Devo has been a fixture on the list of acts snubbed by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame — especially since the group hails from Akron, Ohio, right in the back yard of the Cleveland museum. “We’ve struck out three times, so that’s probably it for us,” the group’s Mark Mothersbaugh tells UCR.
But he has another, and maybe better, idea.
“They have a parking lot next door,” Mothersbaugh explains, “and in Ohio they have very lax laws about where you can bury people. You can actually bury people in your yard if you file and get the permission and stuff like that. So I was thinking we could just stack all the members of Devo in this one parking space so we could be Rock and Roll Hall of Fame adjacent, even if we weren’t inside. They do have some displays in there with (Devo’s) suits and hats and other things. So we could be…adjacent and just hang out next door for the rest of time.”
Mothersbaugh, his brother Bob and Gerald Casale remain from the classic Devo lineup; Alan Myers passed away during 2013 and Bob Casale in 2014.
It’s pointed out that such a spot could become a tourist attraction of its own. “Yeah,” Mothersbaugh says, “you can charge an extra buck.”
Read More: The 10 Worst Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Snubs
Mothersbaugh recalls one conversation about the Rock Hall he had with John Lydon — who famously shunned the Sex Pistols’ 2006 induction — backstage at the first Cruel World Festival during 2022 in California. “We were talking about the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and he goes, ‘Ah, I always felt if I got in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame I’d just want to know what I did wrong!’ I don’t agree with that, but I thought that was a funny take on it.”
Devo has been eligible for the Rock Hall since 2002; its previous nominations came during 2019, 2021 and 2022.
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Mothersbaugh and company played an extensive series of 50 Years of DeEvolution…continued! shows earlier this year and will be on the road with the B-52’s and Lene Lovich for the 12-date Cosmic De-Evolution Tour that begins Sept. 24 in Toronto and continues sporadically through early November. Mothersbaugh says he’s been heartened “by how many young people” show up to see Devo these days, which gives him a sense that the de-evolution message is perhaps resonating even more now than it did back in the day.
“Nobody was interested…very few people were interested in what our message was back then,” he says. “As a matter of fact, by the time we were doing albums we were always kind of submersing it; it wasn’t like hitting you in the face or beating a pulpit talking about de-evolution, everything’s falling apart. But now it’s like people are looking for answers, and they’re questioning why we are where we are in the world, and de-evolution seems like a possible answer to that.
“I was the optimist in the band. I was Booji Boy. I think kids will figure out a way to sort of weave through the craziness that’s happening now, on so many levels. I think they’ll have the ability to kind of change things and go forward in a positive way, if they want. I feel like the first 50 years of Devo we were trying to warn people about being the one species out of touch with nature; I think the next 50 years we’re gonna talk about mutating, don’t stagnate, do creative mutations so you can move forward as a planet and as a species. That’s something we’ll need to be aware of, unless we all want to move to Mars — which looks to me like a pretty bleak space to live.”
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Gallery Credit: Nick DeRiso and Michael Gallucci
