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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Entertainment
As told to Dave Simpson

Devo: ‘Richard Branson almost killed us in the Jamaican mountains’

We are Devo … ‘Overnight we went from a tiny club band to blowing up on the national stage.’
We are Devo … ‘Overnight we went from a tiny club band to blowing up on the national stage.’ Photograph: PR

Could Devo have existed without the shootings at Kent State University, Ohio on 4 May 1970? Flashbleu

Gerald Casale (vocals, bass, keyboards): I was a member of the student organisation that organised the protest against the expansion of the war in Vietnam into Cambodia. I knew two of the four students, Jeffrey Miller and Allison Krause, who were shot and killed by the National Guard. We saw it happen and we saw the Kent newspaper say “Students kill guardsmen”! We realised everything we’d been told was a big lie. We were already making music, but when you see something like that it changes you for ever.

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