Devo has always identified with the political Left. Formed at Kent State University in early 1970 as a postmodernist performance art project by Gerald Casale, Bob Lewis and Mark Mothersbaugh - which, in essence, Devo remained even after primarily becoming a music band - they set out to bring 'the truth about de-evolution' to the masses. Mothersbaugh had joined the ironically named Communist group Students for a Democratic Society after being emotionally manipulated by a 'teach-in' in which SDS leaders threatened to napalm a dog in order to gain sympathy for the Cambodians after Richard Nixon's expansion of the Vietnam War. Casale felt a need to join after two of his friends were killed in the Kent State Massacre, in which the National Guard opened fire on protesting students, killing four and wounding nine, some of whom were just bystanders. And yet for all this, Devo are the most atypically Leftist band to the point of often being congruent with the Radical Right in their political incorrectness given current Leftist dogma.
