Devo confirm their retirement from playing live
New wave pioneers Devo have confirmed that their current tour will be their last.
Devo announced a 2023 farewell tour in February this year and have asserted in a new interview that their current run will be their last after 50 years together. Notably, the group was formed in 1973 around the concept of “de-evolution”, their collective idea that humanity has begun to regress. Bassist Gerald Casale and guitarist Bow Lewis developed this notion as a joke when studying art at Kent State University.
In a discussion with The Guardian, Devo frontman Mark Mothersbaugh explained why the group have decided to call it a day for playing live. “Are you married?” he asked the interviewer. “Imagine you had four wives and you worked together. It’s tricky being in a band.”
Gerald Casale then asserted that Devo’s “fully formed” identity meant they’ve been able to resist label pressure over the years. “We came out fully formed,” he said. “People want to grab you when you’re malleable and change you, but they couldn’t do that to Devo because the armour was too strong.”
Casale did add that the band’s concept has caused creative friction at points. “You’ve got a body of work informed by a whole manifesto and philosophy,” he maintained. “Do you let go and move on to the next thing? You want change, otherwise you’re stale, but you don’t want to be contrived.”
Mothersbaugh joked that he’s “looking forward to 2073″. He said: “We’ll play 100th anniversary Devo shows and then maybe retire”.
However, Casale said he was “in denial” about the decision to stop playing live. He expressed: “Because I love performing and I’ll hate to see it go. It was part of Devo’s DNA. But we did as well as we could, for as long as we could.”
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