A band that helped pave the way for the synthesizer movement of the 1980s, a band that still commands respect amongst the Alternative Rock and new wave music genres, and yet they have remained quiet for more than a decade.

Throughout their career, Devo has endured a lot of change, but the core players of the band has not altered since its creation in 1973, as a reaction to the shooting of four students by the National Guard during a Vietnam War Protest. Mark Mothersbaugh, Gerald Casale, and Bob Lewis, the founders of the band were attending Kent State at the time and point to that event as the reason for Devo’s creation. The other members that have been a mainstay with Devo are Bob Mothersbaugh and Bob Casale, who are simply known as Bob 1 and Bob 2.

Their final album to date was “Smooth Noodle Maps.” Released in 1990, this marked the end of full recording as well as large scale touring. However, there have been revival tours off and on since 1996 and Devo’s latest tour ends this October.

Individually, the band has been fairly successful. Mark Mothersbaugh, being the most successful of the group, is famous for his work creating commercial, television and movie themes. His most famous ones are his work for Pee-Wee’s Playhouse and the Rugrats television shows. Mothersbaugh also works closely with movie director Wes Anderson (The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, 2004). On top of all of his accolades with his theme songs, he started his own company, Mutato Muzika, a music production company that does a lot of theme song composition. Bob Mothersbaugh works as a composer and Bob Casale works as recording engineer for Mutato Muzika.

Gerald Casale currently works within the music industry as well and has directed music videos for the Foo Fighters and Rush amongst other bands. Last year, Casale announced his solo project, Jihad Jerry & the Evildoers. He released an EP, “Army Girls Gone Wild” and his full length cd was supposed to be released on Sept 12. 2006.

Even with all the individual success of the band members, many can only hope that they will fully rejoin and release another album.