If you think DEVO’s Mark Mothersbaugh makes most of his money off his iconic ’80s new wave band, think again. Turns out, the musician makes $1 million a year — his biggest source of income — off residuals from the 20-second Ridiculousness theme song.
Ridiculousness has been airing on MTV since 2011 and is hosted by professional skateboarder-turned-TV-personality Rob Dyrdek. The show’s theme song is a reworked version of the DEVO’s turn “Uncontrollable Urge,” the first song on the band’s 1978 album Q. Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo!
“I’ve written so many other songs for films and television shows,” Mothersbaugh recently told Rolling Stone. “I would’ve been shocked [years ago] if you told me this is the one that would become the prime source of income.”
The DEVO legend explained that even though MTV snubbed them back in the day, it now gives him $1 million every year. “MTV stopped playing us but we came to the other side of the circle,” he said. “It’s a nice ironic twist because this was one of the songs we never even made a music video for. And now it’s maybe the most-played song ever on MTV.”
Anita Greenspan, Mothersbaugh’s wife and manager, also spoke about how serendipitous it is that Mothersbaugh would find major success through MTV once again. “In the beginning of MTV, you saw a lot of DEVO because they were early to make videos, but MTV started questioning the videos DEVO were making,” she said.
“[Their videos] were subversive, they didn’t like them and wouldn’t play them anymore,” she continued. “Now ‘Uncontrollable Urge’ is easily the most-played song on MTV, so [DEVO] wins.”
Mark Mothersbaugh actually has an extensive history developing music for both movies and television. His works include the theme for Pee-wee’s Playhouse, The Lego Movie, and Thor: Ragnarok.
One of his highest-paying jobs of all time, however, was lending his songwriting talents to the theme for Rugrats. The DEVO keyboardist bought his home back in the ’90s thanks to a band of cartoon babies.
The post DEVO’s Mark Mothersbaugh Earns $1M per Year From the ‘Ridiculousness’ Theme appeared first on VICE.
