Gerald Casale

At 76 years old, Gerald Casale has this physical status:

Geraldine "Jerry" Casale (born Gerald Vincent Pizzute; July 28, 1948) is an American singer, composer, music video editor, and vintner. Casale's music career spans more than 40 years.

He rose to fame in the late 1970s as co-founder and bass player of the new wave band Devo, which also released a Top 20 hit with the single "Whip It" in 1980.

Casale is one of Devo's most well-known composers and produced the majority of Devo's music videos.

He is one of Devo's youngest members (along with lead singer and keyboardist Mothersbaugh) who have been with the organization for the entire time.

Bob Casale's brother also performed with the band. Casale began working as a Devo member in 2005 and the project Jihad Jerry & the Evildoers.

The initiative received no exposure beyond a music video for the single "Army Girls Gone Wild." Jihad Jerry appeared at several shows near the end of Devo's 2006 tour, including "Beautiful World."

He has appeared with other bands on occasion. Among other things, Casale has produced music videos for other recording artists, including The Cars ("Touch and Go"), Rush ("Mystic Rhythms"), A Perfect Circle ("Imagine"), Foo Fighters ("I'll Stick Around"), Soundgarden ("Blow Up the Outside World"), and Silverchair ("Freak" and "Cedemy"), among others.

Early life

Gerald Pizzute was born in Ravenna, Ohio, on July 28, 1948. He was born with the name Pizzute because his father, Bob, had legally changed his name (his birth name had been Robert Edward Casale) to that of his foster parents (see here). Gerald's father changed his name back to his birth name four years after his son's birth. Gerald Casale grew up in Kent, Ohio, and graduated from Theodore Roosevelt High School in 1966.

Personal life

He was a student at Kent State University in Kent, Ohio, and a witness to the 1970 Kent State Shootings. Jeffrey Miller and Allison Krause, two people wounded in the shootings, were friends of Casale. "I went through some traumatic change" in a 2020 interview, he said. It was just a fork in the road where you now know is a lie...We didn't see progress. We saw it go backwards, we've started getting more tribal and more demonically demonically sympathetic, and it's becoming more complicated."

After moving to California in 1978, Casale developed an interest in wine. During Devo's absence in the 1990s, he taught wine tasting for three years. He declared in 2014 that he would open the 50th anniversary of Pinot noir production.

Casale purchased the historic Josef Kun House in 2007 and spent seven years in meticulous restoration with the help of preservationist James Rega. Richard Neutra designed the house in the 1930s. In 2015, Casale listed the house on the market for the first time.

Casale's younger brother and fellow Devo bandmate Bob Casale died at the age of 61 on February 17, 2014. It was a "sudden death from heart disease-related heart disease," Gerald said.

Krista Napp married Casale in Santa Monica, California, on September 11, 2015. The couple had reportedly been questioned by relatives about the date, which occurred on the 14th anniversary of the September 11th attacks prior to the wedding. After joking that he and Napp were "the Twin Towers of love," a friend in charge of the cake held a 9/11-themed reception that included a cake cut into the shape of the Twin Towers, box cutters as party favors, and table place setting cards with images of box cutters with "Gerald & Krista" engraved on them. Casale received a lot of flak over the event on September 14 and published photos, both in the media and online, after TMZ ran a story about the event on September 14 and published photographs. Casale, apologizing to anyone offended, called the party a "surprise" and a "set-up," saying that his companion "thought it was some sort of transgressive sick humor," and the issue isn't comedic."

Casale lives on a ranch in Napa, California, as of 2021.

Casale and the other Devo members used to be members of the SubGenius Church.

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Career

Casale had been playing bass guitar with the Numbers Band before devoting to Devo. He caused friction in the band by arguing that advertisement jingles and other "low-culture" elements be integrated into their music. Casale, who left the Numbers Band and graduated, attended Kent State University, majoring in Art (focusing on fine/performing arts and fashion-related research). He was a self-described hippie in the late 1960s until the May 4, 1970 shootings. Jeffrey Miller and Allison Krause, both victims of the massacre at the KSU Honors College, were close to Krause when she was shot. In several interviews, Casale described the day as "the day I stopped being a hippie." Casale, as a result of Bob Lewis' death, initiated the idea of Devolution, which led to the formation of the band Devo in 1973. Casale was the band's oldest member.

According to Casale, the album Oh, No!

Reviewers alternately referring to them as both "fascists" and "clowns" in Devo's case. Warner Bros. dropped Devo after the commercial failure of their sixth studio album Shout, on which Casale performed the majority of the tracks. Alan Myers left the band shortly after, causing the remaining band members to scrap the plans for a Shout video album as well as a tour.

Devo was formed in 1987 with new drummer David Kendrick, who was previously of Sparks, to replace Myers. On Enigma, their first project was a soundtrack for the flop horror film Slaughterhouse Rock, starring Toni Basil, and they released the albums Total Devo (1988) and Smooth Noodle Maps (1990).

Devo was defunct and appeared in two shows in 1991 before breaking up. Except for Bob Mothersbaugh, members of Devo appeared in the film The Spirit of '76 around this time. Casale began working with artists such as Rush, Soundgarden, Silverchair, and the Foo Fighters as a producer of music videos and advertisements after the split.

In 2005, Devo produced a new version of "Whip It" for use in Swiffer television advertisements, a move that they have regretted. "It's just aesthetically offensive," Casale said in an interview with the Dallas Observer. It's everything a commercial that turns people off has.

Devo began working on a Devo 2.0 project with Disney in 2006. A group of children entertainers was assembled and re-recorded Devo songs. "Devo recently completed Devo 2.0, the band's latest attempt in cahoots with Disney," a quote from the Akron Beacon Journal, which includes old songs and two new ones with vocals provided by children. On March 14, 2006, their debut album, a two disc CD/DVD combo named DEV2.0, was released. Any of the songs' lyrics were changed for family-friendly airplay, which the band has described as a play on the band's parody of the song's messages.

Gerald Casale referred to a preliminary plan for a biographical film about Devo's early days in a interview in April 2007. According to Casale, a script called The Beginning Was the End. Casale said that there might be some new Devo stuff coming as well, but that it was related to a film's introduction was uncertain. Devo's first European tour since 1990, as well as a appearance at Festival Internacional de Benicàssim, was part of their first European tour since 1990.

Devo's first new single since 1990, "Watch Us Work It," was featured in a Dell commercial in December 2007. A sample drum track from New Traditionalists' album "The Super Thing" appears on the album. In a MySpace bulletin from July 23, 2007, the band announced that a full-length music video for the album would be released, and that the song itself would be available on iTunes and eMusic. Casale said the song was chosen from a batch that the band was producing, and that it was the closest the band had been to a new album.

"Devo is spending December at Mutato on an album's worth of new content and considering a means of dispersal in the post-record-company world," the LA Weekly said in a December 5, 2007. "Don't Shoot, I'm a Man" Mothersbaugh revealed in an interview in April 2008: "Don't Shoot, I'm a Man." Casale said in a radio interview on April 17, 2008, that Mothersbaugh had "killed the project" and that there will be no new Devo album. Casale, on the other hand, announced later that "We're going to finish what we started."

Something for Everybody was finally released in June 2010, followed by a 12-inch single of "Fresh"/"What We Do."

On October 29, 2010, Devo was named the first Moog Innovator Award during Moogfest 2010, in Asheville, North Carolina. The Moog Innovator Award has been established to honor "pioneering artists whose genre-defying work exemplifies Bob Moog's fiery and creative spirit." Devo had intended to appear at Moogfest, but Bob Mothersbaugh had a serious hand injury three days before and the band was forced to cancel due to the band's cancellation. Instead, Mark Mothersbaugh and Gerald Casale performed "Girl U Want" and "Beautiful World" with Austin, Texas, band The Octopus Project.

Casale said in an interview on March 3, 2011 that he was "working on a script for a... Devo musical" aimed at a live Broadway performance.

The band released "Don't Roof Rack Me, Bro," dedicated to Republican Party presidential candidate Mitt Romney's former pet dog Seamus in August 2012. The article refers to Mitt Romney's dog, which occurred in 1983, while Romney travelled twelve hours with the dog in a crate on his vehicle's roof rack. Casale has also confirmed plans to launch a series of demos from Something for Everyone's session, with Devo Opens, Gems from the Devo Dumpster, or Something Else for Everyone. The album was eventually titled Something Else for Everybody, and it was released on May 20, 2014.

Casale appeared in a long-form interview with Conan Neutron's Protonic Reversal podcast in April 2020, covering a variety of topics relating to the band and more. The next month, he will back for a sequel.

Casale revealed his "solo" initiative, Jihad Jerry & the Evildoers (the Evildoers themselves, including other Devo members), in 2005, and then published the first EP, Army Girls Gone Wild. Mine Is Not a Holy War, a full-length album, was released on September 12, 2006, after a lengthy delay. It featured mostly new content as well as some re-recordings of four obscure Devo songs, "I Need a Chick" and "I Befused" (from Hardcore Devo: Volume Two), "Find Out" (which appeared on the single and EP of "Peek-a-Boo! "Beehive" (1982) and "Beehive" (which was released by the band in 1974), but it was later cancelled with the exception of one appearance at a special exhibition in 2001.

Casale produced several television commercials, including ads for Diet Coke and Honda Scooters, as well as Coco's restaurants and Miller Lite. Dutch angles, desaturated hue, and color washes on photos are three of Casale's distinctive features of his visual style.

Although Jihad Jerry never toured, the theatrical version of Devo appeared at several shows in 2006, as well as on Fox News' Red Eye. Casale dropped the Jihad Jerry role in 2007; he was quoted as saying, "People are just sort of freaked out by the Jihad Jerry stuff." I thought it was funny and get off the topic, but people are really offended and worried... That's about it, I believe. I don't want them to have Jihad Jerry to yell about anymore!" Later Casale wore the Jihad Jerry turban for a set with UK-based DJ and producer Adam Freeland at the South by Southwest music festival in 2009.

Casale and Mothersbaugh have also produced music for other artists, including Toni Basil.

Casale made a cameo appearance in a 1980s themed Delta Air Lines in-flight safety film, portraying a passenger who places his "carry on" item (a Devo energy dome) under the seat in front of him in order to brace for takeoff.

On the album "It's All Devo," Casale collaborated with Italian experimental artist Phunk Investigation. "For Record Store Day 2016, Gerald Casale, the devo's Gerald Casale, was released as an EP."

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