On the Saturday January 24, 2026 edition of The Richard Crouse Show we meet musician, songwriter, and director Gerald Casale. Best known as a co-founder, co-lead vocalist, and bassist of band DEVO. He was a key creative force behind DEVO’s satirical, art-driven sound and aesthetic, contributing to hits like “Whip It” and directing many of their innovative music videos. His work is deeply influenced by his experiences as an art student at Kent State University during the 1970 May 4th massacre, which shaped his views on societal devolution, a core theme in DEVO’s music. Today we talk about evolution of a band famous for singing about devolution.
Then, we’ll meet singer and songwriter Aiyana-Lee. Anyone who saw the Spike Lee, Denzel Washington film “Highest 2 Lowest” will remember her stunning film debut singing the title song, which she wrote, at the end of the film. She has an incredible story. She grew up surrounded by music, with family ties to Motown legends like grandfather Jimmy Ruffin and uncle David Ruffin of The Temptations, moved to LA at 15, where she faced industry challenges being taken seriously as a writer, and building a music career with millions of streams, and praise from figures like Elton John.
Each week on the nationally syndicated Richard Crouse Show, Canada’s most recognized movie critic brings together some of the most interesting and opinionated people from the movies, television and music to put a fresh spin on news from the world of lifestyle and pop-culture. Tune into this show to hear in-depth interviews with actors and directors, to find out what’s going on behind the scenes of your favourite shows and movies and get a new take on current trends. Recent guests include Chris Pratt, Elvis Costello, Baz Luhrmann, Martin Freeman, David Cronenberg, Mayim Bialik, The Kids in the Hall and many more!
All iHeartRadio Canada stations are available across Canada via live stream on iHeartRadio.caand the iHeartRadio Canada app. iHeartRadio Canada stations are also connected through Alexa, Siri, and Google Home smart speakers.
On the Saturday September 20, 2025 edition of The Richard Crouse Show we meet musician, songwriter, and director Gerald Casale. Best known as a co-founder, co-lead vocalist, and bassist of band DEVO. He was a key creative force behind DEVO’s satirical, art-driven sound and aesthetic, contributing to hits like “Whip It” and directing many of their innovative music videos. His work is deeply influenced by his experiences as an art student at Kent State University during the 1970 May 4th massacre, which shaped his views on societal devolution, a core theme in DEVO’s music. Today we talk about evolution of a band famous for singing about devolution.
Then, we spend time with actor, director, producer, screenwriter and political activist Rob Reiner. He starred on the classic sitcom “All in the Family,” directed the coming-of-age drama “Stand by Me,” the romantic fantasy “The Princess Bride,” and the rom-com classic “When Harry Met Sally,” and his company Castle Rock Entertainment produced hits like “Seinfeld and “The Shawshank Redemption.” Today we talk about the classic “Spinal Tap,” which he directed and starred in, the new sequel “Spinal Tap: The End Continues” and his new book, “A Fine Line Between Stupid and Clever: The Story of Spinal Tap.”
Then actor Rade Šerbedžija stops by to talk about “Rise of the Raven,” a 10-part historical epic series about Hungarian commander János Hunyadi’s battles against the Ottoman Empire in the 15th century, and tell a grewat story about working with Maggie Smith.
Each week on the nationally syndicated Richard Crouse Show, Canada’s most recognized movie critic brings together some of the most interesting and opinionated people from the movies, television and music to put a fresh spin on news from the world of lifestyle and pop-culture. Tune into this show to hear in-depth interviews with actors and directors, to find out what’s going on behind the scenes of your favourite shows and movies and get a new take on current trends. Recent guests include Chris Pratt, Elvis Costello, Baz Luhrmann, Martin Freeman, David Cronenberg, Mayim Bialik, The Kids in the Hall and many more!
All iHeartRadio Canada stations are available across Canada via live stream on iHeartRadio.caand the iHeartRadio Canada app. iHeartRadio Canada stations are also connected through Alexa, Siri, and Google Home smart speakers.
SYNOPSIS: There’s a lot more to DEVO than the herky-jerky funk of their biggest hit “Whip It.” A new documentary, now streaming on Netflix, offers a complete, and completely entertaining, look of a band who, as keyboardist Mark Mothersbaugh says, “did some absurd things.”
CAST: Gerald Casale, Mark Mothersbaugh, Bob Mothersbaugh, Bob Casale, Josh Freese. Directed by Chris Smith.
REVIEW: My teenage brain wouldn’t have allowed the thought that DEVO, the art rock band from Akron, Ohio who occupied my teen ears for years, would still be a going concern in 2025. Their music was so of-the-moment it felt destined to become dated as pop culture trends shifted and even their name, a shortening of de-evolution, suggested they would disappear over time.
And yet, half a century after they first chanted, “Are we not men? We are Devo!” on stage, they are having a bit of a renaissance, complete with the “Cosmic De-Evolution Tour” and “DEVO,” a new documentary, now streaming on Netflix, that details their unlikely rise to fame.
Like most music docs “DEVO” utilizes new and archival talking head interviews with the band and their contemporaries to shape the story, but the real magic comes with director Chris Smith’s vivid wallpapering of the film with a collage of educational films, ads, old black & white movies, cartoons and television shows to create a sense of time and place.
From the eerie “Island of Lost Souls”—which provided their famous “Are we not men?” refrain—and the religious pamphlet “Jocko Homo Heavenbound” to David Bowie concert footage and industrial films, the surreal images contextualize the influences that created the band’s ethos.
Born as an art rock experiment, the early satirical work of DEVO’s founding members, Gerald Casale and Bob Lewis, quickly became serious following the Kent State massacre of May 4, 1970. Their embrace of “de-evolution” as a metaphor for societal decline became central to their subversive cultural commentary and aesthetics. Their lyrics, like 1979’s “Smart Patrol/Mr. DNA”—”He’s just a clone / Of a chromosome / He’s our Mr. DNA / He’s a mutant on the loose / He’s the living proof / We’re not what we used to be”—spoke to what they saw as social regression.
Add to that their matching jumpsuits, strange “energy dome” hats and sunglasses and the comment on corporate conformity and societal homogenization was complete.
Using the hallucinogenic visuals and new firsthand interviews with band member Mark Mothersbaugh, Bob Mothersbaugh, and Gerald Casale, Smith creates a portrait of a committed, uncompromising band who rode a wave of success in the kind of corporate medium they were satirizing.
Sure, “DEVO” has a good beat, and you can dance to some of it, but, as the film reveals, underneath the band’s crazy costumes and off-kilter music, are keenly observed positions on consumerism, alienation, conformity and regression.
The songs may be nostalgic for those of us who grew up hearing them on the radio, but their philosophies haven’t aged a day. “This is not how we wanted to be right at all,” says Gerald Casale. “We sure wish we had been wrong.”
“DEVO” is a fascinating look into the machinations of a misunderstood band who maintained their Dadaesque integrity for half a century, treating every phase of their career as an art project.
On the Saturday January 24, 2026 edition of The Richard Crouse Show we meet musician, songwriter, and director Gerald Casale. Best known as a co-founder, co-lead vocalist, and bassist of band DEVO. He was a key creative force behind DEVO’s satirical, art-driven sound and aesthetic, contributing to hits like “Whip It” and directing many of their innovative music videos. His work is deeply influenced by his experiences as an art student at Kent State University during the 1970 May 4th massacre, which shaped his views on societal devolution, a core theme in DEVO’s music. Today we talk about evolution of a band famous for singing about devolution.
