Jerry: Hi there.

S: Ya know, you and I have actually met before.

J: Yeah?

S: Yeah, my partner and I booked you for a DJ set in Phoenix in December. I was the one that drove you around a bit & was actually behind the decks with you.

J: Oh, yeah, okay now I remember you. I just didn’t connect you with the name.

S: They call me Sleazy Sean when I DJ so sometimes people get me mixed up.

J: Yeah yeah, and the other guy was William right?

S: Yeah he was the smaller one.

J: Ok, now I’m putting it together.

S: So I warn everyone I interview, I’m not a professional when it comes to interviewing people. Ya know, blogs are nice because anyone can write for them and blogs are bad because anyone can write for them.

J: Haha. Right.

S:Anyhow, starting with what we were already talking about, are you still DJing? Have you DJ’d any interesting places since we last saw eachother?

J: Ya know, your friend William hooked me up with a booker that offered me a few. There were a number I couldn’t do but there were 2 I did take him up on. One was in Hawaii and one was in L.A. The Hawaii one turned out pretty good. The L.A. one, the club completely flaked.

S: Seriously? That sucks.

J: Yeah, what I’m trying to do now is I’ve written a bunch of new stuff and I’m trying to actually, ya know, it’s dance-oriented and I’m trying to work with some people and get it to the point where it’s masterable and I can play it in the clubs and sing live over it. So in addition to just playing a bunch of tracks people may have heard over and over it would add an original element to it.

S: I remember when you DJ’d here you weren’t singing but you were definitely interacting with the crowd over the microphone. You were doing your ‘Jihad - Jihad Jerry’ every couple songs or so.

J: Haha. Yeah I was having fun, but this would be much more interactive.

S: It’s a cool concept. That would really give people more bang for their buck.

J: Well exactly. Exactly.

S: I remember when you played you really had a broad variety in terms of your tracks.

J: I tried to develop it, develop the night from one thing to the next.

S: I definitely heard some Isley Brothers.

J: Yeah, in the early part I was very retro where people would have an easy time dancing to it and then as it went on it got nastier with more techno and the faster stuff like that German band…Deutsche uhhh…ya know ‘Do The Mussolini’?

S: Ha, I do remember you playing that. I think you played some Utah Saints too.

J: Yeah I sure did.

S: It’s kind of interesting that I still remember it so vividly with it being at least 6 months ago. I was really impressed with it. So many people you book from bands, you just have no idea what you’re getting. They’ll play things that are not conducive to people dancing or enjoying themselves at all. They get really obscure.

J: Yeah and that really defeats the whole purpose. You want them dancing and drinking don’t you?

S: Exactly. I remember hearing Teddybears, which makes me think you keep up with current music pretty well.

J: I try to. I hear things all the time that I really like.

S: What’s something you’re currently taken with?

J: I like a lot of LCD Soundsystem. What else? Did I play Datarock that night, those guys from Norway?

S: You might have, you definitely had a nice mix of new and old.

J: What’s that LCD Soundsystem song…it’s really jungle-y techno and he keeps saying ‘the time has come’ or something like that? I can’t think of what it’s called.

S: Uhhh…man I’m not sure. I’m trying to check off the lyrics in my head. I kind of focused on this interview to the exclusion of everything else in my brain. I’ll probably think of it when we hang up.

J: I remember the lyrics had nothing to do with the title, that’s probably why we can’t think of the title.

S: Are there any other bands you’re enjoying now?

J: I know there are more…I heard something the other day by Digitalism. I heard some good stuff from them. And The Knife.

S: A lot of the good bands these days are coming out of Sweden.

J: I know!

S: What’s happening with the Jihad Jerry project? Does the new material you’re working on go along with that or is that more related to Devo?

J: It’s sort of like a wishlist for a time if Devo ever makes more music. People are kind of freaked out by the Jihad Jerry stuff. I thought they’d all think it was really funny and get off on it but people are really offended and scared.

S: Really? So they just aren’t in on the joke or what?

J: Yeah, they just aren’t getting it.

S: That’s too bad because I listened to the album and I really liked what I heard. I mean, it’s obviously reminiscent of Devo in a lot of ways with your voice and your songwriting…

J: Yeah, I really can’t help that, haha.

S: So Jihad Jerry is basically too thought-provoking? Like it’s hurting people’s heads?

J: Pretty much. The character just freaks them out. This one radio programmer said, ya know he heard one of the tracks called ‘The Time Is Now’ and he said ‘If that was a Devo song, and the backup vocals were Devo and not girls then I’d play this.’

S: This is something he said directly to you?

J: Yeah, right to my face. He didn’t even think it was a bad thing. I mean, basically he was just reflecting where the radio business is at. Things need to be branded or else they don’t touch it. And that was one of the tracks I felt stood out.

S: You played that track and a few others when you were here and I remember a really positive crowd reaction. I think those were the first tracks you played in fact.

J: Right.

S: It seems like radio has become so narrow and rigid they just don’t bother experimenting anymore. It’s really disappointing. Given that reaction and the negativity you’re telling me about with the character, are you ditching it? Putting it on hiatus?

J: Yeah, I think that’s it. I don’t want them to have Jihad Jerry to kick around anymore! [Laughs]

S: Haha, but they’ll still have regular old Jerry right?

J: Yeah they’ll still have me.

S: One of my friends I write with wanted me to ask you what was the strangest energy dome gift the band had ever been given?

J: Specifically the energy dome or just the strangest gift? [Laughs]

S: Well, either one but he was curious about the energy dome. I guess there are some crazy stories floating around like one that had something to do with a Jello mold?

J: Yeah that Jello mold, they just brought it backstage and popped it out of the mold, and there it was in the shape of the energy dome. But that’s not the strangest…I’m trying to think of what the strangest one was. I think it was a lot more scatalogical and far more disgusting.

S: Oh maybe we don’t want to hear this.

J: Yeah it was something and I’m trying to remember. It was nasty. Let’s just say there was refuse and bodily waste in the energy dome.

S: We’ll just give them credit for being creative.

J: It was body art.

S: Wow. Moving on, haha. As a bass player, who inspired you? Who did you see or listen to and think, wow, I really want to do what he does?

J: Hmmm. Well I always loved the bass. Right from the beginning I really focused on the bass as driving the song, something with a really good bassline hypnotized me. I suppose there were so many of them, because I remember listening to early Chicago blues when they started using electric guitars and the bass was just so powerful and so dirty and half the time I wouldn’t even know who was playing. But I remember when Motown came along I found out that all the basslines I was loving were played by this guy James Jamerson who became a legendary rhythm and blues bass player. And of course I loved early stuff by the Rolling Stones and Bill Wyman and Jack Bruce & Cream, just thought it was tremendous. The Who with Entwistle, it was just, it was too flashy and complicated. I wasn’t really into using the bass that way. I really liked songs where the bass was really sexual. And ya know, that continued. I remember the first time I heard ‘New Years Day’ by U2 and it starts with that bassline, and it’s kind of like that bassline was as important as the guitars that start ‘Satisfaction’. As soon as you heard the 8 bar frame, you were in. And that IS the song. It’s imprinted. You were in and it’s a hit.

S: People forget how much a good bassline is worth.

J: Well and sometimes the better the bass is the less people are even aware that it is. It’s the backbone and people take it for granted, like the drumbeat, people don’t talk to eachother about the drumbeat. Their bodies just respond and they don’t pay attention.

S: I can see then why Entwistle’s overstated style wouldn’t appeal to you.

J: Well, it’s just like a constant bass solo.

S: Switching gears for a moment here, you guys all got together as students in Ohio in the 70’s, and I believe I read that you knew some of the students involved in the Kent State Shootings.

J: Yeah and I was a student at Kent at the time. I saw someone get shot, Alison Krause.

S: I don’t want to ask this and drudge up any bad memories but I know they released a tape just last month that a student had recorded of the event as it happ-

J: Yeah a tape that confirmed what we’d all known.

S: Right, you could hear the officers giving the order.

J: I was staring right at them as they did it. Believe me, they were given a command. Nobody turns and gets ready and fires in unison without someone issuing an order. That doesn’t happen at random. It was ridiculous.

S: Obviously that situation gave you a perspective early on in terms of authority, and how easily it could be abused…it seems like that has to play into the Jihad Jerry character and the album’s themes about propaganda and abuse of power…

J: Oh yeah. I mean, we’re right back where started. In fact, we’re even worse off. What I thought was one of the darkest days in history just turned out to be a prelude.

S: Do you think that’s part of the issue some of these people are having with the Jihad Jerry character, that it makes them deal with something they’d rather not?

J: I think the world is a dumber place than it was back then. People have their heads in the sand and yeah, they don’t want to deal with anything at all. They’re just turned off and obsessed with Paris Hilton and money and they’re sub-human. De-evolved.

S: I was just thinking about that, does that seem like a wild thing? That you seemed to almost have a prescience in terms of de-evolution, starting out as almost a joke and that people now literally seem to be losing themselves like that. I mean, there were signs of it then in some people but now it seems widespread.

J: Yeah we definitely didn’t want to be right, but guess what? We were.

S: On a brighter note, you guys are heading into Europe for the first time in, what, 15 years?

J: It’s actually 17 years now.

S: How do you feel about that? I mean, obviously you’ve been performing here in the meantime but is there a lot of excitement about being back there?

J: There’s a lot of curiosity about what it’s going to be like.

S: It seemed like you guys stayed pretty popular in Europe even when here in the States people were getting into less intersting music. What caused you to wait so long to go back?

J: Well, there was just no one there interested in having us back. No one was making an offer. I think now we’re an iconic curiosity and we’re still playing live so they just have to see it to believe it.

S: Are you looking forward to blowing them away?

J: That’d be nice if that’s what happens.

S: You said the stuff you were recording for DJ sets earlier qualified as sort of ‘dream’ Devo material. Are there any plans to get together as a group and do any recording?

J: So far Mark is just not cooperating, he’s not done anything. Devo can’t be Devo without Mark’s cooperation.

S: So he’s just into his own thing and isn’t interested in that process?

J: Yeah, that’s what it seems unfortunately.

S: How did you feel about the Devo 2.0 stuff?

J: It was funny. It was ridiculous. The point was for us to ya know, take our stuff and make it repurposed for 4-8 year olds. We thought it was a wacked out idea but we went ahead and tried it.

S: Obviously it did pretty well.

J: Yeah they liked it. And that’s interesting because some kids that wouldn’t have known Devo existed in history will now be aware of Devo and go back and see the real thing when they grow up.

S: You changed a lot of the lyrical content around, right?

J: Yeah, they made us.

S: So the hope is they eventually are able to get the original content, unfiltered.

J: Right.

S: Now this may be a sore point but how do you feel about the commercial use of your music? I think I heard a Swiffer commercial jingle with some Devo…

J: Yeah, well ya know that’s fine because finally instead of getting ripped off we get paid for our music. I look at it as getting what we deserve for the wrong reasons.

S: You guys obviously had problems with your label, Warner…

J: Everyone has issues with their label. Now it’s even worse, because now they don’t even give you any money. They used to give you money, then fuck you. Now they fuck you and don’t even give you money for it.

S: How do you feel about the internet, in terms of music? MP3s being shared, iTunes, etc.

J: It’s good for the consumer. Bad for the artists. The labels are getting involved but it’s already too late.

S: Devo albums are on iTunes right?

J: Yeah, you have to go seeking it out. You know how iTunes works. It’s like everything else, they push the big mass market stuff and you can’t find anything else.

S: I think the front page right now consists of American Idols only.

J: Yeah pretty much.

S: Is there anything else exciting that you’re personally working on right now?

J: I just keep trying to get my film made. Hopefully we’ll see if we can get some financing.

S: And what is the film about?

J: It’s a very dark comedy based on a real story. A true life story. It’s about 3 guys that get together and form the American Rocketbelt Coroporation. One of them has found one of those rocketbelts, ya know from the 60’s that straps on your back, like the kind in that Thunderball movie. And they all think they’re going to get rich from it and it’s this ridiculous half-baked scheme and they get deep in debt and then the betrayal starts, then a kidnapping, then a murder and then they go to jail. It’s hilarious.

S: How long have you been working on this?

J: I started like 3 and half years ago on it. We’re just shopping the script around and are trying to find the financing.

S: Is that something you’re really interested in, writing screenplays?

J: Yeah, absolutely. I always have been.

S: You directed all of Devo’s videos, right?

J: Yeah. And I direct tv commercials, and I used to direct videos for other bands.

S: Is it only screenplays you’re interested in or have you ever found yourself interested in other mediums, like novels?

J: I don’t know if I have the discipline to write a book.

S: When does your tour start? Are you guys over there for months or weeks?

J: It starts a week from tomorrow. Nah, we’re only there for about 3 weeks.

S: It’s the band’s first appearance in Europe but I assume you’ve been over there in the meantime.

J: Oh yeah. I look forward to getting the hell out of this country run by the moron who runs it now.

S: I think we all look forward to that from time to time. When I visited Paris just after the whole Iraq thing, I just faked an accent so they wouldn’t know where I was from.

J: Haha. Well, who can blame them for feeling how they did.

S: Well Jerry, I just want to thank you again for doing this and talking to me. Have a great tour.