Name: DEVO Loves Their Fans | Letterman
Uploaded: 2022-02-01T16:01:50.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'DEVO Loves Their Fans | Letterman' from Letterman on Comedy Buff. Published 2022-02-01. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'DEVO Loves Their Fans | Letterman' from Letterman on Comedy Buff. Published 2022-02-01. Transcript available.

My next guests are among the strangest rock performers to come along in quite
some time.
The latest album is entitled, Oh No, It's Devo.
Please welcome Devo.
We have Mark Mothersbaugh.
Mark, did I get your last name right?
And Jerry Casale.
Right.
Gentlemen, and the only reason that you two guys, two chairs, as opposed to
four, right?
Right.
As opposed to five.
So you're the spokespeople for the group.
Is that fair enough to assume?
Yeah, they made us do it.
By default.
They made you do it.
Let me ask you, first of all, about the potatoes here.
What are we dealing with on the album cover?
It's pretty literal.
So pretty much what it looks like is what it means.
Five identical spuds hovering down the road of life looking for bin, sweet bin.
And the collars that you have on now, explain those, if you will.
Well, there's a lot of uses for these.
Some people think they're toilet seats.
They're not.
They're floppy disks, actually.
And there's a lot of genetic information tied up in here.
And these are the spud collars.
These are the spud rings.
Spud rings.
Spud rings, yeah.
They're multi-purpose.
They're real good when you get a haircut.
Yeah.
Keep the hair off your shoulders.
Right.
There's a lot of things you can do with them.
Yeah.
Upside down, they make a great snack tray if you're watching the David Letterman
show late
at night.
You put your potato chips over here and your dip over here.
You ever have to take your eyes off the screen?
And these are all inextricably linked to devolution, is this correct?
I'd say so.
Yeah.
And what is that exactly?
Well, once again, it's pretty much like it sounds.
It's inverse evolution.
Entropy.
Things winding down.
We're regressing then.
Oh, absolutely.
At a dangerous rate?
Not dangerous enough.
It's just, you know, things go on and on and on.
Everybody always predicts the big tragedy, but it just keeps going on.
You know, the spuds just keep trickling down.
Yeah.
Let me, can I ask you some, you brought some other accoutrements here.
We had the spud ring we looked at.
Of course, this, the flower pot.
An earlier source of derision from the Freedom of Choice record.
Right.
It was called a lampshade by many.
Although you really wouldn't want to use it for a lampshade because we've tried
it and they melt.
It melts, yeah.
It's not a flower pot either.
There's no drainage.
If you put dirt in it, it tips.
Uh-huh.
It was just a polyethylene, or rather ABS plastic energy dome.
Directly proportionate to Aztec temples.
And you would wear these, where would you wear these?
I mean, on your head, of course.
In airports, on TV, in concert.
Funerals.
Uh-huh.
Actually, one of the better uses we've found is from fan mail.
Kids have sent in saying they've used it for Jell-O molds, but Autogon.
There's a lot of kids that are using their hats for Autogon.
And your original purpose for these was?
Protection, basically.
We wanted to show up on stage and not be hurt by flying objects.
So we had hard hat inserts put inside so that they'd fit tight on our heads.
Right.
And they work.
There are a lot of things you can do with it.
You have to keep it out of the oven.
That's right.
Yeah.
I mean, if you put it in the oven.
You don't want to see what happens.
Yeah, don't bake a cake.
I'll show you.
This is just a show you what happens if you do try and put it in the oven.
Just a second.
That's 450 degrees.
Ready?
Yeah.
That's a word for all those.
There's what?
20,000 of these out there somewhere?
That's right.
So if you put it in the oven, you'll come over and stomp it?
That's what happens?
Let me, um, now this is from the, is this the, the, in the new album, right?
Uh, you can send away and get stuff.
Can, let me ask you about a couple of these things.
The, the action vest instantly transform normal street clothing into developed,
I'm sorry, devolved action wear with this tailored Tyvek vest.
Right.
I don't know if maybe we can get it.
They're bulletproof.
Right here.
Our fans, uh, collect a lot of negative energy that was meant for us.
Actually, they were developed after, they were designed around a fencing vest
design.
And a lot of people like to wear, uh, disposable kind of, uh, vests that look
like they're downfield vests.
So, you know, they get into the American spirit, the blood spirit.
And, uh, we just transformed that a little.
This has a strap, an elastic strap that goes between your legs.
Let me ask you about...
That's a selling point, actually.
Yeah, the elastic strap, yeah.
That's what turned me around on the whole topic.
I, uh, now this you have the Devo easy listening cassette.
Muzak versions of your favorite Devo tunes performed by Devo at a rare casual
moment.
Mutated versions of Devo classics, Whippet, Mongoloid, and many others round
out this limited edition collector's item.
Is that the truth?
That is the truth.
How much would one of these go for?
It's fairly cheap.
It's, uh, I think it's about five dollars.
Well, yeah, that is a bargain.
You have $4.50.
$4.50, that's even less.
Yeah, and it goes on and on and on.
So, uh, pretty good stuff.
You're making a lot of money on these?
No, not at all.
It's, uh, it was actually a response, quite seriously, it was a response to
people wanting everything we made for ourselves to wear.
And we made, in addition to that, like last year, a cassette, self-made Muzak,
so that we, we, we do things to ourselves before other people can do them to us,
kind of self-demeaning.
And, um, it's basically the Devo aesthetic.
Uh, and we played it before we would come on stage in live concerts throughout
America, and pretty soon people were coming up to our sound men and various
members of the crew saying, where can I get that?
I want that.
And it was, and so it was one more thing we had to make available, because
otherwise they'd try and steal it from the soundboard.
Yeah.
Uh, talk a little bit about the origin of the group.
Uh, we've touched on the philosophy, but tell us, tell us how it, uh, came
together.
Um, it, it, it came together in Ohio, Akron, Ohio.
Yeah!
Well, we, we have some fellow victims, I see.
Uh, and I, I met Mark at Kent State University, and we started forming Devo.
Around 1975, and it was based on the idea that we were foolish enough to
believe that video discs and videotapes were going to take over the very next
two years.
And we had a kind of idea for an integration between music and video back then
that we were serious about, and still are serious about, and started pursuing
that.
Mm-hmm.
And found out that, uh, obviously there was a left turn somewhere in the
industry.
And you do, you, uh, are, uh, well, you were pioneers in video discs, weren't
you, for...
Yeah, which means, um, you, you get a lot of mention, but make no money.
Hmm.
Uh, now when people come to, to see you in concert, are they often dressed up
with the, the stuff that they've ordered?
Yeah, oftentimes, yeah.
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Now, during a concert, you keep your, talking to the audience to a minimum, don't
you?
That's right, I think we're there to play, not talk.
Yeah.
And we don't like to stretch out the time with, uh, raps about, you know, I saw
this girl on the street.
Uh-huh.
Whatever.
Uh, is, is it hard to keep interested when you're, we're actually not
communicating with the audience?
I wouldn't say we're not communicating.
Uh, we just...
Verbally, though.
Well, we are using our voices, and, uh...
We've got more information for a minute going on in a Devo concert than at most
shows.
No, yeah, but, but not talking to them, that's no problem.
No, that's no problem at all.
In fact, they would probably resent it.
Really?
Yeah.
Okay.
Uh, any new looks that we can, uh, be on the lookout for from, uh, the group?
Uh, well, actually, what we've been doing, what we've been putting together
that we're, um, uh, currently doing in concert
is putting the video together with Devo Live rather than having it be two
separate entities that are unrelated.
And so, uh, as in that, uh, bit of peekaboo that you may or may not have been
able to ascertain from that little snippet
is that, uh, we have a rear screen projection that's, like, over 20 feet wide
and about 15 feet high
of images and, um, more or less, like, storylines in, in video that is rear
projected and in sync with the music
so that Devo relates with the screen, uh, you know, in, in scale and content
and, uh, and design
so that even characters come out on film and interact with Devo and sing backup
vocals and so on.
And it's all synchronous and it took a while to get that together so that it
actually worked
and it, and it does, I mean, to our satisfaction right now.
What, uh, what do you guys hope, uh, in the future, like, five years from now
for yourselves?
Oh, you know, maybe, like, make, make a record that sells enough so that we
could, uh, subject ourselves
to recombinant DNA experiments or something like that.
Well, gosh, good luck. I, uh, you're the first, you're the first guest who's
had that dream, by the way, uh,
We have strange dreams.
Well, that's interesting. You want to, you want to, uh, just, we'll bring the
other gentleman out here.
Sure.
And, uh, Jerry, if you go ahead and introduce the folks, uh, to the, this, hi,
how do you do?
They can actually speak.
Oh, well, good. Well, yeah, we'll do it that way. Your name?
Bob.
Bob?
Bob two.
Bob two.
Yes, we have, sir.
Bob.
Bob?
Bob, nice to see you, sir.
Bob one.
Bob one.
Alan.
Alan?
Any numbers, Alan?
No, just.
Okay. Um, uh, and where are you guys, as they always say, where are you going
from here, uh, as it were?
Nowhere, just back on the road.
Uh-huh. Any, any particular town that you'd care to mention at this point?
Well, all of them that we haven't been in. No, actually, we're going to go
through the southwest and then across the south and then into the California
region and into the northwest, the obvious kind of sweep.
We're trying to run away from winter.
I don't blame you.
Yeah.
I don't blame you. Nice meeting you, gentlemen. Thank you for coming out here.
Devo, ladies and gentlemen.
Thank you.