BCR: You once said that you approach writing a song with a visual idea and then fit the music to the concept, is that how you’re doing the new material?
GERRY CASALE: We showed people a taste of it at SXSW, I created synchronised video backgrounds for three new songs. We did that a long time ago, on the Oh No! It’s Devo! record in ‘83, we had to use film technology, but we played live with a huge screen behind us, rear projection in synch with our live playing, which was very hard to do. Now Nine Inch Nails do it, Flaming Lips do it, U2’s done it but they don’t have our content, and our content makes it us. So we’re using a stealth screen and high def video through a digital video server into the LED Stealth screen. We showed new songs that way at SXSW – Don’t Shoot I’m A Man and Fresh and people really liked it. We mixed it in with songs like Peekaboo, That’s Good and Going Under and there was a continuity that people really liked.
BCR: I was going to ask about Fresh actually – it seems really… positive.
GERRY CASALE: It is positive, hahah, Can I be positive? HO HO HO! It’s inspired by the fact that… you know when people want to commit suicide because they think there’s no hope, even though it’s a cliché you never know about that – it’s a bad idea, it’s not smart, unless you’re in such physical pain. But when people are in psychological pain and they think they’re never going to be loved again or whatever. Not true. That’s a song about romantic attraction when you thought it wasn’t going to happen again.
BCR: How many videos for the new album will you be doing? Are you going to be doing one for each and every song?
GERRY CASALE: Yeah, but I’m going to keep on doing what I did – a combination of live action and 2 and 3D digital animation with this guy I’ve been working with called Davy Force. I love working with him, I love this look that we have. It’s like Devo meets Murakami .
BCR: So is that what you’re going to be doing in October when you tour the album?
GERRY CASALE: Yeah, oh yeah, and there’s going to be more. 30 foot wide behind us.
BCR: So how did you end up working with Neil Young? It seems like an odd collaboration…
GERRY CASALE: Oh yeah, that was certainly an aberration but if you’re a creative person I think that you can appreciate a lot of things that you’re not. I love great fashion designers and I see people that make clothes that I can’t wear but I know they’re great. I don’t take it personally but I acknowledge the greatness, the creativity and the vision. With Neil it’s like, yeah, that’s not us, we wouldn’t make that kind of music but we respected that he made what he made. And the fact that he was interested in us at all was very curious to us. Why would Neil Young like Devo? You would expect him to go “those guys suck ass”. But turns out he’s a really smart guy, a really cool guy and yes he had his personal style and aesthetic but he got what we were doing and he appreciated it. It felt really cool to have this grandfather of granola rock love us for what we did. And we did truly like his first record. Songs like Cinnamon Girl and the album After The Gold Rush, those lyrics, we were going “fuck, those are good lyrics, they’re incredible!” We loved what he did. But we weren’t gonna do that…
BCR: It did seem more like he threw himself into Devo rather than the other way round. Human Highway is much more a Devo movie…
GERRY CASALE: Yeah, it makes sense. We were the new kids in town and our energy was getting him off. He’d already become a multi millionaire and an icon, that shows you how secure he was with himself to not feel threatened but rather inspired.
BCR: Yeah, I loved that movie - it reminds me of the Oingo Boingo movie Forbidden Zone…
GERRY CASALE: Yeah, I was around for Forbidden Zone, I was friends with Danny Elfman’s brother Rick who directed it. And they wanted Devo to be in it but Mark [Mothersbaugh] didn’t want to do it. We had just come out to LA and I thought that Danny Elfman was brilliant in that movie. It was as good as Danny ever got and he became more and more contrived and egotistical.
BCR: Talking of movies I’ve been hearing stuff about the Devo movie…
GERRY CASALE: A fictionalised version of real life events. I’m working with Matt Deal, the writer who co-wrote the Notorious B.I.G and we have a first draft and we’re now fixing that first draft. It starts with Devo in the malaise of doldrums in North Eastern Ohio in the early seventies surrounded by people who laugh at you, hate you - rising out of there against all odds to connect up with the international punk and new wave movements to meeting David Bowie, Brian Eno, Iggy Pop, Dean Stockwell, Tony Basil and all the nefarious characters in the record business at the time. It’s all fictionalised; the names have been changed to protect the guilty. Its action packed because it’s the truth of the compressed way in which things happened over a short period of time, once they started happening and spiralling out of control. They’re both incredibly good and incredibly bad all at once. I call it the Spinal Tap with brains because it’s about an art band with an idea that nevertheless makes as many missteps and has as much horrid encounters as Spinal Tap does. But they’re all true and they all ring true. That parody is so accurate down to them getting lost under the stage in Cleveland, Ohio because that happened to us.
BCR: What, the same stage?
GERRY CASALE: Yeah! It’s a running joke with those old union guys who hated every rock band who came through. They would, on purpose, go down and put up gaffer tape Markers – basically it was a maze and they would mis-Mark it on purpose just to fuck with bands. We had this show where we rose up through the bottom of the stage and got on treadmills, we came through these trapdoors and it was an illusion – the film goes black, the stage lights que and there we are standing there and we step onto these treadmills and the treadmills deliver us right to the audience. Well, we know the que and we’re hearing that music and we’re lost under the stage. Now, we’re frantic and these passages are leading us into dead ends so we’re retracing our steps and the lighting guy has no idea that we’re lost under the stage. He hits five spotlights where we’re supposed to be and we hear the crowd go nuts and there’s nobody under those spotlights. We’re trapped under the stage. It’s Spinal tap for sure.
BCR: I didn’t realise how accurate it actually was until I saw that film Monster with Metallica – we started a drinking game where you take a shot every time they say “feelings” – it’s lethal.
GERRY CASALE: It’s funny you should say that – we used to have a game based on Scarface. Every time Tony Montana snorted a line we had to. I thought I was gonna have a heart attack. I’ve never played it more than once cos it was hideous. And by the way I don’t do that anymore. No marching powder.
BCR: I want to know if the following story is true and what your reaction was: Your old record label suggested Johnny Rotten should be your lead singer….
GERRY CASALE: That was Richard Branson. He actually asked us to come down to Jamaica and I didn’t want to because I already knew what was going on – he was tempting us. We watch the last Sex Pistols show at the Cow Palace in San Francisco, we watch Sid Vicious melt down and Johnny Rotten go apeshit, then they come back to the hotel, he walks through the plate glass window and has to go to hospital. So we go home and Richard decides to get us to go to Jamaica, I didn’t want to go, but he goes with my brother [Bob Casale]. He lives the life of luxury down there and he’s got this beautiful hotel suite. Mark and my brother in this hotel suite and Richard gets them to start smoking some of the finest hash. They’re really high and he says “listen, I’ve got this brilliant idea and it’s gonna make you guys a lot of money and make everybody happy. Here’s what’s gonna happen; I’ve got Johnny Rotten in the next room, I’ve got Melody maker and NME across the hall and if you say so, we’re going to go out to the beach and get pictures of you guys together and announce that Johnny Rotten is going to be the lead singer of Devo. Mark is totally high at this point and he thinks Richard’s joking, but he was totally serious. Richard got all bummed right there before we even got started with our deal with him. After he realised, Mark was laughing and shit and he could see that Richard wasn’t joking. Mark just goes, “wait a minute, I can’t say yes to this. What?”
BCR: So the last question I have for you is; what question would you have liked me to ask you?
GERRY CASALE: Shit, I don’t know – that’s a fantastic question. Ok… Jesus…. Ask me if I’m good in bed.
BCR: Gerry Casale, are you good in bed?
GERRY CASALE: Absolutely!
Devo performs "Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo" at the London Kentish Town Forum on Wednesday 6th May. The band then performs their greatest hits at ATP Festival's "The Fans Strike Back Edition" on Friday 8th May at Butlins Holiday Centre, Minehead. 24 HR TICKET HOTLINE: 0871 220 0260 www.atpfestival.com, www.seetickets.com.
