How Devo changed the musical perception of Maynard James Keenan
Throughout rock history, the most revered and enduring groups have been those who dared to challenge the status quo of the music scene at the time. If everybody stuck with the original sound of rock, we would have never arrived at the sprawling and diverse genre we have today. Frontman and songwriter Maynard James Keenan knows a thing or two about innovation and inventiveness, having blended a vast range of styles and influences to create the distinctive sounds of Tool. Seemingly, though, that somewhat divisive sound has its roots in the vibrant new wave scene of the late 1970s.
When punk rock kicked off during the mid-1970s, the boundaries of acceptability in rock were completely demolished. For the first time, it seemed as though there were no expectations and no limits to what you could create, which led to a sense of complete artistic freedom. Inevitably, though, there are only so many songs you can write with three guitar chords and lyrics about smashing the establishment. Despite the flash-in-the-pan nature of the early punk scene, it did blaze a trail for the new wave generation to follow.
Essentially, new wave continued the punk sensibility while building upon its musical ability by incorporating a wider range of influences, including the newfound joy of synthesisers. Within this broad scene, there were no groups quite as intriguing as Devo. The Ohio band operated by a staunch set of ‘devolution’ principles, creating a sound unlike anything that audiences had heard before or have heard since and amassing a cult following in the process.
Although the revolutionary sounds of Devo proved a little too strange for mainstream audiences, they found a special place in the heart of a young Maynard James Keenan. Back in 2018, he listed their incredible debut album Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo! as one of his all-time favourite records, sharing, “Out of left field approach to them just making an attempt to destroy classic rock with their melodies and their approaches”.
Continuing, the Tool lyricist told BBC Radio One, “If you listen to some of those early albums – most of them are, in my opinion, I am not a lawyer – a lot of those early songs seem like they are direct rip-offs of classic rock songs, just sped up and quirked out”. Perhaps the most obvious example of this is Devo’s unique take on The Rolling Stones track ‘(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction’, which flipped the classic rock song completely on its head.
“So you listen to them,” the singer continued, “It’s like them trying to stiffen up classic rock into this weird, digital quirky nature,” he added. “I just love that. Again, it took me outside of my conventional understanding of music as it goes”.
Tool, as a band, has done very well in changing people’s conventional understanding of music themselves, but it seems as though Keenan owes a lot of that early inspiration to the power of Devo. The destruction and subversion of classic rock sensibilities by Mark Mothersbaugh and the gang helped to open people’s eyes to an entirely new way of operating, and it was certainly not lost on Keenan.
