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Transcript

[HIGHLIGHT] How DEVO Created the “Whip It” Sound (The Real Story) - From EP 379 · Booked On Rock with Eric Senich

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Here's a clip from our latest episode of Booked on Rock.
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Robert Margo f his memoir Shaping Sounds. Stevie Wonder, Divo
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: the synth Revolution in my Life. Behind the music, you
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: describe Divo as wanting to put an alien head on
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: an R and B body. What did that phrase mean
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: to you in musical terms?
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: Well, just as a quick aside. The thing is that
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: the DeVos love R and B. They grew up listening
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: to R and B. So when I came on board,
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: I made really sure that the bottom end of their
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: records was really R and B. There was. The band
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: was a small band that was not meant to have
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: lots of overdubs it which should be. It was a
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: simple band. Everyone played their part, one part each right.
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: When they played together. It was an ensemble, but it
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: was more like a string quartet. It was tight and
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: it was together, but it had an R and B
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: bottom end, and I made very sure that that's stuck.
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: That the bottom end, the kick in the base where
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: the R and B had the R and B feel.
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: And then they put the monster on the top. But
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: it was an R and B body with an alien head.
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: That's what del is.
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah, when you first heard it, Do Do Do Do Doo?
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: Bring were you thinking?
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: Five up, two down, five notes, two notes down, Very simple,
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: very easy to remember, very impulsive. Feel Those guys are marvelous.
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: Mark is a marvelous songwriter. Jerry knows how to really
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: write the lyrics. Jerry is a real politician, and you
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: know he just had a baby last year or the
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: year before him seventy.
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: But they also had that genius in the idea of
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: the image, you know, the look.
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, when you look at their lives, when you look
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: at their live show, you really realize how really tight
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: and highly organized they are. They're absolute geniuses at this stuff.
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: All we had to do is just not drip stuff
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: all over them, sugar coating and syrup and bullshit, and
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: just let them play their instruments and play out and
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: maintain their impulse of energy. And by bringing them into
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: the control room, I was able to do that and
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: allow the cross talk and the energy and everything else
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: to really fulfill itself super loud and quad in the
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: control room. That's what made them happen.
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: All right, what's the story of the whipcrack?
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: Oh Man Howard Siegel, who's was my engineering partner, for
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: the project. Who's actually Jack Black's half brother? Really, yeah,
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: he wouldn't brought Jack into the studio. When we were
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: doing Devo, Jack was like ten years old, right, yeah. Wow.
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: The little nose was over the console like this, right,
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: And we played the Divo well for them, and I
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: think it changes. Well, those guys are still together, they're
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: still friends to this day. But Howard and I were
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: complete ned been together. And there's this law of hallway
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: down going down from Studio A to Studio BIT on
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: one side, and then the other side was the canteen
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: and the jacuzzie and stuff and offices. It is like
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: narrow hallway. It was very reverberant. We went out there
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: at seven or eight in the morning when no one
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: was around, and Howard put a condenser mic down at
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: the U eighty seven down at the bottom of the
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: hallway in one close and everyone was trying to crack
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: the whip. I tried it, and I cracked the whip
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: and stap myself in the face. My whole suit was
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: like that, and I think in the end, I think
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: it was Jerry that finally got the whipcrack. We recorded
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: it and then of course there was no digital anything.
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: So we had to fly it in at the right place,
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: spin it in with another machine, and then we put
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: stuff on top of it and stuff. But it was tricky,
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: but it was fun and the story remains is a
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: wonderful story. And those records are very earthy and very
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: hands on. There was no digital anything, and the variation
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: and it is again what makes that stuff magical and
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: compelling is the fact that the irregularity. It's the bird
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: flying across the hedges. You watch the bird, you know,
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: look at everything else. You just look at that one little,
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: six ounce little thing flapping for one end of the
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: parking lot to the other. That's the way music is.
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: Want that. You want the magic, you want the unpredictability,
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: you want the irregularity. That's what makes great records happen,
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: is that the magic of that.
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: Listen to the full episode wherever you get your podcasts.