“People would hate us, bully us, throw stuff at us and threaten to beat us up, but they wouldn’t leave. We thought, ‘Okay, we’ve got something’”: Devo’s Bob Mothersbaugh on accidental hits, audience provocations and the de-evolution of guitar

Devo's Bob Mothersbaugh wears a yellow Devo-branded plastic poncho and plays a Gibson Les Paul.

With Devo, an oddball group out of Akron, Ohio, aka the USA’s so-called “rust belt,” and breeding ground for ’70s cock rock, Bob Mothersbaugh helped redefine what it meant to be a guitar hero.

Like many who came before him, but who sounded and looked very different, Mothersbaugh worshiped Hendrix, Clapton and Beck… but the results were much different.