DEVO was like the punk band that non Punk America saw as Punk and so when people who were really into Punk rock would be walking around on the streets the jocks who learned about Punk through Devo would roll down their windows and yell at the Punks: 'HEY, DEVO!!'
People see rock and roll as, as youth culture, and when youth culture becomes monopolised by big business, what are the youth to do? Do you, do you have any idea? I think we should destroy the bogus capitalist process that is destroying youth culture.
Hits are for squares.
Rock'n'roll saved my soul.
People... of the universe! Tonight... is the night.. when the skies will open, and spray forth a divine hand with pointed finger! And it will say... everybody... you're not just a duck... YOU ARE HUMAN! YOU ARE HUMAAAAN!!!
Noise has taken the place of punk rock. People who play noise have no real aspirations to being part of the mainstream culture. Punk has been co-opted, and this subterranean noise music and the avant-garde folk scene have replaced it
I certainly don't sit around in the morning making pancakes listening to Whitehouse or anything.
Every now and again, the alternative culture is cherished by the mainstream for what it is, rather than how it should be, like the mainstream popular music.
I have to reign myself in a lot.
My mind is turning into kind of a fine gelatinous ball of pepper
Whenever I can afford to do something, I do it.
Tonight I am going to defecate on stage because I think that is the only way to express the nature of my soul according to rock and roll.
I wanted to hear the songs in the way that I had written them, which was, in a way, very basic. So all I wanted to have was drums and another guitar pretty much playing what I wrote on guitar, and I was just going to sing.
Each member does whatever they want with the song and it totally changes it from whatever idea I hear around it. It turns it into a Sonic Youth song and completely away from it being a solo song.
I never go back and listen to the recorded document. The thrill comes when the balance can be attained. Everyone in the room can have a shared, communal rock experience.
We're playing all these weird festivals, usually outdoors.
Most people can't tell now who wrote what. I like that blurring of identities within the band. because it becomes a unified thing that can't be related to other forms of historical poetry
I grew up in the early '70s in New England.
I was surrounded by nature and trying to come to terms with this blissful nature versus the inhumane mentality of war. People were being deluded by someone using the word peace
I never do releases to try and make or break some contemporary band.
A lot of the lyrical ideas do have a lot of meaning in a way, although it is somewhat abstracted.
The band has a liberal philosophy - that's sort of a given.
Lyric writing is an interesting process in Sonic Youth. There's three people writing now, and we've all had a lot of interest and involvement with expression through words
Buddhism has become a socially recognized religious philosophy for Americans, whereas it used to be considered an exotic religion.
I really want to do a book on the history of the no-wave music scene in New York, how it extended out and formed lots of other things. It was such a great visual culture.
