I did I did do a pratfall that's all I don't want to spoil but there was a pratfall classic comedy device in the special and then by the time I got to Minneapolis you know I just I was locked in and we drove, I rented a car, we drove across, drove four hours. And I knew that the crew and everybody involved with the special from Netflix to the local crew, to the guys they brought in from Chicago and wherever to do their jobs had one day, they couldn't load in the night before they had a load in that morning and put this whole thing together in one day. And it just always amazes me how how a good crew can just pull this shit together you're dealing with a blank canvas an empty theater

the lighting design was great the sound sounded great the set looked great it was just it was it was you know to show up at 11 in the morning and nothing is built and have that moment of like oh man what's uh i didn't have that because i knew they would get it together lynn shelton directed and it was just like wrangled all i mean it looked fucking great it was at the pantages here in minneapolis and it was just it was exciting and i gotta be honest with you i wasn't i wasn't freaked out at all i mean this is my i don't know not including half hour special like i did a half hour for hbo back 95, but you know, the records, my records not sold out, tickets still available, final engagement.

This has to be funny. You know, all leading up to like Thinky Payne, which was an album and my first hour plus special for Netflix. I did more later, another hour plus special for Epix. And then this one, it's a lot of work. Like sometimes I just have to say that shit to look and you know see the evolution over the past however long i've been doing this more than half my life so i don't know man it's it's an amazing thing to accomplish really to to be able to do your job and have these things happen because you've spent so much time

doing your job. It's a little difficult now because of the political climate and what you're up against on a day-to-day basis, coming through your phone, coming through your TV, coming through just the fear and or anger. Just knowing that while I was doing my show, the president of the United States was doing one of his lie, divide and terrorized hate your neighbor roadshows across the country. The press was doing their show for, you know, to to establish the fact that facts are important and we should celebrate that. And I was doing, you know, my little self-involved mortality themed special here in Minneapolis. And it was really amazing. You know, I think primarily because, you know, I know my job and, you know, I pulled the set together and everybody worked to make it happen.

And it was just stunning. And I chose Minneapolis because people in Minneapolis have a long tradition of live performing. They're decent people. They're respectful audiences. The audience was amazing. My fans are amazing. They're grownups, even if they're kids. And I don't mean kids. I mean, you know, in their 20s, I attract a certain type of person. And they know how to sit and behave and enjoy and be polite and be attentive. And Minneapolis is all about that. I've always loved this city.

And I'm glad that I did it. Not in the winter. But I'm excited about it. I guess that's what I'm trying to tell you people. I'm excited about it. And it went well. And I was calm. But I did have that thing.

And this happens. I think the first show that we taped might be a little weird. So I don't know which show we're going to use because they were both solid but I kept my emotions in check I was level-headed I was underplaying the whole experience so I could just show up and do it and when they brought me on stage I was overwhelmed with emotion and fighting back tears again that happened to me at Carnegie Hall it happens I don't know if it's big events that I've tried to make not big events in my mind but I had to struggle in those first minute in that first minute not to cry on stage and I don't know what's that about it's not a bad thing but it kind of it kind of upended my my plan for how I was going to open the show and

the tone I was going to open the show in so I. So I did my first 45 seconds trying not to cry. But it was good tears. It was good. And I don't know, man. It just went great. And I'm proud of it. And I'm excited for you guys to see it. So at the end of the taping, we had the crew out. We did a picture and Lynn and I had ordered like just a shitload of donuts and pizza and sandwiches. So, you know, I'm trying to be healthy. I'm trying to be healthy. But man, when you get done with a big piece of work and, you know, you get off stage and you walk into that dressing room area and there's just a firing squad of donuts

and pizza you know you want to you want to be part of that so that's another reason why i'm a little tired i think i've got a dough hangover but again thank you minneapolis thank you netflix uh you know thank you the crew of uh that did it some guys who were you guys worked on my last special, the set designer and some of the camera guys and Live Nation. Thank you, Lynn and Avalon, my management and Kelly at Avalon, David. What is I'm not accepting an award. I just want to acknowledge that a lot of people have to come together for me to do my little selfish thing and they did a great job so mark mothers bah i was nervous about this because you know he's he's done a lot of stuff and he is sort of uh an inspired and interesting person but you know he's very talkative and it was a it was it was kind of a amazing conversation. He's got this retrospective exhibition

of his visual art and sonic art, and it's now on display at the Gray Art Gallery at NYU. The exhibition is open through July 5th. Also, if you're in the New York City area, Mark will lead a six-sided keyboard performance of his compositions this Thursday, May 4th, at the NYU Skirball Center. You can get tickets from the Skirball box office.

That's the kind of guy he is. This is me and Mark Mothersbaugh back in the garage. Almost, almost anything. So no, you can't get snowballs on Uber Eats. But meatballs, mozzarella balls, and arancini balls? Yes, we deliver those. Moose? No. But moose head? Yes. Because that's alcohol, and we deliver that too. Along with your favorite restaurant food, groceries, and other everyday essentials. Order Uber Eats now.

For alcohol, you must be legal drinking age. Please enjoy responsibly. Product availability varies by region. See app for details. Calgary is a city built by innovators. For alcohol, you must be legal drinking age. Please enjoy responsibly. Product availability varies by region. See app for details. Calgary is a city built by innovators. Innovation is in the city's DNA. And it's with this pedigree that bright minds and future thinking problem solvers are tackling some of the world's greatest challenges from right here in Calgary.

From cleaner energy, safe and secure food, efficient movement of goods and people, and better health solutions, Calgary's visionaries are turning heads around the globe, across all sectors, each and every day. Calgary's on the right path forward. Take a closer look how at calgaryeconomicdevelopment.com. I don't know why I can't just unload it. You know, because you get to a point in your life and you're like, what good is this stuff? Do you ever have that moment where you're like, what would it feel like with nothing? Yeah, it's easy to, well, you can imagine it when you're on the road, right? Yeah, it's great. Yeah.

You ever get in those hotel rooms and you're like, I'm not responsible for any of this and it's clean yeah uh and i i took it to the extreme accidentally once because we used to have our suitcases picked up outside of the room yeah and i managed to put my suitcase outside of the room while i just had my underpants on for going to bed yeah and um it went so i got luckily somebody somewhere had a yellow devo suit i could wear on the plane and make it to the next they took is that real they took it close well because we put our suitcases out and there was some that was back in the days where we had yeah disposable cash oh right right so but it was nice that someone happened to have a devo suit luckily there, somebody had something.

Someone had fashioned some industrial garment for you to wear. So this show, it's a retrospective, right? Yes. Of everything. Of everything Mothers bought. Well, yeah, art related. The show has about 300 pieces of art in it. 3,000.

I'm sorry. Isn't it? Now, but wouldn't you consider everything you do art related? Really? I mean, wasn't that how it sort of. Well, I mean, maybe I'm not talking about necessarily jobs. But I mean, from the inception of your thing, it was an art compulsion, yeah? Yes, that's correct.

So I would think that even earlier Devo performances, if not most of them through the beginning, were somewhat performance art pieces. Well, we thought we were, to tell you the truth, we thought we were an art movement. Sure. We thought we were Art Devo. Right. thought we were an art movement sure we thought we were art devo right and um we were art students devil devolution and the music thing was part of it but it was almost accident accidental uh because we we thought we were interested in all the art movements that happened in europe between world war one and world war ii so we loved agit prop yeah and we we loved the stage you know stage performances that included visuals and music and motion and uh theater yeah and politics yeah and um

we thought that's that's what we thought we were doing we thought that's what we thought we were doing. We thought that was where we were going. And then, you know, you get a record deal, and then you find out there's other people that have ideas, too, of what you're doing. Sure. And they want to box you in and make some money. Yeah, and you end up going down these paths that were kind of not totally intended. Right. Well, that interests me, though, this sort of inception of everything,

because you grew up in what part of Ohio? Akron. We were the rubber capital of the world. Oh, good. At the time. For tires and things? Tires and all things made out of rubber. Yeah.

Souls. And, yeah, so that was, so we were a wannabe. Like, Cleveland was kind of a Detroit wannabe. Sure. We were a Cleveland wannabe like cleveland was kind of a detroit wannabe we were a cleveland and it was just you and your brother two brothers and two sisters and both my brothers were in the band originally so when you're growing up what uh you know what what was your dad doing was he in the rubber business well kind of everybody is in a way even if they're not but he was a salesman and um you know he was uh he was kind of like he had kind of like a dale carnegie you know kind of he was a america

is a land of opportunity sure kind of guy he he had a really great you know who he reminded me of in a way is uh timothy le Really? Yeah. Except for industry. Yeah, except he was, yeah, he was the- Not acid. He was a different, but I mean, they were both like super positive guys. Charismatic. Charismatic and the kind of, they were both the kind of people that would look at people at a party in a room or something and they'd they'd shake hands with the with the guys that were the most important right and but they'd

also go check out the people that were just wall wallflowers and were just and they'd talk to him and strike up conversations and so he had a hustle he was a good salesman yeah yeah so like the shift from because it seems to me like in looking at this stuff and growing up with the, you know, the first few records in high school, I remember when the first one came out that you seem to define like this, I don't know what you would call it. I have a hard time labeling it, but it seems like what Devo stood for in the aesthetic of Devo kind of changed culture a bit and certainly music. Like there was a sort of an industrial americana thing that you seem to kind of like i i don't know what to call it but it seems to be referenced in exactly

the world that your father came from and kind of turning it on its head a little bit just visually and otherwise yeah um you i mean this is like old but you probably know i i went to kent state and we were parts of the the shooting shooting and that kind of really affected us. Well, let's get there because I'm sort of obsessed with that right now because I've seen things about it lately. Yeah. But when you went before you got to Kent State, I mean, it's the early 60s, right? When you're growing up? Yeah.

And the entire culture changed. The hippie thing happened. And when you were in high school, what were you gravitating towards before the shift? Well, I was an artist already. I knew I was. When did you find that out? I was seven, and I got a pair of glasses and found out I'd been going, I'd gone through second grade legally blind. And in one day, I put on a pair of glasses, and I saw things I'd never seen before, including clouds and telephone wires and house.

It went on that long? Yeah. And that's not uncommon. That's actually pretty common that kids can function fairly well yeah and then all of a sudden you find out well they've been doing this without really being able to see anything or at least you know yeah just light and dark and colors and things like that but if you use sound you know you can like guide yourself yeah and and you know if you come up and you grab

somebody by the face to look at them they just think you're crazy and need ritalin or something probably but it's you know once you've made an identification then you then you know that that pink and blue object is granny walking around right right you can name the shapes but i but i knew that but that's that's when I decided I was an artist. When you could see clearly. Yeah. That moment. Yeah.

What in that moment did you think your art was going to be? Okay. Well, here's what happened. The next day I was back at school and my school teacher who had been spanking me because corporal punishment was very popular in, I guess that was 1957 or 58 or something whatever year it was you know and uh spanking me every day and putting me in a corner and sending me to the principal's office she's looking over and i had never seen trees before i'd only knew the the part that was attached to the ground that if you could run into yeah and um she said you draw trees better than me and just saying that it was the first time she'd said something nice to me so so it was like that made me think oh i

want to be an artist and that was it that was it now when you kind of got into high school and stuff were you were you gravitating towards the the kind ofie trip? Yeah, it was like a few years pass, and then we're sitting around in a kitchen with five kids at a table, and my dad's got a little portable black and white TV set. Like now you give your kid a phone or an iPad or something to keep him busy. And he'd turn on the TV, and we'd all watch Ed Sullivan.

And I remember seeing the Beatles'd all watch Ed Sullivan. And I remember seeing the Beatles come on, Ed Sullivan, and I go, that's why I've been tortured with keyboard lessons for the last five years. To do that.

I knew there was a reason I had to play music because I hated music up until then. Really? And when you saw the Beatles that delivered the message? That was like,

that changed it. The outfits, the matching outfits, was that the moment where you realized matching outfits might be uh they did this crazy music they were and then you know and then um the second time they came on you know it's like um uh john lennon not only was playing a keyboard but he used his i didn't know who jerry lee lewis or uh little richard were so when i saw john john lennon go like this i thought i thought mrs savory never told me you could use your elbow to play the organ that's amazing i thought he was i thought he was incredible right i thought how did he ever think and not only that he was using this keyboard that was the black keys were white and the white keys were black. Oh, my God, I'd never seen anything like it. It was a Vox Continental. Yeah, yeah.

And that did it. So that really, I became obsessed with the British invasion. As a kid. As a kid. And then when did you start doing visual art, kind of like collaging and stuff and cartooning? That was before that probably. Oh, yeah? Just doodling here and there?

Yeah. Putting things together? I was always drawing. I draw every day. You do? Yeah. Is it therapeutic, or is it compulsion, or which is it? All of it.

Yeah. You know, it's like that's what keeps me from, I've never shot anybody, or I can't even think of anybody I want to kill, and there's a lot of horrible people out there. But, okay, so you decide to go to art school. I'm just trying to picture the shift between, because like recently, you know, I read the book Altamont. I read a very thorough book on Altamont.

Oh, okay. So, you know, so this, you know, is one of the great kind of symbolic rituals of the death of the 60s. And then I watched a documentary by Adam Curtis that really puts forth the death of the 60s and then i watched a documentary by adam curtis that really puts forth the idea that the the kent state shootings were the end of an active political left you know by you know in terms of you know middle to upper class kids you know yeah having the courage to push up against authority you definitely i saw that at my school for sure it's it was i mean you were there that's why i'm trying to figure out you know when when you're

there it's two years in right you're two years into art school and you're doing what music or poetry no i didn't i didn't study music at all yeah i came in on a partial art scholarship and the first year i i didn't know exactly what what I was going to take and then I found out about printmaking and I fell in love with it. I became obsessed with printmaking. So screening or the actual? Screen printing. I did screen printing, lithos, copper plates, all the different styles, but screen printing was my love because I could wait until 3.30

and all the kids, they'd hear the bell go and then they'd run off to their sorority houses and their fraternities and their bars or wherever they were going to go party. And that meant I had the whole art department to myself between, you know, five at night and five in the morning the next day and so instead of you know queuing up with a bunch of kids to do a print yeah you know i could i could burn all the screens and one night i could then print them one color at a time you know by the time i finished cleaning each screen and re re um exposing it to make another color yeah the the paper would be dried so i could take them all back and I'd print the next color and I could finish a piece of art in one night. And so I loved school. I hated school up until then. K through 12 were a nightmare

because I was somehow the kid with a kick me thing written on my back permanently. You didn't have any friends? I had a couple friends friends but they were all the outcasts yeah what they would call the the nerd crew yeah we were we were the and you were got did you get like you just bullied constantly yeah pretty much that's that was pretty much it just somehow i fit into that i i had the right look i combed my hair down like the beatles instead of back like elvis presley which kind of was upsetting

the status quo status quo you know and and uh did you build up a resentment over that I mean did it did you were you quietly raging well you know I I there wasn't any there wasn't any uh way to i had no way to to i tried fighting back i i i got held down and had my hair cut off a couple times and one time i had a fork and i stabbed a kid in the arm and that didn't help didn't it didn't help the fork wasn't enough the fork did not it was it was inspirational for for my enemies so so it was like i hated yeah high school i just it just just turned out to be a bad experience and then college was this whole other thing i disappeared into the crowd my hair grew as long as i wanted it to i could wear whatever i wanted to wear nobody cared that i was invisible and i loved that and i could go to the art department i could print art i could make decals because um graffiti wasn't worked out yet

so instead i would print things on decal paper yeah and then i dip it in water and i go around the campus you know like in the middle of the night. And I'd put things up on mirrors and windows. This was just an inspired act. Yeah, it was kind of my own graffiti. Yeah, but there was no real, no one knew it was you. But nobody knew it was me. Like what kind of stuff were you stickering? Oh.

So you're way ahead of the curve on that. You might have invented that. Because now I get stickers every day. Like people send me things with stickers and I'm like, I'm 53. What am I going to do with this sticker? Actually, that's how I met Jerry Casale. He was a grad student and I was a sophomore. And he said, he came up to me at school and he said,

are you the guy that's putting up pictures of astronauts holding potatoes standing on the moon and i go yeah why he says what's your interest in potatoes and and and we hit that was it we hit it off yeah what was he doing in school at that time he was um an art major and he he was um getting ready to graduate and it was going to do a grad student show. And he liked my decals. He said, can you help me make Potato Man decals? So I helped him make Spudman decals. And we put them on. He blew up photos from his high school yearbook.

And put them hanging off of people's faces. Potatoes. And that was his senior project. And of course, the teachers thought that was immature. Immature, but that seems to be influenced by some of the stuff here, at least the Dada movement and whatever, right? Oh, yeah.

Like that there was sort of a kind of absurd hilariousness to it all. That, you know, something you grapple with, you're like, is there a point? I don't know. Right, but just enough to like make people think right well then keep them uncomfortable sure sure sure what are they what is it trying to do to me this art so neither one of you were playing music yet we were both playing music yeah um he was in a blues band that was, momentarily, he was just a little too, his sense of humor didn't click with them.

So he was ousted, but he was more into the blues and played a blues bass. That came in handy later, though. That came in great. Yeah. And what were you doing? I was, in my freshman year, I got a call from a friend of mine who was a drummer who said, said, hey, I met these guys. They're Vietnam vets.

They were football players before they went to Vietnam. They went over there, killed people, found out about drugs, came back, decided they wanted to start a band, but none of them play an instrument. And so they're putting together a band, and they bought me a drum set. How would you like to have a B3 organ? I said, that's impossible. They go, no, come meet these guys. And I met them, and they were totally from,

they were probably from the world that would have been kicking my butt a few years before that in high school. But they had gone through a life-changing experience kind of broke them and came back yeah and akron had changed while they were gone because um the reason they were over in vietnam was to help uh american business you know like exploit third world countries and use their use their resources in expense so that you know so it's people started people started uh i mean not people the all the tire companies kind of while while vietnam war was going on they started moving out of akron going to brazil going to asia and uh hiring people for like twelve dollars a month instead of $12 an hour.

And these guys, people were getting hip to that. The counterculture and people were. Yeah, because they came back. They thought they were going to do what their fathers and their grandfathers had done. Get the job back. They thought they were going to work in the factory. And they thought they had a steady job. And that wasn't the case.

And Akron still isn't totally recuperated from a i mean they are there are a lot of artists that came out of akron probably because of that but um uh that whole area there's there's something about you know there's something about what's happened in this country that that is valid that that um that they're angry about no definitely and you know it's been happening for years is sort of like what i'm getting from what you're saying and ohio got hit very hard and you know the you know the reaction to that over the last five four or five decades has been this horrible you know opioid epidemic which really started in ohio and

southern ohio yeah i just found you need anything by the way yeah what do you get nice so you're this horrible opioid epidemic, which really started in Ohio, in southern Ohio. Yeah, I just found that out. Do you need anything, by the way? Yeah, what do you get? Nice. So you're hanging out with these vets who are kind of pushing the edge. So I was with them. They said if I wrote music, they would pay my room and board.

So I already had my school thing worked out. So I would go to school every day and do art and then i'd come home and i'd write music for these dudes i did that for a number of years before the shootings happened at kent state and then that brought brought this guy jerry casali who who along with a couple of his friends, they were already kind of, they were definitely conceptual artists, and he was definitely looking for something to do, and we just kind of gelled together. We talked about what we had seen happen at school.

What did happen? Did you remember the whole build to it? I mean, were you at the protest? I don't have an eyewitness account uh i remember after the shooting i remember fbi agents leaving my parents house and going into my mom was in shock because they had pictures of my younger brother who was uh i think a junior in high school at the time had hitchhiked to kent and was uh he they he was lighting an american flag or he had a flaming american flag and he was trying to stop firemen from putting out the fire at the rotzi building

yeah and they're like it's our bobby he's only 15 how did this happen you know it was like that kind of kind of stuff and and did it happen during a huge protest on campus is that what went down yeah kent kent state when i got there it was an amazing school and uh the art department was incredibly vibrant and they were bringing in artists from all over the world to to um do residencies and i saw films like um satiricon and things like that that that you didn't see if you went to the drive-in theater in akron was it right and was there like art films like kenneth anger and stuff like that or or all that kind of stuff coming through and we all got that and you know richard myers the filmmaker taught there oh okay yeah and uh in those years devo even ended up um in footage that he says that i

saw him last year and he said i know i got it in the basement somewhere but i don't know what happened to that movie so it was like uh it was really on the sort of uh kind of cutting edge of what was happening in experimental art and experimental film and music. Well, yeah, Kent was. It was beautiful. And then after the shootings, they closed the school for about four or five months. And when we came back in the fall to start school again, it was a totally different atmosphere. It was like everybody had gone to sleep. Did you know any of the people that were killed?

No. As a matter of fact, some of them were just people that were not even part of the protests that just happened to be walking by. Do you remember that day? Were you there? I remember armored vehicles going down the street and them going, leave the city.

Leave the city now. And it was shocking. They just closed down the whole school. And then the guards started shooting? They shot first. That was their excuse and then then they closed things down yeah oh my god i mean like i can't the reason why you know when when you know the politics changes as drastically as it has now that you know that you forget that that was and

is part of our history. And most of us have not seen that. And, you know, you saw it. You know, that was here in America. That was armored vehicles. And that was, you know, killing kids as a reaction to political activism. Right. There was nothing happening that was threatening any of them. It was just the governor just didn't like there being

any lack of control for him. And he wanted to just show a lesson. How did it affect you personally? Outside of the school closing, I mean, you were there in this, a free zone of creativity. And then this shit just kind of, the hammer comes down in the most extreme way.

Well, as artists, I was collecting things like, right about at the same time, I had got invited to a free dinner at a church. And a free dinner sounded great. And I got in a car with these people and we drove up to Cleveland and we went to a steel workers union hall. And there was like,

it was a big cafeteria and everybody got a free meal. And I thought, oh, great. This is great. And then afterwards, then somebody stood up and they started talking about the end times. And I went, oh, okay,

now we're going to pay for dinner. And this guy started talking about how the signs were becoming more and more prevalent and that we were getting closer to the end of planet Earth. And the hair on my arms just stood up. I was like, wow. He was speaking in tongues? And as soon as he stopped, somebody stood up in the audience and said, Jesus said that he will be coming back soon.

And when he comes back, there will be signs. And then this guy went on and described it. And then he sat down. And when he sat down, somebody else got up and they had a whole other language. It was like, own really intense you know like um nonsensical non non literal uh guttural noises and somebody stood up and deciphered that and that happened about half a dozen times and sounds in the interpretation of sound yeah and then then they broke us up into little groups because they were trying to

because it was a recruitment thing and and so they went around a circle and they got to me and i was i didn't know what to do so i just kind of emulated uh fred flintstone and went yabba-dabba-doo yabba-dabba-doo a couple times but but because i was just not prepared for where i where i was but i left there very impressed and i remember walking because i lived in downtown akron at the time i remember walking and i heard this homeless guy you know like like ranting and it made me stop and i went over to listen to him because i was thinking where is this coming from there's something where people are are relinquishing their intellect yeah and they're embracing something nonsensical that that they're looking for something spiritual and i was curious i was thinking well wait a minute we

only use there's only 10 of our brain that works in this language. Maybe this other language, maybe that has something to do with the other 90%. And I started paying attention to ranters and to speaking in tongues became interesting to me. It became something that I thought might be a clue as to who we were and why we were here yeah and and what would you ultimately figure out um okay here's what i think yeah i think the 10 of our brains that we know about yeah it's a nanny for the other 90 sure and it's like it has to do all the stuff like get dressed and make sure you. Process.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Flush. But the other 90% is the part that's like the dolphin part of the human or the alien. It's the part that might still have telecommunication powers or might have fourth dimension powers or might. fourth dimension powers or might so of course it it's really selfish if that's the case though because it's not sharing much of that information with the other 10 percent that's that's in charge of things and and or or the other way the the nanny is not allowing it something yeah there's

something there's something dysfunctional An adversarial relationship between the dolphin and the nanny. And what you end up with is just this kind of unnatural, dysfunctioning species that is dangerous to the rest of the planet. Yeah, and driven by habit and fear. Yes. I agree. Habit and fear. Habit and fear. Yeah.

Don't break the habit or the fear is unleashed. And don't let that guy be different. Exactly. So anyhow, so even with Devo, and we decided we wanted to be music reporters. And we did that with our art. Well, when did the vision happen? Like, you know you you have this moment you know the kent state shootings happen you find yourself in a strange church you're now

that kind of you know blew your mind in terms of you know what do we really know about who we are and how our brain works so when does the mission of devo start to kind of manifest itself? I think the first bits of it were happening in 1970. I think it was post-shootings, and it was us all talking to each other. It was you, Jerry, Bob? My brother. There was a Bob Lewis who was kind of, he was interesting because he was like,

he was like Mr. Encyclopedia. I liked him because he had a lot of information about everything. But then my brother was kind of, him and Jerry had this kind of more energy where they, like my brother Bob was kind of like a he was a guitar player serious yeah that's what he was about you know and this other stuff whatever you think yeah yeah yeah he just wanted to play guitar i lit a flag on fire and got in trouble for it i don't care you know and then um and then uh my brother jim yeah who was our first drummer um we started talking about

drum sounds and and what we wanted the band to sound like and i i really wanted to i i didn't want to be a rock and roll band i thought we were like this art movement anyhow and the band part of it was just part of it right and i i i said you know we need modern sounds i was thinking of like like the futurists in Italy that were like adding foghorns and electric motors to orchestras. Yeah. And I thought, well, you know, we need mortar blasts

and we need V2 rocket sounds and we need ray guns and we need sounds that come from our culture, you know, to add to our music. And my brother Jim invented maybe the first electronic drum set. He definitely, he worked at a Midas muffler shop at the time, and he took tailpipes and built a stand and then took practice drum pads and added acoustic guitar pickups to him and ran him through

fuzz tones and wah-wah pedals and echo plexus and ring modulators and he'd play drums and it's it was the most god-awful awesome incredible sound you ever heard uh and he was he but he became so obsessed with the electronic thing he he became so into electronics, that he then started circuit bending, and there was no such word as that at the time, but he started manipulating all of our synths and our amps and everything, everything electronic. He would play with it and make it do things it wasn't supposed to do. And he lost interest in drumming and just became interested in that.

And that was the start. And we were like, at the very beginning, was probably the most of an art band that Devo ever sounded, I think. And some of those recordings are available, aren't they? Oh, yeah, I'm sure. Yeah. I think just about everything is. Is out there in the world. It's out there, yeah. If it Oh, yeah, I'm sure. Yeah. I think just about everything is.

Is out there in the world. It's out there, yeah. If it was recorded somewhere, it's probably out there. Yeah. And so it was not, it had nothing to do with songs or hooks or anything. It was just expression and integration of sounds. Although, you know, we were always interested in pop culture, you know. Sure. We were always interested in pop culture. So we loved the idea of instead of being another Pirubu or another... Were they around then already?

They were. Matter of fact, we swapped clubs. They'd come down and play at the club that we played in in Akron. And then we'd go up to Cleveland and play at the place that they used to play. Yeah. But they were more song driven. At the time, they became very art, farther out art. But they were like kindred spirit for sure.

He's an interesting guy. What's that singer's name? He was Crocus Behemoth at the time. And then he went back to his real name, David Thomas. Yeah, he's sort of an interesting guy. You guys are friends? Well, I wouldn't say that. We were like artists working

from the same part of the world at the same time. I mean, I got him upset one night because we played in Cleveland, and our show was very, for as weird as it was, it was also very formalized. And we'd wear like these yellow plastic hazardous waste suits early on. And then we would rip them off about two-thirds of the way through the show.

And we'd have another outfit on underneath. And we did the same. We really built the shows really tight. But the last song would be this character boogie boy that was kind of my alter ego and he boogie boy could speak in tongues boogie boy would do things that we we never knew exactly what was going to happen the other 90 and so just one night boogie boy um he stuffed his uh i bought one of those like three dollar plastic sauna suits or something that were on tv you know one of those it was like a rom popiel probably sold them and i filled it full of newspaper yeah so i was big like like crocus behemoth was at the time and um i came out and and sang his lyrics to one of his

songs over the middle of uh giacomo uh-huh because giacomo was a song where it was like we would use that to make people go crazy uh-huh because you we do the are we not men we are depot chant for a long long enough so that finally there'd be some Vietnam vet who just came there because he wanted to hear Foghat and his favorite songs. Right. And after about five minutes of that, the guy would go, okay, that's it.

And he'd slam his beer down and he'd come up on stage and attack us. And we loved being a lightning rod for hostility in those days. Well, it was something it seems like you grew up with. Yeah, it was kind of like. And you turned it on itself. It's like, come on. It was something that we needed to expel, I think. So the outfits and stuff, you guys enjoyed the provoking.

Well, we didn't want to be a rock band. Even then, we knew we didn't my brother bob thought that was he didn't care why because it was boring or we just thought it was we thought rock and roll was over it was like already the early 70s yeah and it had been going on for like 20 years now it wasn't a time to end this stupid stuff and uh and rock and roll but but partly in defense of that was because what had happened in rock and roll is like after 1970 and after shootings around the country yeah and everybody went to sleep politically music came back as corporate rock it was like bands like boston sticks you know mid 70s yeah mid 70s it was like um i'm

white i'm stupid i'm a misogynist and i'm proud of it was basically the politics of that stuff and then there was disco which was kind of a beautiful woman with no brain right and uh you know so you didn't want to do either of those so And so we knew that wasn't anything what we were doing. We were an art movement. We were like, we were Art Devo. And what was the intention of the movement in your mind? Like Art Devo? I thought we were like, Jerry and I, we thought we were musical reporters.

We thought we were musical reporters. We thought we were visual reporters. We were making these little films, and we were like, we fantasized a DevoVision re-education channel on TV where kids, instead of doing the stupid dances they did at Studio 54 or any of the clubs, they'd come and they'd do these these kind of like paramilitary, uh, uh, uh, aerobic classes. You know, we imagined, you know, like everybody having this whole new set of, um, of Lang, a whole new language of how to move in at a concert, for instance, and, and how to, how to behave at a concert. But it was unified. Yeah. The idea was that you want, but that was the joke. It wasn't some sort of fascist movement. It was, no,. The idea was that you want, but that was the joke.

It wasn't some sort of fascist movement. No, no, we were saving the planet from stupidity. Yeah. How'd that go? Well, it didn't, I don't know. If you look at what's going on right now, you'd say we were not paranoid at all. That's true. And did you find, though, like at the time where you said you went back to school after a five-month hiatus and also what you're saying now about the evolution of corporate rock,

did you find that that's sort of somnambulistic or that's sleepwalking? Did you find that most creative people chose to withdraw or go inside and create as opposed to continue to sort of like actively fight? Yeah, yeah. It's like the people that were kindred spirits before, they were in shock too of what had happened. And nobody thought of that. We didn't think protesting the war in Vietnam was something that we would get killed for.

You know, we thought this is the right thing to do. It's the moral thing to do. It's the intelligent thing to do. And I couldn't think of one single Vietnamese person I wanted to kill. So it was especially absurd to me. So then after that happened, and then I guess capitalism and the market forces sort of won out and appropriated music. So you guys were working outside, off the grid, to do something new and something jarring. And how did that evolve into, you know, getting a record deal?

Yeah, you know, it's like we were thinking, who is it out there that we respect? And, you know, I love people that spoke in tongues, like Wildman Fisher and Captain Beefheart. I love them, and I met them, and it was unsatisfying in a way to meet them. Why? It always is kind of. It is, yeah. It's like Captain Beefheart, I think I saved him from going to jail one day because I was over at his rehearsal at his place. Here?

Out here, yeah. And he wanted some ice cream before he went home, and so we took him to an ice cream place, and I was talking with the drummer, and we heard this woman screaming, and we look over, and she's screaming because Captain Beefheart, who's in the middle of a really hot summer, has a long black coat on and a black hat.

He's like hoovering over this little kid, helping this little child draw something. Yeah. And this woman is freaking out because it did look weird. Yeah. And this woman is freaking out because it did look weird. Yeah. And so we went over and we pulled him off and we took him out of the,

and he said something like, my baby won't let me have a baby. And we're like, wow, I can see why. Yeah, it's a good hook though. That's a good song. My baby won't let me have a baby. Yeah. He was impressive to watch

with his band because although he couldn't write music out and any thing that was even vaguely and he could barely communicate in a in a uh a way that people would play they all his band his band members all loved him and they treated him like the like this amazing infant messiah. And so they'd fight over, after he left, they'd fight over, what did he mean when he said, here's what your guitar should sound like. And he'd make these movements. And then they'd argue over what it should be.

And they would try to work it out. And they'd show him the next day and he'd go, no, yeah. Stuff like that. I became sort of fascinated with him and i i hear he was like pretty you know a kind of a task master in terms of getting that sound but he would get it that was the impressive thing that he would use these very you know like um and like watching him actually served me well when i kind of went into the belly of the beast and started scoring films. Because it made me listen to people that had absolutely no ability to talk about what they wanted musically other than to say, I just, it's just, you know, it's Robert De Niro had diarrhea and it doesn't look like a love scene at all. And the woman could smell, and it just, you've got to make them, you've got to help it out.

You've got to help. Help it out. And they'd just have things, or the sky was overcast, and they needed it to be a sunshine sky. So then they say, you've got to help me make it a sunshiny day here right now. say you got to help me make it a sunshiny day here right now and and uh instead of like being confused i just kind of learned how to like enjoy that part of my it's kind of in some ways i have to say i secretly love people that are totally inarticulate about anything musical but they know what they want in some way and that's really great they know a feeling or they know something they know something yeah want in some way, and that's really great. I love that. They know a feeling.

They know something. They know something, yeah. They look for these words, and then I get to try and interpret what they mean. You're interpreting the speaking in tongues. Yes. Yeah. Okay, so you guys are plugging away in your hazmat suits, making noises. So in Ohio primarily, when do you tour?

When do you sort of become on the radar? Well, you know, somewhere around 1974. Yeah. I'm a little bit dyslexic with numbers. I think I'm correct. Okay. I have this nice timeline in your book. Actually, being dyslexic is helpful for me.

It is? nice timeline in your book actually being dyslexic is helpful for me because uh it's it's like if somebody says can you write something like uh like mozart's uh wedding march or something and then you go like this but then you if i i can have it in my head and i can write it incorrectly and then it becomes an original piece and so it's so it works the dyslexia is the so i i use i have just enough of it that it's useful everywhere except for i have to write down phone numbers because i can't remember seven numbers in a row yeah and well yeah and then now like they're all the area codes are different yeah um it says 19 it looks like 75, 76, 77. Let's see, no. 76, you produced the first single, Giacomo with Mongoloid on your label,

Bougie Boy. Yeah. So is that what gets out there? Yeah, yeah. Right before that, we had made a film with Giacomo and Secret Agent Man. And we made the film because Chuck Statler, who was in that art class

with Jerry and I, he had gone to Minneapolis because he wanted to be a commercial director. And he came back and he had this popular science magazine back and showed us it on the cover.

It says, there's this young white couple holding a silver disc that looks the same size as a vinyl LP. Yeah. And it it says laser discs everybody will have them by christmas that's basically what it said in the article and we're like laser discs and they got they can hold twice as much material plus you get pictures with it

and that's us we're audio visual people for sure we're we're like yeah we make we make films and we make uh paintings and we we design shows and we and music's part of it too and so we thought that's it we're making product for laser discs that's what we thought that's why it sounded good too with the word laser in it yeah and it didn't sound like rock and roll we love the idea that it wasn't saying the word rock and roll like satisfaction like your version of it is great. And there's been other versions, Otis Redding and so on. But when you say that you had a sort of contentious relationship with corporate rock, what was the decision to do Satisfaction? Well, I mean, we loved the Rolling Stones.

Good. Come on. They were so freaking awesome weren't they and still are and it was 1974 it was 10 years later right since since the original we thought well it needs to be reinterpreted for the 70s right so but but it happened kind of it was very it was a very organic thing bob we were in this uh we were in a car wash in ohio that we were allowed to rehearse and that had no heat yeah and so we're standing there next to like tubs of soap and things like that yeah and paper towels and and um we're wearing coats and you can see your steam come out

and bob gusselli starts playing that kind of little riff yeah and then alan's playing something on the drums that's that's kind of very it's like it's like it's backwards or something and jerry's playing playing a bass my brother's playing guitar and and singing satisfaction on it just made us all laugh right and uh and that's and we loved it because it seemed like a way to we when people, because people would say, what are you guys? What are you doing? We thought if we, satisfaction could be like a doorway in so you could see what Devo was

about with that song. That was better than like any kind of a verbal description of what we were trying to do. And better than the anthem, which was the Jaco Homo to a degree? Well, the anthem was really good for agitating people and getting them to pay attention. But if somebody was curious what kind of music we were playing, and we played them Satisfaction

and then maybe Uncontrollable Urge because that Uncontrollable Urge we put that as the first song on our first album because I took the opening chords from I Want to Hold Your Hand and put them

on Uncontrollable Urge. Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That was all out know out of she loves you you know but but our reprocessing right right right oh my god and so and it's funny because it it didn't it wasn't unnoticed by um by john lennon who who came to a devo show yeah one night in in new york we were playing max's kansas city and and you set up your equipment in the back wall right and to take your equipment out uh we had to wait for the

the whole place to empty out at the end of the night so we had our econoline van parked out front and i'm sitting there in the passenger seat and he's walking out with ian hunter and they're both really drunk uh-huh and john lennon looks over at me and he's like, he goes, Oh, I know that's that guy that was, and he came up and he stuck his face right here. And he went,

yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Right in my face. And I was like, okay, we can have a, we can drive off the road and die tonight. I don't care. Oh, that was great.

It was pretty awesome. He felt it. He knew it. He knew it. He, he, he sang. Yeah he he sang yeah yeah yeah more than i had at that point that's fucking spectacular i probably sung it more than he ever did right but he sang it more than i had at that point and as you evolve as a band and

you become popular and you're selling a few records did was there ever that and you changed the the the tone and the total outfits on occasion, but they all seemed to match. Yeah, they were always not glamorous. But I wonder if that matching outfit thing, that was something you pulled from the 50s bands, I think. No? Or maybe? Yeah, except ours were more like maintenance men outfits. No, of course. Yeah, yeah.

But the idea of it. Yeah, there was more than once where somebody would hand us, we'd be waiting out front for a cab to take us to a, or a car to take us to a concert we were playing. And somebody would get out of their car and hand us the keys because they'd look at our outfits. These guys are working here. But that was mostly theater, really. The intent was that not everything had a purpose. Well, it was, I think it gave us an organized look. Yeah.

And I think that's really what we wanted out of it. We wanted to look like cogs in a machine rather than, we were kind of already at that point, we were over at being things like tom petty and the heartbreakers right or uh you know where one person comes out and they become the star of the band we were kind of less interested in that and we're we thought of ourselves as all like like parts of a machine a movement still yeah yeah we thought of like the that scene in metropolis where where there's you know like uh guys controlling this gigantic machine but they're just part of the machine too really right now i don't know if a lot of people know that that whip it was

intended to be a political song correct yeah you know uh we overthought everything, I'm sure. But yeah, it was, at the time, we'd been touring, and people would say, well, we love America, but your foreign policy is ridiculous. And Jimmy Carter was the president at the time, and it was kind of our, like, come on, Jimmy. Did it read to the public as um it was kind of our like come on jimmy yeah it did did it read to the public as that no of course it was like what happened is like some dj and in uh florida actually started playing it in clubs and and then when we'd show up at radio stations because that was what they made you do sure you're in a band you're going to you know you're going to toledo but before you go to the to the venue to do sound check you're going to stop it you know k-a-b-d sure yeah radio and and

you plug it we'd be and they go i got devo in the other room and then he'd go you know i whipped it just this morning ah yeah right you'd be like okay so then it became a jerk off joke okay among things yeah what was he uh when you were writing that what was kind of the Yeah, right. You'd be like, okay. So then it became a jerk-off joke. Among other things, yeah. When you were writing that, what was kind of the, you know, were you still drawing from, actively drawing from, you know, other inspiration, art and whatnot? Yeah, always. I mean, that even, it was even kind of a bit of a deconstruction of, there's like a little bit of a baseline from Pretty Woman even in it, you know. Uh-huh.

And there's like, so we would always like just, sometimes we started off our songs because of an idea for a film. Yeah. By that point, because we were kind of like at the forefront of that stuff yeah when we made our own films we're unlike uh what became the the method of doing it after music videos yeah music videos instead of art films yeah uh it was this thing where you the record companies would hire somebody to make a film for you. But we used to make our own because that's what we did. Yeah.

And so a lot of our songs started off as an idea for a film before they became a song. Oh, really? And what about lyrically? Were you drawing from poets or did you have people that influenced you? All different things. I remember going to Japan for our Freedom of Choice show. And I was friends with this band called The Plastics. And my friend Hajime came up to me and said,

Hey Mark, you know what the name of your band is in Japan? I go, no. He goes, there's no direct translation of Freedom of Choice, so your album title is called The Psychology of Desire. And we're like, that's awesome. What a great, that's so cool. We loved it. We were laughing that, of course, Japan has no Freedom of Choice.

And I remember before that tour was over, we were at a bar, and these two it was just Devo because it was late at night and my brother Bob took the challenge to eat fugu which is like a poisonous fish and they made him sushi out of it

and he got sick and he's just sitting there with his head on the counter while we're still eating sushi of course we didn't take him to a doctor or anything and then there were these two businessmen that were watching us the whole time on the counter while we're still eating sushi. Of course, we didn't take him to a doctor or anything. And then there were these two businessmen that were watching us the whole time

that were the only other patrons at this sushi bar. And they both had business suits on. And one of them comes up and he's kind of drunk. And he goes, my symbol, big. And we just were like, what? And then his friend comes up and goes, no, his symbol's small. And then he goes, no, my symbol big. And he goes, no, his symbol's small. And then he goes, no, my symbol's big.

And he goes, no, his symbol's very small or something like that. But we're looking, and the one guy has this tie bar on. And it's a hand, like a businessman's suit sleeve. You could see the little, like a shirt. And it was a hand holding a pen. And it went across the tie. And on it, it it said new traditionalists and we're like new traditionalists and we started talking about that we're saying

what does that mean and we thought wow that's a that's kind of a cool term isn't it because it's like traditions that are new that's kind of what we want to do we want to start new traditions like we want people to think first you know and know, and we want to do positive mutations instead of, you know, just letting mutations being, you know, pushed on you. And we love that idea. And so I remember we went back and we went to write for that album. We're thinking, so we named a song Psychology of Desire because we're like, what are they going to translate it to? Freedom of choice? You know, we were laughing. And I remember getting back to um and we named our album new traditionalists yeah so

we get back to japan and i i told hajimi about the you know that the song title he goes oh yeah he's i said would you think of the um i said would you think of the album title we got that from and i told him the story about the two guys he goes he goes, album title not so good, Mark. I go, why? He goes, the new Devo album in Japan is called Yuppie. New traditionalist translated to yuppie in Japanese, and we didn't. So we're playing a tour for an album called Yuppie. But everybody showed up.

They all showed up. It was kind of an interesting journey for that through words. Yuppie. Okay. Yeah. So was there a point where you guys kind of tapped out or felt like you were selling out or any of that? Well, you know, it was well you know it was you know it was um i i think whip it was like

the the double-edged sword for us because the first couple albums it was back you know back in the 70s record companies made so much money and they sold so many records and they could put out anything they wanted and they could sell it. So they would sign bands like Devo and Warner Brothers would go, oh, you know, we have Captain Beefheart and we have Wildman Fisher and we have Devo, you know, but of course we do Madonna and Prince, but we have these guys, you know, And we were just looked at as like, you know, they just thought of us as like, well, we're not losing any money on them. They're always in the black. They're careful with their, they budget their money and they don't charge us very much.

And they do all their own graphics and their own artwork. We don't have to do anything for them. So they were kind of like that but they didn't care they didn't pay attention you had more freedom than most and then once whip it came out and there was a hit record that changed everything because then it was like they were 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 right you'd walked into something they're like they're like do whatever you guys want to do just and we're thinking well we didn't

do whip it on purpose it just was what we were writing right at the time you know and so it put this other pressure and this other energy on it that that i think it kind of became the beginning of us going this isn't what we thought it was going to be. Right. And we were feeling like we're not an art movement. We're like, now we are just a... A hit machine. We're just like this band that stumbled onto a hit record.

We did a few more records after that, but it's like we got to this point where we had done like six or seven albums with warner brothers and and it was the same thing you write 12 songs you rehearse them you go record them you uh make a film for one or two of them yeah you uh um put together a live show you you design the staging and the costumes and everything then you go tour and then a year later, you write 12 more songs. And so somewhere after we left Warner Brothers and signed with

Enigma Records, Enigma went bankrupt. And in this place where we were in like a suspended animation, a friend of mine asked me if I would score his TV show for him and i said i could try that i'd like to try that and so he i i got to write this song with with him and who was that uh paul rubens i wrote peewee's playhouse theme song and we had a lot of fun doing it and we got cindy lauper to sing it and there was a crazy fight between her manager and Paul's manager at the recording session and it was all kind of weird and funny. And then they sent me a tape on a Monday. I wrote 12 songs worth of music on Tuesday. Wednesday I recorded it. Thursday I had to put it physically in the mail and send it to New York. And then Friday they dropped it into the show and Saturday we watched it on TV. And then Friday, they dropped it into the show. And Saturday, we watched it on TV.

And then Monday, I got another tape, and it started all over again. And it was like instead of a year between getting to be creative and write 12 songs, I got to do it every week. And I said, sign me up for this. I was totally fascinated with it. And I could do things like I could make musical jokes

about friends of mine, like David Byrne or something. I'd put something in from Psycho Chicken in something. Or I'd do something that had a little bit of a Devo thing. Sort of, you could kind of hear it if you knew what you were listening for. And then I found out about subliminal messages. Just then? I mean, that was the first time you got hip to it? I found out that you could put them in TV commercials, and nobody would know it.

Nobody would stop you, I mean. Funny ones. Like for you, not for the product. Well, I put in subliminal messages. Like, I think my first commercial I did was a Hawaiian punch. Uh-huh. There was a drum solo near the end that went, do-do-do-do-ba-doom-ba-doom. And that went and i went underneath the drum solo i just went sugar is bad for you and um i remember going to daly and associates um afterwards and bob casale was my engineer yeah we ended up having a long

career together doing films and tv shows together after that but we're sitting in this meeting with with the um ad agency and the director of the film and everything and um i i'm a really i'm not that great a liar so yeah so it's like we get this it gets closer and closer to the point where it's going to play it and i just turn bright red and bob gusali looks over at me like we're gonna get in trouble we're not gonna get paid and it goes sugar is bad for you and there's this guy from daily and associates tapping his pen and they're all just kind of bobbing their heads and when it's over he goes yeah hawaiian punch hits you in all the right places and they all high five each other and we're just looking bob and i are just looking at each other and he's going how did you get away with that and so then we started doing it on purpose.

You could hear it audibly? Well, it's like, if you're not listening for it, you're not, you may not, it may not, you may not go wait a second. Yeah. And it's on TV. So it's like, it's not like you're going to go play it 20 times in a row. But you could hear it on TV. You're like, there it is.

Yeah. Well, we heard it because we knew it was there. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Well, we heard it because we knew it was there. Yeah, yeah. And we did about, I don't know, 30, 50 of those maybe. Commercials. With things like, we were doing commercials where like maybe there'd be a, you know, like

choose your mutations carefully, you know, or be like your ancestors or be different or question authority. You know, we'd figure something and it would have to do with how neutral we were to whatever it was they were selling. We did about, I'd say, probably 50 commercials like that. Subversive. Before somebody called me up who was a picture editor on a spot,

and he goes, I know what you did. He says, take that out. And he never told the client, and so Bob Gasali did what he did. He says, take that out. And he never told the client. And so we just, so Bob Gasali did what he was supposed to do. And he took whatever the message was on that commercial out. And we still did it now and then on different things. We'd find things to put it in.

And you could live with yourself. We were having fun. That was making it like yeah that made it kind of subversive right it's like you're still honoring the the uh the agenda of devo well because yeah because our our our thing was always you know like uh yeah making it into the belly of the beast and sure and seeing how strong the concept was you know if it could survive or not i love it so so peewee was really your first four-way for four four four wow it was my first four-way yeah yes into sound into into uh uh scoring yes and you just well sort of although i i was doing your own stuff right

like for our our live shows yeah yeah there would be instrumental pieces that would segue from one setup to another. But I like the idea that you didn't have to do 12 songs that get strung out on the road, get exhausted, probably disillusioned before you could start creating again. And for somebody like you, who's compulsively drawing and taking pictures, that feeding that thing was at least engaging your creativity on a daily basis yes it was it was definitely and it was fresh at the time and i didn't know where the limits were so i loved it you know it was like you're learning out on the job right yeah finding out we're gonna go and maybe i'm gonna get to do the next To Kill a Mockingbird or something. Or Rugrats.

Or Rugrats. Well, yeah. And that's, yeah. And it went there, yeah. But that was, I mean, on some level, though, don't you, I mean, you say that with a mild bit of disdain. But, I mean, at least animated, least entertaining children is a sort of a beautiful thing you can't really take that away there's no way to get cynical about that that's true and you know the thing is with kids is um they're they have they're less formulated on what kind of

music they want to hear uh-huh so it's like and that's what i learned from peewee's flays. I could mash together clog dancing music with a punk pogo song with Chinese instruments. Yeah, they probably loved it. And yeah, and kids were always kind of like, wow, bring it on, whatever it is, you know.

And with Rugrats, I did a lot of sampling of my voice to make the bass sound or to make different instruments. I made different instruments that didn't really exist. And then Rugrats did this other thing. They did a feature. I think we did three features together.

But the first feature, I got an 80-piece orchestra. And so I broke through the catch 22 of well you've never scored for an orchestra so you can't score our film with an orchestra. So I did all these smaller films like Wes Anderson things

and You were with him at the beginning, right? Yeah, yeah. And so I do all these things that you could have a small group but Rugrats was

the first movie I got to use a big full orchestra on and that was kind of cool that's exciting that was it's pretty interesting to get to write for that and then to hear the music like that because you're always for television you're always writing where there's no budget so you're using a synthesizer to make uh an orchestra orchestral sound yeah and um synthesizer to make uh an orchestra orchestral sound yeah and um it's a big difference with wes anderson now when you score a film like when you are you the are you the music director or do you just do the original music on his movies do you choose the songs as well and that kind of stuff

wes chooses the songs okay and he he's very hands-on everything um the fact that he can't play every single instrument uh he renames all my cues every single piece of music i write he renames it uh but but um but um he's the guy that like i remember tannenbaum's i walked through the house with him and we're upstairs they're going to film that day and he's looking at the ceiling and something's bothering him and it's in the room where where the kids slept in the bedroom for kids and he goes up and he paints over the ceiling and he paints the painting because he said repainted where the kids had done graffiti on the wall because he said yeah that artwork wasn't that didn't look like what they would really draw on the walls like you

know right right every little thing, every detail, he was aware of it and he felt that stuff was all important. I really loved him for that. Oh no, he's meticulous with the framing. You know what I mean? Like everything in every shot is on the color level, on a placement level, everything has to be there. So working with him, there's that meticulousness with the music too, huh? Yeah, and we got along really well. He liked being able to hang out at the studio while I was writing.

And then you've done like four or five of his movies. And you've had this huge career in soundtracks, and it's pretty amazing. Sounds like you like the busyness. I do. I do. And the book of your exhibition, I didn't see the whole show, but I feel like I saw one of the sound sculptures.

Was that in a group show? Oh, yeah. It's been filmed a number of times, and it's been on tour in about six museums or so yeah i know i saw it somewhere it's pretty fascinating so you there's a number of those now i i like building instruments i found and that actually is it was a wes anderson movie that that made that happen he was he sent me footage for moonrise kingdom and um it didn't have any sound on it, and it was just footage of kids running through a woods, and there were birds flying, and wind was blowing the trees, but because they were just shooting at them above,

they weren't recording anything, so it was silent, but you saw this movement in the shot, and so I collect eccentric music instruments and sound makers. And I have about 150 bird calls that I've collected through the years. And so I started playing some along with the picture. And then I lost interest in the movie, and I just wanted to write music for bird calls. And I started because I was i was like wow you could program you know if you record it on the tape i'd never done that before other than just one track as a

sound effect for something but i realized you know they have their own notes and you you have this kind of depending on which ones you use you have certain notes that you can repeat, and it becomes percussive, and it becomes melodic at the same time, and I was fascinated with it. But it was hard writing music for like 50 of them. Right. Because what do you do? You get 50 people in the room?

That's expensive. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Say, okay, here's how you read the music, and then you have them play it. So I found this guy that repaired um calliopes for um uh amusement parks and i asked him if like the thing that they blow the air through for the calliope because i i have a calliope yeah and i said could you hook those air hoses up to bird calls he goes why i'd be no problem at all and we started he started doing some and as we did them we were as well some of them some of the bird calls are just like leather pouches with a little

thing so you tap it with your hand so it'll go beep beep or there's rubber tubes yeah there's like that look like rubber shotgun shells that they have these little brass pieces at the end that when you shake it it sounds like a flock of quail oh wow yeah and. Yeah. And I said, well, these ones, they need to shake, or these ones you need to tap. And he'd go, oh, I could do that. That's just a little mechanism. And we started designing mechanisms. And so we made this machine that plays about 50-some Berg calls.

And I started writing music for it. And I could write it on a keyboard then, because I was using MIDI to control them them but they were all played acoustically they're not right they're not just sampled and yeah played and so it made me think about music in a different way to write music for these things it was became so liberating because i'd spent so many years so many decades writing music that to have something where the where the instrument doesn't have the same parameters as all the instruments of an orchestra or of a synthesizer or- Any instrument.

Of any instrument. It's like it was a new terrain. That's exciting. And it was, yeah, it was like finding a new kind of paint to work with that you never used before. Did you use it in the movie? Well, there is a movie that they're asking if they can be the first movie to use.

Oh, you didn't use it for Wes's movie? That was just the inspiration for it? Yeah, it just made me... Actually, I did play stuff in his film. I don't think I used a bird call in it, but I played some of the stuff at the camp. In the photography, I love the postcards.

I love the drawings. I love these. I don't know what you call them. I guess you'd call them new instruments. Yeah, orchestrions. Orchestrions, and you do one with flutes or whistles, right? They're all organ pipes.

One with doorbells, actually. There's one with tuned doorbells, and it sounds really great i bet all different kinds yeah and but the the photography was sort of fascinating to me because i just like i i guess the question is you know the the device of the mutant photography is using you know the same side twice i guess is what you was that do you find that was that relatable to you know your condition did you find that you were inspired at all by your vision you know um i i became interested in symmetry

yeah probably the same time i got glasses because um like right now part of how I correct my, I have myopia, extreme myopia, but I can read, you know, like the small line above your name on that poster back there. Yeah. But the trade-off is that I'm looking into a doorknob, basically. Right. I have a fisheye lens. Yeah. lens and yeah and uh i'm used to ignoring the fact that when i go like this i'm bending the corners of the walls on both sides and and this part of my vision they're bending about a foot and a half down yeah when i go between this and this yeah and i'm just used to looking in a

uh a store knob yeah yeah kind of right right lens uh my whole life. And somehow symmetry kind of fit into that. You know, it's like both musically, the idea of scales that go both ways. And at the same time I was doing those images, I was working on, it was Life Aquatic. And it's another Wes Anderson thing. On the movie before that, it was Royal Tannenbaums. There was a scene that he liked the music for

where Sogine and Angelica are walking through Central Park, and it's kind of a scene where he's being the least kind of an a-hole that he's been in the whole film. He's kind of like a real shit. Yeah, sure. You know, self-promoting and taking advantage of everybody. But he's being really nice to her because he's trying to get on her good side again.

Yeah, yeah. And he's like being complimentary and sweet, and she's enjoying it, even though she has a new boyfriend. She's still like, she's enjoying that he's not being a jerk. Yeah. And so there was a piece of music that was written for that. And Wes kept referring to that as he said, you know, in this movie now,

Life Aquatic, when Bill Murray is talking about his boat, you know, he's so proud of his boat, and we're going to a cutaway. And I went to Italy, to Rome, to see this soundstage he was working at at Cinecitta, I think it's called. And there was a giant, big, life-size boat cut in half. And it was like there were all these different rooms, and people were doing things in it. And he did this camera sweep through the whole thing, and he says, I want to have music that sounds like that music where they're walking in the park.

I want to have something like that for the boat. And so I wrote like three or four pieces for him, and he's like, no, not that. And then I wrote him another one, and he goes, not that. not that and then i i wrote him another one he goes not that and and i'd been working on these um uh these um symmetrical um mutations and so i just took the sheet music for um the scene that he liked yeah in central park and i played it backwards i just held it up to a mirror and i played it backwards and then i recorded it for him a mirror and I played it backwards. And then I recorded it for him. And so I literally just played

like if you put them, you know, like took one and put it in a mirror and did this. It was the same on both sides going the other way. Yeah. And I played it for him and he goes, that's it. It was awesome. He loved it. And I didn't even tell him until after I recorded it what had happened.

And then that has that secret sort of subversive connection to the other film. Yeah, and if you put the two sheets of music together, I don't know if it's in there or not, but somewhere I put them together, and you can see that it looks like... It's just a mirror image? Yeah, a mirror image. Well, that's fascinating, man. And I love the art, and I love all the work, and it was great talking to you, man. The same, sir.

You feel good? I do. I like your place out here. It looks like it's packed with all sorts of information. Yeah, I'm comforted by it. Hey, look, there's a Tim Leary book sitting right here on the shelf. Yeah, a big biography. I got some of the old ginsburg poetry books from city

lights over there oh that's nice yeah you know it's just a you're a star people send stuff to you right sometimes yeah i don't know if i'm a star but i'm a guy who talks on a microphone so i mean some people think like you know yeah the pedals and things um maybe we'll find you a pedal from earthquaker. Thanks, Mark. Thank you. Wow. Quite a life. Like a real artist.

A real artist. And it's always good to talk to real artists. A true original. Mark Mothersbaugh. And again, go to WTFpod.com. Get on the mailing list for an opportunity for some deals around our new book, Waiting for the Punch. And, you know, try to fight the good fight. Live life. Don't get psychically pummeled by a cultural momentum that is malignant and hopefully not terminal.

Boomer lives! No guitar. that is malignant and hopefully not terminal. Boomer lives! No guitar. I'm in a hotel room. We'll be right back. Order now. Product availability may vary by region. See app for details. Calgary is an opportunity-rich city home to innovators, dreamers, disruptors, and problem solvers. The city's visionaries are turning heads around the globe across all sectors each and every day. They embody Calgary's DNA. A city that's innovative, inclusive, and creative.

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