Nearly 50 years after Devo made its live debut at Kent State University’s Creative Arts Festival, Casale—who originally co-founded the innovative band as part of an art project with fellow Kent State student Bob Lewis the band is releasing the six-song “The Invisible Man” EP for Record Store Day Black Friday. Created in collaboration with Josh Freese (Guns n’ Roses, Weezer, Vandals) and Steve Bartek (Oingo Boingo), the EP features three mixes of the pulsating title track along with three new remixes of Casale’s 2021 single “I’m Gonna Pay U Back.”
“Devo was always about collaboration and innovation, experimentation and a sense of humour,” he explains. “I’m just collaborating now with people who still have fun creating, where there’s no guarantee that there will ever be a payday or anything. It goes back to why you write songs or play music to begin with—which is the pure inspiration or enjoyment of it, not the guarantee of financial success.”
With their electronic grooves, synth-driven melodies, and darkly humorous lyrics, “The Invisible Man” and “I’m Gonna Pay U Back” are very much in the tradition of such classic Devo tracks as “Freedom of Choice” and “It’s a Beautiful World,” only with a level of anger that feels most appropriate for an age in which the band’s original theory of de-evolution has proved to be horribly prescient.
The Fat Angel Sings 