Devo's "Whip It" with Gerald Casale and Mark Mothersbaugh

[MUSIC] Deva's here. Let's give her the cheer. Talking to track. And it's none of that. Gonna talk about us all. You must with it. And we hope you sing along. You must with it. This is Jell, this is fun. You must with it. [MUSIC] It's one song. And people, hey, we hope we get on. That's straight, recorded, act, record, play. It's not a fashion, it's new way. It's with it, with it good. [MUSIC] Let's get it going. Don't go anywhere we have a great show for you today with two very special guests. Jerry Kassali and Mark Mothersbaugh from the legendary band Deva. [MUSIC] [MUSIC] Imagine setting your makeup, then forgetting it's even theirs. Meet new grippy setting mist from Maybelline, New York. Jell to mist technology locks in your look for up to 24 hours with flexible all day comfy grip, no tightness, no stickiness, no residue, just plump, dewy, hydrated skin that still feels like your skin. Try new grippy setting mist from Maybelline, New York. Maybe it's Maybelline. [MUSIC] >> I'm actor writer, director, and sometimes DJ Diallo Riddle. >> And I'm producer, DJ, songwriter, and musicologist, luxury, AKA the guy who whispers. >> Interpolation. >> And this is one song. >> The show where we break down the stems and stories behind. >> Iconic songs across genres and tell you why they deserve one more listen. >> You will hear these songs like you've never heard them before. And if you want to watch one song, please go to our YouTube channel and watch this full episode. And while you're there, please like and subscribe. All right. So today's song is an iconic new wave track that had everyone on the dance floor in 1980. >> It's infectious disco beat, quirky melodies, and delightfully bizarre lyrics infiltrated the pop charts, peeking at number 14 on the Billboard Hot 100. >> But did any of them know what the song was really about? >> Well, alert, it's not about BDSM. >> 45 years since its release, we're here to talk about why this subversive pop anthem is so genius. >> So let's go forward, move ahead, and try to detect it. We're talking one song and that song is Whip It by Deville. >> And to help us break down Whip It, we have not one but two special guests that know this story and song better than anyone else. >> That's right. They're groundbreaking musicians, songwriters, and Deville co-founders, Gerald Cassali, and Mark Mothers' Ball. >> Howdy. >> Welcome to the studio. >> I'm not going to pretend I'm not super freaking excited. >> I know what you're saying. >> This is amazing. >> This is amazing. >> We're pretty excited, actually. >> You can tell. >> That's Mark at a 10. Thank you so much for being here. I actually should say I had the pleasure of seeing you guys perform very recently. That's how I live 50, the concert. >> All right. >> I worked on Fallon for many years and all of us came out from backstage and we were just blown away. Like uncontrolled version, an amazing song, but like to hear you guys just blast it out in that theater. It's radio city musical in that old theater in New York. It was insane and it was just really powerful. What was it like doing that gig? >> Intense. The lead up was almost like a throwback to when we went there in '78 and you do things with the cast and you reverse and they keep running through it, running through it, like a live play and each time you pretend you're doing it live and then finally, you do it live. >> Can I just say, the backstage area was insane. Like Mark, you bumped into me. I was standing by the elevator, you bumped into me, I was like, who's this guy bumping into there? I looked at it, I saw your face and I was just like, my gosh, that's really it's in like some of the people that you've no doubt played with before. David Byrne was backstage. >> Everybody was there. >> We shared a room with the B-5 too. >> With Schneider, you were in there with Schneider? >> Yeah. >> Yeah. >> That's so fun. >> Are you guys all friends now? All these many years later? >> Yeah. >> Has always been. >> We never weren't. >> We never weren't. >> Yeah, we're just mostly surprised. We're still alive. >> I think Devo was probably my first favorite band growing up and that was important. You guys were so important to me because I was only eight, but I understood that there were layers going on musically. It was amazing immediately. It hits you like a jolt of adrenaline and sugar, but there's something bizarre that needs to be interpreted. You don't know what the interpretation is. Maybe to this day, I'm not sure what the interpretation is. It is maybe we'll find out, but I've always been a huge fan and I found that that's true for kids. My son, it was his first favorite band too. By the way, there's a special guest there that's Snowy behind you. My son insisted that his stuffed animal join us for today's episode. >> How old is he? >> My son is now 14, but when he was five, Snowy would do the solo in this song. >> Okay. >> One note solo that we'll be here later. Well, we definitely had kid appeal because I think we were appealing to the brain and the body together because of the imagination. Was that something that you noticed at a certain point and went with or was it always a happy accident? Oh, wait a second. This is appealing to more. You thought maybe this was for 20 year olds and above, but it turned out to have brought repeal. I think we were looking for a Fisher price kind of take on music anyhow. Guitar solos and drum solos were getting silly and it was spinal tap before anybody knew it was spinal tap, except we knew it was spinal tap. >> There's also the lack of the costumes that you guys are wearing that makes it accessible to kids in a different way. >> Yeah, Devo was almost like in the superhero range because of the whole being greater than the sum of its parts and that's the way we represented ourselves like a drill team. Kids love that. They're teenagers that are just breaking away from their parents and discovering things on their own and feeling different. Devo gave them some focus and some identity. >> It's so true. It was simultaneously a club for the outcasts and we talked about this on the show a lot. This was an era before we kind of had like alt nation and there was a sort of like commodified version of like the not mainstream maybe in the 90s with Nirvana and such. Now we take it for granted there's the alt channel, but back when you guys were doing it, there really kind of was like the mainstream and you were one of the first to come like to vocalize what the opposite of that could be like to give a vision for it. >> We were really old before they used the word, right, definitely, and we were way outside. >> Before we get into it with it, we'd love to take a step back and talk about your early days as collaborators. You guys obviously met at Kent State, early 70s and how'd you guys start making music together? >> They closed our campus down. >> Yeah. >> So. >> Is after the shootings. >> We just hung out together after that and I had a place where my brothers and I were playing music in a basement and Jerry would come over and we'd write music together and talk about it. >> I started driving to Akron because they were there with equipment and we didn't talk about music when we first met. We talked about art, we were both artists and that was the draw and I only find out after about a year that he's an accomplished musician and he's got this band, Flossy Bobbitt. It was like a revelation. >> That's amazing. >> The first year was sort of conceptual and visual and the concept was devolution and early idea and then it was like what would devo music sound like and then that's why I was driving to Akron to try to make that come true. Let's make devo music. >> Right. I've heard you talk about how you are a reaction both to the shootings but also the sort of post hippie, I mean, what would you call the Lez? There's a sense of it's hopeless to rebel or we need to rebel differently maybe? Is that a little bit of what it was? >> Maybe we kind of unconsciously identified more with beatnix than we did with hippies because the beatnix were very cynical about what was happening with man on the planet and hippies came along and we're like, no, everything's going to be cool. >> That's cool, man. >> We were kind of more-- >> We burned out on a hippie thing because the hippie thing burned out on itself. After 1970, just look at Al-Tamant and one great superstar dying after another in their 20s and then the music gets really stale and there's this kind of like formulaic stadium rock that starts to emerge and the way they behave and the way they dress for us were like offensively stupid and we were anti-stupid and we were artists first musicians second and we were experimenting, you know, and we would openly experiment and not have some preconceived notion about here's a genre, here you change after eight bars and you go to this. In fact, we said, you know, specifically, we're not doing that and we strip it all down. >> As such huge inspirations with what you did, I'm so curious who would have been inspiring to you in that realm like Mad Magazine, like were there sort of sort of subversive elements that you condoned to, what would those have been maybe? >> Sunraw. >> Sunraw. >> Yeah. >> So many times on this part. >> Captain Beefheart. >> Captain Beefheart, Terry Riley, Morton Sabatneck, TV commercials. classical music. We, our influences were way outside of the spear of rock and roll. But did we also love the Rolling Stones when they wrote a great song, "You bet." ♪ I can't get no satisfaction ♪ ♪ I can't get no settle it back home ♪ You know. I, you know, talking about this period of concert. I'm going to play for you guys a clip that we found online of you guys performing a song, "Private Secretary at Can State 1973." I believe this is from when you guys were called "Sex-Tet Devo." Yeah. Let's play that clip. ♪ ♪ Hearing this, does this spring back? Do you remember this? Yeah. Certainly. Was there some significance at the time? Was it, I think it was maybe one of your first gigs, right? It was. First gig. That's the first time we ever played together in any configuration. Outside, yeah, of a. High-tech basement. Okay. And are you on keyboards and you're on bass? Yeah. And Mark is not just on keyboards. He's wearing a. He's wearing a mock and a chimpanzee mask. Yeah. I was going to ask who was behind the mask because, you know, obviously this was before the coats and the energy domes, but so you're wearing the mask. Yeah. He's wearing the mask. I'm wearing a fireman's rain slicker, a yellow rain slicker. And again, we were just experimenting. It's very funny to hear. But the highlight of that performance is when Mark's mini-mode mouth functions and it gets caught in a loop to keep his gold. No, I was doing that. You know, I thought you guys were going to be done tuning. I thought you couldn't get out of it. No, I could have stopped anytime. I was waiting for you guys to come on stage. And people sort of gather around you to try to fix it, but you've got the mask on so you can't get it out. No, we was trying to fix anything, but they did start to look for their keys and start heading for the parking lot. You did excel in that sort of audience provocation thing. It was a headache solo that was inspired by an exedron commercial where some woman was going like out and head up. A synth sound. And like Jerry said, we were looking other places than in rock and roll for what the sounds of the 70s should be. So you had found that sound in your head. In your mind, you are finding either the same exact mini-mode or the same sound or something similar to that exedron moment of excessive pain. Well, I think he was the only person in Ohio that had this equipment at the time. And pretty early. And he certainly, when we were hearing what, you know, what groups like the progressive groups. They were trying to use synthesizers as fake, you know, woodwinds and grass and pretty, right? And Mark was searching for noise, pink noise and white noise. And that's what I love. Right. We were looking for these two rockets, things that sounded like the news at night, which was the Vietnam War. Because that was exciting. Now, that's what made it exciting. Well, we were just talking about the sounds we were talking about how you keep me hanging on, sort of replicates the sound of the evening news with that. And like, I got to say, we talk about this a lot in the show. Commercials inspire so much. You know, I mean, like back in the VHS days, I said a tape called like, you know, the best of 70s commercials. And it was like a two hour, you know, thing of just all commercials. And I just think that that is one of the things that inspires is because I'm even more than like TV shows from that period or movies like they really are just a time capsule of like things that were acceptable sounds. And, you know, the stingers before, you know, a certain network shows like those things can really take you back. Right. But what really, what first attracted us is when we were writing our music and like in this show here, where it's very, very extreme, the music, that was, that was Devo at the most pure art extremes, end of things. We were thinking, well, we chased everybody out of the room. And it wasn't, it was a few more years. We kept chasing people out of the room or they'd come up and fight with us or they'd pay us to quit. We had that happen a few times. So you succeeded in your art punk goals. They just, we'd go, well, we've got a whole another set of music and they go, you know what? We'll pay you the whole amount. Just leave. You have to get that out of your system first. Yeah. And we were never the type high-fiving, but we were conceptually high-fiving each other for getting the boot and getting paid. So we could go to a diner and eat. But at the same time, we were thinking like, well, who are changing the way people think? You know, who are making people think other thoughts in their heads and influence? And we were thinking, well, TV commercial state, they get people to buy terrible cars, eat shitty food and wear bad clothes and they're all happy about it. And we thought, well, what are their techniques? And it was like a subversion, you know, thing. And we thought, we're going to incorporate that into what we do. We'll be giving people good information instead of bad information. Yeah. Why not use it to a smart end rather than a dumb end? Absolutely. And so we didn't care about genre and at all. In fact, we were deconstructing genre and not even having a word for it. But, you know, what started to happen is we kind of developed a shorthand and a vocabulary between two sets of brothers that understood each other. And the pieces of music were all architectural. We were not four guys playing the same riff like a heavy metal band. Each person had a distinct, you know, discrete sound in a part. And they were probably more thick and they fit together. So part of the work, it's sort of interesting going back to your art and conceptual background is sort of, you have ideas, it's the arrangement of those ideas. Right. Different from a jam band. Right. We made sure that every part was important. Now it's easy to get distracted by the fact that you can have hundreds of tracks. You got so many options. Yeah. The bass doesn't sound right. Instead of, instead of making it sound right and figuring out what's wrong with it, people just add another bass part on top and another sound and they just keep filling it up. And you refer into the period sort of before your first record where you're gathering the sort of demos, you're writing those first 40-ish songs that become the first two records. That was completely in your control as a unit, as five people made. Yeah. And we were excited and purely experimenting without any preconceptions. But we got better at that. So that, the hardcore divo compilation that Rikou put out years ago, that represented the early attempts, their pure part. Right. And then we get a little better at it. And somewhere between 76 and 77, we just really hit a high mark and started putting out like at least 25, 30 songs in one year. And we ended up taking those songs our best ones and consciously dividing them up for the first record. Are we not men? And then the rest for duty now for the future. And so that kind of became a period because after that, we're in L.A. And now we've moved on as artists, we're not interested in just keep repeating ourselves. Right. We've toured the world a couple times now. And we've put out a number, quite videos for a long form, actually, enough films. Yeah. And that first chapter felt like it was coming to a natural conclusion. It just did. It's like we didn't feel the same. And we as people that were excited by new ideas, both musical and visual, we wanted to move on. And we were living in L.A. and we were being very influenced by new things. And we jokingly, when we got together to start writing what would become freedom of choice in 1979, we talked about robot R&B. Like Jive O would meet R&B, and that's why we worked with Bob Margolof as producer because he had done these really cool records with Stevie Wonder. And he kept talking about the foot and the mama and the papa between the bass and the kick. It turned out to be a good fit because he helped get us a sound that was totally appropriate for the kind of music we were writing. Bob Margolof was very, very sympathico with synthesizers. And he loved what we were doing. And he liked the fact that I was going to play synth bass. And Mark was using a mini mogue and an arp odyssey for all these new kinds of sounds where those songs weren't guitar driven like the first two records. I was just going to ask you about that. Was there a moment because those first two records you had since as kind of interesting or avant-garde sounds as you were talking about? This was a shift. This was just shift. It was a new kind of beat and a new kind of relationship between the bass and drums. And we were excited by that. And Alan Myers was perfect for it. He was happy to move away from punky beats and pounding. Was there a moment or an album or an artist that kind of thing. of influence to you, they were like, "Let's shift the balance a little bit less guitar more synth or more drum machine or something like that." No, I mean, it was like paying attention to what people like Bob was doing with a stadium, people, you know, that were using electronics more aggressively. And more and more people did, by the time it's '79, Gary Newman did the pleasure principle, right? David Bowie had done two amazing records, really. Revious to that, that we revered as artists. And Roxy Music with Brianino. Oh, no, that's actually a really good point. Roxy Music, their first album was, I think that's the best lyrics, they're my favorite lyrics that Ryan never wrote. Love that. But there's one song that was kind of a throw away, called "Editions of You." And it just sounded like, like everybody got to do a solo in it. So they were just, it was like a filler song or something. But then, you know, that different members of the band did solos, and then it came to a synth solo. And Brianino did "Noise." The most amazing synth solo ever, I'd ever heard at that point. And I just remember, I went, that's it. Yeah, it was so exciting. That's really it. And by the way, it's Brianino who produced your first record. And that kind of came about in an interesting way. It was one of these Max, Max's Kansas City shows. And David Bowie goes on stage and introduces you guys. That must have felt like a dream come true. I mean, I'm sure you guys were. Absolutely. Bowie fans. And then he sees you play. He wants to work with you. But it's actually Brianino and stuff. Well, how did Brian come on to produce that first album? All because David Bowie kept delaying going into the studio with Devo because he had all these projects, a film, and then another record. And he, and we felt antsy about it. Like, it's time. It's really time. Yeah, none of us had apartments anymore or places to stay. And so he says, okay, Brian can do it. Wow. And he'll be, he'll be doing it with Connie Plank, like I would have in the same studio as I would have. And I'll come see you guys. So he, yeah, so he did take a train across Germany. He was in Berlin filming Jiggle. And he came over and he'd hang out with us for like three days a week. And so he was part of the atmosphere. Yeah, didn't get to produce. So he was actually him and Eno both sang and played instruments on tracks on the album. And we were so obsessed with just trying to reproduce what our demos sound like. That I remember, like, you know, Brian's sitting in the middle, the, you know, the producer and, you know, between the two speakers and everybody's all kind of like in a semi circle behind him. I'll, we're listening to the 24 trying. He goes, okay, let's put it down on a mix. So, you know, it's staring at mix. And so he'd hit the button, they'd start the recording. And I wouldn't look down, but I'd reach and pull down Brian Eno's synth part. You muted Bowie. And look over at me. And he, he as later said, well, I, I didn't know enough about production till I figure out how to talk you guys into letting me do some of this stuff. But was he was playing pretty stuff? We were, we were in love with the, you know, that played in Roxy music, but he had become this Zen guy, right? He was playing pretty. He was in his ambience. There are some things on it that we used on the album. Yeah, there were. There are some synth parts he did. And then there's a Brian and David did sing backups on. And we used the voice controlable. Brian did two great things. He imagined setting your makeup, then forgetting it's even theirs. Meet new groupie setting mist from Mavily New York. Gel to mist technology locks in your look for up to 24 hours with flexible all-day comfy grip. No tightness, no stickiness, no residue. Just plump, dewy, hydrated skin that still feels like your skin. Try new groupie setting mist from Mavily New York. Maybe it's Fabelaine. He created the sound of the only sequencer line that we used on that record, which shriveled up. Okay. Oh. Who did that? And he brought us the Buddhist monks. Yeah. We put the monkey chance in Joko Homo. Oh, I see him in there. Not as a sample, but just as an idea to bring to it. No, he put a, he put a sample. There is a sample. Literally. It's a sample in. Oh wow. Should have gone. It should have. What we've played it on stage. Yeah. The technology back then, there wasn't MIDI yet. Yeah, no. It was really difficult to to sink, sink something up, you know, like sound with live sound. We couldn't speed shift it. So things would happen. It's like, we'd be all excited on stage and we'd play faster than we did on stage. I noticed that. I noticed that. You know, like to catch up. Sometimes in my head, like certain songs, like, be stiffer so fast and then go back and listen to the album version, it's not nearly as fast because I've seen the, you know, you go on YouTube and you see these amazing performances. In fact, from your Max's kind of Kansas City days, we have a clip from one of those performances such good. I love that there's like footage of this stuff on the internet. Can we play a clip of gut feeling? That is just infectious. I'm sorry. He gets kind of chaotic about Portland. Alan Myers was the best though. The drummer. Yeah. He was a human mentor a lot. In 1979, you guys had two albums on Warner Bros. Under your belt. You already have the credibility. Of the underground scene, so to speak. So how were you feeling going into recording? Freedom of choice. We thought it'd be our last record. We were told, and unless you guys have a hit, this is your last record because they were so pissed at us for duty now. For duty. Yeah. And Debo was the wrong kind of personality to threaten that way. So it was like, okay, we're just going to do exactly what we want then. Who gives a shit, right? And so we were proceeding with that frame of mind, but it was exciting because we were just going for it. The anger. And again, the collaboration was wide open back then. Mark would keep notebooks. I would keep notebooks. He would bring in recordings on cassette from his bedroom drawings. I would do the same. We'd play together in the studio with everybody there coming up with things. So these songs were coming together in a very collaborative developmental way. We didn't concentrate on Wipit or give that some high position over other songs. It was just one of the songs that we were excited about. We were no more excited about that than Girl You Won or Freedom of choice. Which by the way, I just had to say right now because you brought it up. Girl, you won first single off the album. I feel like it is a song that hip-hop should have sampled by now. I don't know if you guys are in the habit of maybe people have come to you asking to clear that sample or something like that. But I feel like for all the one song nation listeners who might be in production in the hip-hop field, don't sleep on Girl You Won. It's an amazing song and I do feel like it's got all the makings of a hip-hop hit, but that said, maybe you didn't do it. Somebody did it, but they didn't do it well. They didn't do it well. Never. We were presented with it and they didn't do a good job on who wasn't. You don't have to say. I don't even remember. There was a bunch of park rangers from Wyoming and they had some free time. That's where half the good hip-hop comes from. People don't realize that all that time staring at the national parks at the national parks. Between Girl You Won, by the way, Freedom of Choice. There is this part of your songwriting process, which is the surprise, the element of surprise. There's almost little proggy things. The thing that yes, or Genesis might do with that fifth bar in the loop or in the case of those two songs, the surprise of where the down becomes. The time signature. Yeah. Yeah. Is that clearly that was a conscious choice in terms of deconstructing pop? Did that have an origin? Was there, I mean, in the case of Freedom of Choice, that the choice of that Dundin, Dundin, Dundin. That was a factory. Yeah. We were making a factory sound. You know, we were with an acronym. I know, right? It wasn't good for a lot of other things, but it did whip cracks and factory noise really well. Yeah. So we finally found a use for that sense. Yeah. The pounding and that kind of metallic echoey thing was so cool to us. It was like some kind of like dangerous like night train was coming for you. Yeah. Those were the kind of things we got off on. Well, we're going to take a quick break. But when we come back, you were going to feel like you're in the studio while Whip it is being recorded. We have the stems. We're going to play them. We're going to talk to these men about what song they think, other than Whip it, to find the 80s, stick around, we'll be right back. All right, welcome back to one song and without any further delay, let's dive into the stems of the song. I mean, luxury. Absolutely. Well, before we get into it, I have a quick question. When was the last time you would have heard the multi-tracks? Was it recently or many years ago? Not that long ago. Okay. And I'll tell you why, because we, that song's been used in a lot of commercials. And whip it has turned into flip it, strip it, a tip it, sweep it, sweep it. What does that mean? Swiff it. For a swiffer. Swiffer, swiffer. Yeah. In fact, we sang the lyrics ourselves, their, their parody lyrics. We sang them just to mess people up going, wait, that's really them. Oh, I see, because it's even more so when it's the original multi-tracks, plus the new vocals. Yeah. So it's like, we almost changed our name to Diho. Any regrets about that or you're like, no, it's fine. It's part of the culture. I think the song was made for parody and we have enough self-facing humor to lend ourselves to it. And, you know, my feeling always was that if one of our songs is more commercial and does get played somewhere, you know, it's, then that there's a chance it's going to, you know, kids are going to go, where did that come from? Yeah. And they'll go check out the album. They'll check out the band and they'll find out more about the truth about the evolution. Well, without further ado, let's listen to Alan Myers playing drums. I have a question right out of the gate. The drums are separated and a question, was it recorded, kick and snare separately from the high hats? Well, listen first and then I want to hear what you guys, what the answer is. So here is the kick and snare. And as you can hear coming up right now, there's bleed starting now. Very subtle. So the bleed indicating that, like, yeah, they're probably in a room playing kick and snare. I'm playing the bass from the control room, and it's going to Alan's phones. Let me just say what a fricking honor it is that you guys are here to tell us what happened. There's no speculation anymore. You will let us know the answers to these questions. No, I don't remember in playing the high hats separately. I don't even know. Well, listen, because it sounded, it did sound like possibly the way they were miked. Okay. That's what I was wondering until I noticed the lack of bleed, but they'll just listen. And I also hear two recordings that are hard-pand, but anyway, high hats. That certainly sounds isolated. That's really sometimes. Yeah. And here comes no bleed where the bleed was in the kick and snare, they're not together. And now just the high hats. Seems like he did do it. Yeah. Yeah, with two takes because it sounds like there's one in each. I think what happens is he did it the normal way and then Bob Margelov said, try this on. Too mushy. Okay. You know, we need more precision and more definition interesting. Yeah. I mean, we weren't, we weren't alien to that idea. The album we'd done before that was extremely torn apart. Even though there was all songs that we'd written while we were playing in clubs and they were all based on us playing live, it's like a duty now for the future. He stripped all the, he had us all play separate. Ken Scott. Yeah. Ken Scott. Yeah. It was like the most not a good, it was like robotic, yeah, without not good. He managed to, yeah, he managed to deball rock and roll. Okay. Yeah, it was, yeah, I was really unhappy with that record until I heard it on a eight track recording that Warner's put out. And in my girlfriend's shitty Volvo that had a shitty sound system and I'm like, that's what it was supposed to sound like because it was a distort, enough distortion was added to it. It sounded pretty good. It was too perceived and clean. Otherwise, you didn't have the great that you had intended or wanted to have in it. Mark had hung out with with the drummer of Captain B. Fart, Robert Williams, and Robert Williams put down this drum beat on tape with Mark and Mark played it for us in the studio. And it's, it's a wilder, kind of jazzy or a version of what you're hearing, okay? But it had that, that trippy gallop in it in the high-hat pattern. I used to go over to this, this house where we're Captain B. Fart and Gogo's at the bottom, right? Right. Yeah. The drummer. They rehearsed in the basement. It was in Hancock Park somewhere. And because I didn't have a drum machine, I mean, the drum machine I had had like waltz and bossanova and, like I said, I'd go over and I would tell him what I wanted him to play. And he'd put stuff together for me. Do you remember what you might have suggested to get him to where he played this beat as a result? I was looking for, for dance beats for, for, to write to, that didn't sound like, you know, the most obvious disco. So we kept doing things until I said, okay, that, do that for me for three minutes. And he'd do it for three minutes on a cassette. And then I'd take it back to my, three minutes, he could write something over it. Yeah. Because there's no way to do it. And it isn't, like any other dance beat. It's really freaking fast. It's really fast. I think the high-hat feels a little disco, but it's a very fast tempo. Because as you pointed out, it's like sort of the jazz that's at the top. Skip, yeah. Skip Gallop thing was the cool thing. If it were half time, it would be kind of a jazz to, to, to, to, to, to have that swing thing to it. Oh, also here, Alan, so good. He's not playing to a clip. That's, he plays him in the metronome. He plays the drums. Then he goes back and plays his high-hat to his drums. Yeah, that we did illuminate from, uh, from the process. And when, and when we went back to the original tracks, because they were going to use it in a commercial, and they needed the, the BPMs to be mapped, Mark has a piece of equipment that maps those, the BPMs only drifted to BPM from the beginning to the end and only during the bridge that did it, did it, and went right back to the same BPMs as you begin. He was just a robot. Honestly, God, that's what, that's what, that's what a robot was. That's incredible. What kind of a rhythm? What an incredible part, too. And listening, it's funny to remember that in the 80s, like, dance music, this is 160 BPM songs. Yeah. Like, yeah. This was dancing, like Molly Ringwalshaw. Because you're really focused on that, you know, back, the two and the four. It's hard to, like, it was perfect for the white-couple days. I was going to say, if you were very caffeinated back then, coffee was very popular. I wasn't going to ask about that, but you're, I was implied before I mean, it was ubiquitous. And the, you know, your record company, A&R man would offer it to you at the end of the day. At the beginning of the day. Oh, yeah. And they were being, like, three P.M. Like, now, now they bring you a cup of coffee or they go take an order at Starbucks, but back in those days. Or we'd eat at Roy's with our manager. And then he'd close the curtain and the, you know, the waiter would come over with a little white plate with six lines on it. It would not be whip it if I can use your famous line. It would not be whip it without the whip sound to complete the beat. And here it is. And that sounds like something reversed. That's part of this sound. There's more to it. Yeah. There was white noise from one year's synths. That's, I think I hear that in there. Yeah. That is what you're hearing. Maybe merged together. Well, here it is with the complete. I'm only hearing the reverse. Well, it's a reverse reverb on an on an EML. Electro comp 500 is that correct? Electro comp 500. Well, here it is with the entirety of the beat so we can hear it all together. Whose idea or where did this idea maybe come? Or was it just you had to do it because it was the title of the song? Well, at that point, several kind of techno, new wave, influenced bands starting with Gary Newman. We're using white noise. We loved that. But Divo didn't just want to like start putting white noise on every other snare beat to do it because other people did it. But it was like, wait a minute. Now we have these lyrics whip it. We'll use white noise as a whip crack, right? Yeah. There's an actual real reason to put that sound in the song to punctuate the lyrics. Right. And you obviously had to get rather creative to create the sound, to synthesize the sound, and then to have, and then to reverse it and everything that you did to process it. In 1979, it wasn't just a 10 cent splice sample in the word whip. Was that a process that took a fair amount of time or were you able to dial in? Yeah. I mean, I think we worked on that a lot. A large percentage of the total time it took to make this song. Well, we recorded the album in just a few weeks, so a large percentage of the time might have been from breakfast to lunch or something. It was pretty fast by today's standards, right? Well, that's the beat. So let's move on to, Jerry, I believe this is you playing not just any moog, but is it not the Divo box? Is that what this was? Is that information right? Two moogs? Oh, I don't think we had ganged them at this point, had we? Let's hear what it sounds like, because to my ear, let's just listen. Maybe we can tell from the sound. I'm not going to speculate because you guys are here today. No, we'll know if there's-- Yeah. Six oscillators, rather than three. - Okay, yeah. - Jerry Kassale on bass, Mogue, maybe one, maybe two. (upbeat music) And I'll bring in the column response 'cause you just need to hear it. (upbeat music) So, might be the Divo box, might not. - It sounds like it must be the Divo box. It doesn't sound like you're playing two separate parts. - And again, for now. - The listeners, it sounds like it's just one performance. - Who may not understand the significance back in the day before there's MIDI to get multiple machines to play nice together, to sync together. You had to do clever things that required some engineering knowledge. - It was pre-mitty was a whole different world for electronics. - Yeah, and his genius brother, Jim, had started working for Roland, and he did it at some point, gang two mini-moges together, one slave to the other, and then sent him to a controller. So, I just played a controller, and I was playing six oscillators at once so we could get a bigger beefy, - Yeah, yeah. - Big, big, big, wide, or two. - I just drew three oscillators. - No, it was six oscillators. - It was huge. - Well, in general, one of the big changes on this album is the move from electric. - Right, right. - You know what I remember also, is one of the things that Bob Margulof taught us that we had never done before it. I don't know why it never occurred to us, but he ran from like the bass, he ran into two different amps in different rooms. - Right. - That might be what we're hearing. - That's right. - I think that's what we're hearing. And then he ran one just to direct in, because there was no memory on any of the synths back in those days, we'd be writing a song, and then we'd come back the next day and try to duplicate what we had just played the day before and we'd be going, "Oh, that doesn't sound right." We'd be chasing the sound forever, and then he taught us how to split it out like that, and it made it so we could dial things in easier the next day. It really. - These are literally innovations of the change that we take from it. - It changed our way of writing, actually. - Was there a conscious decision on your card to move to the mogue from the bass guitar for this record? - It was kind of shocking, but I really, the time I had the right frame of mind, I was excited to do it and learn it. I loved it because the music demanded, this is what we do. - The music demanded something maybe more. - You didn't want a bass guitar in this song. - Yeah, it wouldn't have worked the same. But you did keep the live drums. I suppose the drum machines weren't quite. - Thankfully. - Yeah, thankfully, 'cause Alan Lyres is the rival. - Because they sound so good. - Yeah, they sound really good. - But that balance, that balance that you have here in this song, which is, you have live drums, you have synths that are not sequenced, they're all performed, right? - Right, yeah. - And then you still had real guitar. - And real guitar, right? So this isn't necessarily the synth pop era that's about to happen. - It's the Goldilocks spot between technology and rock. - Yes, it's the sweet spot. - It's just got the right combo where machines don't take over and make something sound sterile. So going back to the synth that we just heard, the call-in response that ding, ding, ding, ding. Who's playing that? Is that Bob 2, or do we know who playing it? - It was probably me. Bob was a utility player that would go between guitar and keyboard, depending on where we needed him, per song. - More like in a live setting, as opposed to recording. - In a live setting, yeah. So he'd go back and forth, but probably I played the synths parts on all of this. - The bass part is doubled by your brother, by Bob 1. I believe, is that correct? Is Bob 1 playing the guitar part here? - Correct. - Okay, well let's listen to him isolated, and then I'll bring in to the context of what he played. (upbeat music) Mark had in his bedroom with I think a guitar and a synth played, and it was really infectious, and it's that kind of thing where it doesn't really, it revolves. And I said something about, what is that? It almost sounds like something goes, oh, it's pretty woman, but I had it two years ago. (upbeat music) - He's pulled it apart. He pulled it apart to find its component elements that individually separated. We can recombine it in a way. - So then, I sure find the bass part on it, but I thought it was too busy to, when I heard me imitating the whole line, so I left a space in it where you could hear the snare drum. - Right, so it's about Bob 1, baby, about. (imitating bass drum) - So that's our intro, or your intro, the intro to Whip It, and at this point, we get the introduction of your call and response, speaking of vocals, which starts with you, with the initial crack in the whip. - Crack in that whip. - He gives the pass to slip. - Let's listen. - Correct. - That whip. - That guy. - Give the pass to slip. - Back to Jerry. - Step on a crit. - Break your mama's back. - Now this is Mark again, yeah? - Oh, and our problem comes along. - You must whip it before the cream sets out too long. - You must whip it when something's going wrong. - You must whip it. - So cool. - That call response is epic. - It's so epic, and it's so fun that you guys are sitting here. Sorry, I will get over myself and the fact that you're here and that we're hearing this. But listening back, what do you remember about this recording? - Yeah. - We were talk singers and character singers. That's what we were doing. You know, we weren't cruners. And we weren't trying to write cruner kind of songs. And we were using our strings. - There's not a wide robot Teddy Pinnagras. This is something different than that. - That's right. - I mean, before we move on, I'd love to talk about the lyrics because, you know, you guys know everybody thought it had this, this BDSM, you know, thing going on. What, for the record, and for the record, what is this song about? - I had just been reading "Gravities Rainbow" by Thomas Pinchin. And in that, he makes a bunch of parodies of limericks that kind of like go after the Horatio Alger, kind of your number one. There's nobody else like you and, you know, like American exceptionalism. - Sure, and we thought that was funny stuff. - Yeah, it's like a heavy story, but then he'll look out a window and there'll be kids playing on a sidewalk and they'll be singing an odd nursery song. And I go, "I want to do one of those." So I'm gonna do one of those for us. So Wipit was inspired by these things that Thomas Pinchin had interlaced into "Gravities Rainbow." - Well, while we're talking about the lyrics, you have "Scribble Down." - I have the original "Scribbles." - The original "Scribbles." - Oh, my gosh. - I had, I'd buy these cheap PSS books. - Not that cheap, they were like 75 cents. - Oh, my gosh. - And they're just ridiculous low. They were all blanks with, you know, ha-ha captions, like Superman traveling faster than the speeding bullet. So that's why you don't see anything. And, you know, North Pole landscape, ha-ha-ha. But I would just use them to write a song in each box. And so-- - So that book is filled with other songs? - Oh, yeah. - The song lyrics, yeah. - Here's Wipit, the original Wipit, where it's not, it's the same lyrics, but not laid out in the same cadence that fit this music, 'cause this was written before that music. - Interesting. - What's an example of something that evolved? Like, that was different in this original one. - Well, just the way, the length of the lines, they're not divided up for call and response. - This would fit the square dance version of Wipit. - That's right, okay. Would you have had a melody for this, too, or did that come with the music? - That came from the music. - You know, it's more than writing lyrics, then you develop a vocal melody and it cadence, right? I mean, that's rhythmically where you place everything. - It isn't just like some guy wrote lyrics, period. Yeah, right next to it is, going under. ♪ I'm going under ♪ (upbeat music) ♪ I'm going under ♪ ♪ I'm out ♪ - All right, well, let's get into the chorus. What do you wanna play for us, my man? - Well, let's start with just because it's there, and we talked about Pretty Woman. Part two, the top half, ends up in the turnaround, and let's listen to it in the guitar. (upbeat music) So in the chorus, we introduce a really important new element. And Mark, is this you on the fourth tritone, weirdness, awesomeness? (upbeat music) - Yeah, more than likely. - More than likely. And do you recall maybe an inspiration for this, or it was just in the moment, like this weird thing has to happen this way. - Oh, it was like always looking for like nervous. - Yeah. - You know, like stressful. - Come some a commercial. - It's very stressful. - Yeah, and that's what it does. It keeps things tense and keeps them up here. You know, no rest. - Right, 'cause while everything else is moving, and I'll bring in the other elements, (upbeat music) it's staying consistent and disturbing. (laughing) Off-kilter, 'cause it's really good. A lot of it. The rest of it's quite, it's a nice pretty melody. - Great, great parts. These are great parts, absolutely. - Mark had brought in another tape, and he had. And this one had the sound of something that he had done back at Akron through a frequency analyzer. I don't remember what synth you were using when you did golden energy. Oh, that was, uh, it was a pia. Pia. Do you know those? They were like these, you bought pieces and they'd send them to you from Oklahoma City, I think. Like you build your own kit and you build your own, uh, yeah, your own modular synths and similar electronics magazine. So you could, for like $19 you could buy a VCO or for $22 you could buy a filter or a envelope or different pieces and so on. All the component parts that would, you know, yeah. So it was like, it was like, it had the weld of all together, but it, you know, you ended up with a synth at the end of the day. And it was really a cool sound because through the frequency analyzer, it was like quivering jullos. And so this, this tape had like a very slow which was, would be the chorus of Whippet. It went, okay, but halftime. Yeah, the speed, the speed, yeah, I loved it. You know, it's just how cool is that. And then we just sped it up, made it the chorus, playing with the same set of sounds as the verse we had, right. And that's when we had, we thought was the song before the little bridge of that, that, that, that, that, that came later. But, but, but I started trying to sing lyrics I'd written over this thing. I'd written Whippet, totally independent of this music. And it seemed to be how did you match it? How did, how did you come to it? Well, it just seemed like it fit because the idea was we trade lines. That was the main idea. A little calling response. Yeah, calling response. I saw somewhere the quote, the white robot James Brown in the spirit of R&B that we were talking about, robot R&B, it just made sense, right. We started trying it and it was great. And then in the vocals, let's listen to what you, gentlemen, have done together. I believe, but I do have a question. Here is what I think is the final main lead vocal. Now, whip it into shape, shape it up, get straight. Mark, that sounds like, is this, is this you or it's, it's, that's me. That's me. Okay. But then Mark sings it with me and his voice is mixed behind mine. That's what I was going to ask because it's pretty low. He does a character voice like a whist. He was doing a whisper almost. Then you've answered the question. Let's listen to that. I labeled it chill one and chill two. Now whip it into shape, shape it up, get straight. Mix them together. Go forward. Two marks. Move ahead. And one Jerry on top. I do the tap it. It's not too late to whip it. Whip it good. Right. See, it's the combo that does it. Right. It really does. In the final mix though, I think it's, it's, the balance is interesting because I had never noticed those lower ones until maybe it's not there as much. I don't know. Yeah. Subliminal. It's so much of what you do. It's the second chorus you guys have a new part. It's not the same as the first or the third chorus. Yeah, that's a bridge. This is a bridge. That's the bridge. I say whip it. Okay. Okay. Flip it good. That was the last part added to the song. Was this, this felt like something that maybe Bob wanted to do so he could finally bust out the distortion pedal so he can play this. And maybe not the distortion. Maybe Mark remembers. I remember we were playing in the studio when this was created. Yeah. Yeah. That's right. Was the idea like we need another different part to kind of, we needed a bridge. We needed a break from what was going on. Well, you say it up. But then in the next part, you also have a break because it's, is that the solo? We'll just play it. We'll decide. Yeah. Well, that's, yeah. It's almost like a rest. It's, it's a non-lead lead. Let's listen to the bass line. And this is, it's basically the intro to bars when you truncated it to one and a half bars. Right. One, two, three, four. One, two, one, two, three, four. All these clever ways of bringing in familiar things but making them slightly different. And then not importantly, we of course have the one note solo. By the way, snowy behind you, that's what he plays. And not even a symbol. This is the non-lead lead. Incredible. What was that influenced by something? I always think of cinnamon girl by Neil Young. Has that like crazy one note solo? Well, maybe. We did like cinnamon girl. Well, listen, a whip it is now 45 years old. And as you guys are continuing your 50th anniversary tour, what does it mean to have a song like this in your catalog? I mean, like, you know, your career, we are Devo fans. But what do you feel about this particular song whip it? At this point in your career? Grateful for the attention. Yeah. I mean, again, I think I mentioned earlier, Mark and I didn't put anything on a record. We didn't like it. But we didn't single out in our minds. You know, I'm afraid of my choice. Like, this is it. Right. We liked everything we put on there. And when the record company heard the record, they of course put all their chips on girl you want. And when yes, I know. And I mean, in other words, we liked it as much as whip it. And it may be more. Who knows? But when when it didn't hit at the top 20, but it didn't go any higher. They were like, okay, we're out. But you know, a radio DJ named Cal Redmond down in Florida on his own. Just with no prompts, from Peiola or Coke or I love the stories of how a single DJ can make this a huge difference. Back then they could, right? We didn't give them donuts. No donuts. And you know, that back then there was no clear channel or anything like that. So he could with his Cal Redmond tip sheet or whatever he called it. He could influence like about a hundred DJs in the Southeast play this song that he really liked. He took the record from Warner's and actually listened to it and picked that song. And overnight our fate changed. And that led to them giving you some money for a video, the iconic video. Right. That's right. Which also must have had some contribution, especially when MTV went from not existing to existing. Right. And we had already given them every video we had made previous to that. And they were still not national. They were only in like three cities. They were just about to go with American Express money, national franchise. Right. So yeah, we made a video. But not unimportant because videos you had been in the Vanguard. Yes. Early laser disc, right? Like you are making videos for long enough that you are so ahead of the curve that your videos did not look like anything else on MTV in the earliest days. Right. So memorable. Well, they were self-expression. They were all do it yourself. We weren't hiring outside directors and to impose an idea on us. It was your complete vision visually. You directed the video. Is that right? Yeah. Well, that's what I was going to ask about. There's something about this video that again, going back to even as a child, there was something about it that was like there's many layers here. And I can't put my finger on what it is. Oh, it's pretty naughty. But no, but even just the way the characters look at each other was clearly referring to sort of an advertising language. Or a no, a fake language. An hour ago, we studied TV commercials because we wanted to use that vocabulary to put our message out. Right. That was like a George Ash commercial moment. Yeah. Right. Yeah. There were elements. Is there something you can put your finger on to explain to me as a more of a music person than a visual person? Like what was it that I'm picking up on that so uncanny and strange about how these people are interacting? We were parodying the the coming conservatism in America because Reagan was about to become president. And we knew cowboy movies. We knew he would win. And we were looking at all those westerns and like Marx, the denim and the George Ash commercials. Oh, like it's really me eating the air, right, right. So it was this kind of like it's almost like what's happening with the mega people now, right? And it was happening back then in, you know, not as aggravated a manner, but it's like an appeal to like the real American country, blue gene, something like that. It was our satire on it. The American cabin, the great west backdrop from western images behind us with, you know, Utah buttes and maces. I like that backdrop. It was great. It was expensive. But this sort of underlying undercurrent, if there's something going on, there's also something else unspoken. Well, Marx whipping a woman's clothes off. Which almost seems like you guys saying like, look, they think this is what it's about. Let's just go for it. Let's just do it. That's what my point was going to be. We said, let's give them what they want. We had a song called Whip it. It's inappropriate. Before we end the show, we want to play a game with you guys. We hope that's cool. It's called What's One Song. And I hear the rules. We'll ask you a question. Yeah. And you'll give us an answer really quickly. Like, don't overthink it as quickly as possible. Let's begin. All right. All right. What's one song that soundtrack to your art school days? I guess it would be like a Rolling Stone by Bob Dylan. That's a great one. Purple haze. Purple haze. That's a good one. What's one song that changed the way you thought about making music. Diamond dogs. Beef heart. What's one song that you think defined the 80s not including with it? Gary Newman cars. Sure cars. The cars is good. Yeah, we went to the forum when he was playing and I sat in his little car that he drove out on stage and drove it around while there was nobody there. We have to play with ourselves with him backstage. All drink in Coca-Cola. Love it. What's one song that you could listen to every day for the rest of your life? Every day. That's tough. That's hard to say. That is tough. Because for me, it's like my favorite song of the day changes every day. Although if I was going to pick one, I might pick satisfaction by stone. That's an easy one. That's a great one. That sure is true. It can never go wrong. It's the ultimate rock and roll song. It's not for nothing that you chose it to be the song you had. That's why we did it. That's why you did it and transformed it forever. What's one song we have to break down on a future episode of one song? I'd say take any of them off the first album because if you took the 24 track, there's going to be tracks that Brian Eno and David Bowie intended on putting in the song that you'll only hear them on your show. Mark and Jerry, thank you so much for playing this game with us and spending some time with us. Where can folks find out more about your upcoming tour dates and just what you're up to in general? ClubDivo.com. Is there a circumstance where Devo is Devo versus Devo? I've been wondering this. When is Devo? Whether it's Devo or Devo? Right. Yeah. Who was Devo back in the early days when it was Art Deco, Art Novo, Art Devo. And then Jocco Homo kind of turned that upside down. Devo. And also Belbyv Devo came out. Yeah, we came out here and everybody went, "Hey, Devo!" Actually, early on, I mean, now we both kind of just default to Devo, but early on, Devo was kind of like high Devo and Devo was kind of a reference to Devo. Even more in Devo. I love that. I feel like we've learned so much today. It's amazing. It's such an honor to have you guys on the show. Thank you so much for coming down and deconstructing your own song with us. It was great to hear this like this actually because I realized how much is packed into two minutes and 46 seconds. It's really an interesting arrangement. A lot of changes. It only seems simple until you really listen to how it's broken down. That's what probably kept it interesting. I found that to be the case too, but I didn't write the song. So it's really cool to hear you say that you've heard the same thing. Well, this show is great because the people that are listening to it, most of them aren't songwriters, and so they don't even, you know, they don't really know how a song is built or created. And when you get to hear the tracks individually like that, it's, I think it's very illuminating. It both demystifies the process, but also gives you a greater appreciation of the finished product. Exactly. I think you hit it right there. Well, I think you get the idea of how intentional everything was, you know, right? How consciously we were doing this stuff. Both every sound and in a moment, but also as you're saying, the arrangement over time, like we've heard this, let's hear something different from a moment, then bring it back. Okay. Well, I think we should just agree right now that we've got about 149 songs left to go. We should do more. Please come back. We're going to do a pop. We'll do more. It's called One Devo Song. One Devo Song because we're high-minded here. And One Devo Song. Well, do one of each. Mark, Jerry, Devo. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you for coming on One Song. Thank you for letting us be on. What an episode. As always, you can find us on Instagram and TikTok. You can find me on Instagram @DialoDIA. Lolo and on TikTok @DialoRiddle. And you can find me on Instagram @LUXXURY. And on TikTok @LUXXURYXX. And now One Song officially has its own Instagram and TikTok. Go follow @OneSongPodcast for exclusive content. You can watch full episodes of the show on YouTube and Spotify. Just search for One Song Podcast. We'd love it if you'd like and subscribe. Also, be sure to check out the One Song Spotify playlist for all of the songs we discuss in our episodes. You can find the link in our episode description. If you made this far, we think that means you like the podcast. So please, don't forget to give us five stars, leave a review, and share with someone you think would like it. It really helps to keep the show going. All right, Luxury, help us in this thing. I'm producer DJ, songwriter and music ologist and massive Devo fan who's had the best day of his life luxury. And I'm actor, writer, director, and sometimes DJ, but always, Devo fan, DeOloRiddle. And this is One Song. We'll see you next time. This episode is produced by Melissa Duanez. Our video editor is Casey Simonson. Our associate producer is Jeremy Bimbo. Mixed in by Michael Hardman and engineering by Eric Kicks. Production supervision by Rizak Boykin. Additional production support from Z Taylor. The show is executive produced by Kevin Hart, Mike Stein, Brian Smiley, Eric Eddings, Eric Wilde, and Leslie Guam. Imagine setting your makeup. Then forgetting it's even theirs. Meet new grippy setting missed from Maybelline New York. Gel to Miss technology locks in your look for up to 24 hours, with flexible all day comfy grip. Just plump, dewy hydrated skin that still feels like your skin. Try new grippy setting missed from Maybelline New York. Maybe it's Maybelline.