Mark Mothersbaugh

As an art student at Kent State, Mothersbaugh met Devo co-founders Jerry Casale and Bob Lewis. In 1970, Mothersbaugh, Lewis and Casale formed the idea of the “devolution” of the human race and started to play music as Devo. Since Devo, Mothersbaugh developed a successful career writing musical scores for film and television. In film, Mothersbaugh has worked frequently with filmmaker Wes Anderson and scored most of his feature films (Bottle Rocket, Rushmore, The Royal Tenenbaums, and The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou). His music has been a staple of the children’s television shows Rugrats and Clifford the Big Red Dog. He also wrote the theme song for the new Felix the Cat show for Hanna Barbera, music for Pee-Wee’s Playhouse, and the theme song for The New Super Mario World for DiC Entertainment in 1991.

Mothersbaugh is also known for his music in video games, including Sony’s Crash Bandicoot series, the Jak and Daxter series, and Maxis Software’s The Sims 2. His work is often performed with Mutato Muzika, the music production company he formed with former members of Devo, including his brother Bob Mothersbaugh. Mark recently scored Quid Pro Quo at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival.