In the late summer of 1965, I was 17 and left my parents’ home in Montclair, New Jersey, to take a train out to Kent, Ohio. I joined a bunch of other kids in my generation going to college. We were war babies, and we all sort of looked at the world the same way. None of us really knew what college was, or why we did it. That’s just what you did. I just looked at my options and said, “I’m going to Kent, Ohio.” I don’t really know why. It just felt like it was meant to be.
I lived in Manchester Hall and went to classes when the Measles, my first band, started. There were bands playing downtown already; one band, called the Counterpoints, were from Akron and played at the Fifth Quarter. I stayed in Kent the next summer, and the Measles played and rehearsed, so when school got back in session, the band was really hot, just really tight. Staying in town for the summer, I got to know people in the community. The policemen, the store owners, the club owners. They accepted me. That’s when I really felt like I became a Kent resident.
By 1969, I knew the Mothersbaugh guys and Gerry Casale was around; some of them were in art school, and they were on the perimeter. I didn’t hang out with them a lot, but that was another part of the young artistic community. The James Gang came out of that. DEVO came out of that. Without Kent, I don’t think that would have happened.
Chrissie Hynde was young and wasn’t really a musician yet. She wasn’t even old enough to get into the club. She would come in and say she was my cousin. And I’d say, “Yeah, that’s my cousin.” And she would sit and not even drink or anything, and watch the James Gang. It was like Hemingway’s Paris in the 1920s. It was an artistic community, there were a lot of musicians, and it was a hugely creative period when you look at everything that came out of it. Just like Hemingway described in A Moveable Feast. Then May 4 happened. The May 4 shootings had a lot to do with all of us in that scene becoming who we were and doing what we did, both in life and as artists.
We’re all grateful that we had Kent. Kent was very tolerant of us. I still see some of my old Kent friends sometimes, and there is a bond. We have that experience, and that time and place, in common. We knew each other in Kent before some of us were famous. And I love having friends like that, because those are real friends. We kind of grew up together, everyone living in Kent at the time.
What brought all those people—those artists, photographers, poets, filmmakers, and musicians—together? College. Kent State is what made Kent such a magical place at the time and what continued and continues to make it special. And I would never be able to be where I am now without that experience. It was just a magical time.