Jenna Boures
Staff Writer
@JBoures

Bob Casale died of heart failure on Monday at the age of 61.

He is survived by his wife and two children.

Rolling Stone reported the news, explaining that Casale was involved in the band since its inception in 1973 through their recent tours.

Bob Casale and his brother Gerald were both involved in the creation of the new wave band.

“As an original member of Devo, Bob Casale was there in the trenches with me from the beginning,” his brother said. “He was my level-headed brother, a solid performer and a talented audio engineer, always giving more than he got. He was excited about the possibility of Mark Mothersbaugh allowing Devo to play shows again. His sudden death from conditions that lead to heart failure came as a total shock to us all.”

A behind-the-scenes man, Casale was an integral part in the band’s production, playing on every single album.

Devo was created as a reaction to the Kent State massacre in 1970, which members of the band witnessed.

“We came of age in the middle of a huge cultural war,” said Casale in a 2012 interview with Under the Radar. “[We formed the band because] it was a more immediate way of self-expression that required less money and no outside permission. You try to make a film and you have to come up with the money, you need a big crew, you need to ask people for favors and get permission. If you have an idea for a song you can pretty much go into your basement with your band mates and do it.”

After breaking up in 1991 then reforming in 1996, Devo has regularly gone on tour over the last 20 years. Their latest album, Something for Everybody, was released in 2010, making it their first album in the last two decades.

“We wanted to be Devo again,” said Casale. “And so you can’t help but sound like Devo –we weren’t going to try and sound like anybody else, we were just going to do what we do and try and write good songs with the same kind of attention to lyrical content and song structure as we’ve always given all of our work.”

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