Are We Not Men? We Are Devo! - Album Cover

Album Cover

According to an essay by Jerry Casale included on the Complete Truth About De-evolution DVD, the cover of their debut album is based on an image of the famous professional golfer Juan "Chi-Chi" Rodríguez that they had found on a golf strap. According to Casale, David Burnam, the manager of business affairs at their recording company Warner Bros. Records, decided the image could not be used because "he was a golf fan and felt we were making fun of Chi Chi." The band offered to contact Rodriguez personally but had time constraints, due to the forthcoming production of their album. The manager of the company's art department, Rick Serini, recommended an artist who could airbrush and alter the face of the picture, while Mark Mothersbaugh offered a picture he'd procured from a local newspaper that morphed the faces of United States presidents John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. These ideas were morphed with the original "Chi Chi" Rodriguez image to create the cover art of the album.

The band did eventually get Rodriguez's permission to use the original photograph. Since the "morphed" album sleeves were already in production by that time, Serini claimed it would cost the band $2,500 to halt production and reinstate the image intended originally by the band, which forced the band to keep the morphed version. According to Casale, "we were able to come out with something that by the corporate interference and misunderstanding of the business side of Warner Bros. Records, actually unwittingly produced something far more DEVO than the original ."