Latest / GARAGE TO STADIUMS Music History Podcast / The Story of The Cars & Ric Ocasek: From folk rock origins to new wave royalty

Transcript

The Story of The Cars & Ric Ocasek: From folk rock origins to new wave royalty · GARAGE TO STADIUMS Music History Podcast

• Garage To Stadiums: The Story of The Cars & Ric Ocasek Guest: Peter Aaron, Author of Ric Ocasek, The Driving Force Behind The Cars Host: Dave Anthony, Garage to Stadiums Music History Podcast ​ [00:00:14] Dave Anthony: Welcome to Garage to Stadiums. Today's episode is the story of The Cars this is the story of a band that ultimately achieved platinum records, but slugged it out during many lean years in Boston, trying different musical styles from folk to rock, to punk, in half empty bar gigs, broken vans, and enough side hustles just to keep the lights on. [00:00:39] Dave Anthony: Their lead singer and songwriter Ric Ocasek wasn't just chasing a sound, he was supporting a young family betting everything on songs, no label quite understood alongside him, bassist and vocalist Benjamin, Orr brought the voice and charisma that kept hopes alive through these failed lineups and near misses. [00:00:59] Dave Anthony: And when new wave cracked open in the late seventies, The Cars hit the ignition switch. Sleek, emotional, and electrifying. Bridging punk nerve with pop precision and helping to find the sound of a new decade, they would go on to a succession of hits proving that they had the sound and the vibe for the early to mid eighties. [00:01:23] Dave Anthony: If there's one episode that typifies the massive odds against completing the garage to stadium's journey, this story might be the one. Here to discuss the car story is Peter Aaron, author of Moving in Stereo that has the [00:01:40] subtitle, Ric Ocasek, the Driving Force Behind The Cars. [00:01:44] Dave Anthony: Peter is a veteran of the music industry. He has written on acts like the Ramones and Band, and he's the arts editor of Chronogram Magazine. He's also the front man of influential New York band, the Chrome Cranks. His writing has appeared in The Village Voice, the [00:02:00] Boston Herald, and several other publications. He joins us today from the Hudson Valley in Kingston, New York. [00:02:06] Dave Anthony: Welcome to Garage to Stadiums. Peter, [00:02:10] Peter Aaron: thank you so much, Dave very happy to be her . [00:02:12] Dave Anthony: Peter, what's the background of, why did you choose The Cars and Ric Ocasek to profile? [00:02:18] Peter Aaron: I loved them when they came [00:02:20] out. [00:02:20] Peter Aaron: Those first few albums were collectively a big deal to me. I was right at the age to really register. It was 1978. I was 14, 15, sometime around there when their first album came out. And, he seemed like an interesting guy. And, obviously very deep complex and I wanted to know more about him. [00:02:40] Peter Aaron: And there wasn't that much out there. So it's really as simple as that. [00:02:44] Dave Anthony: You put a lot of research into this profile of Ric to do such a 360 degree profile. You talk to family members, you talk to band members, you talk to friends. This must have yielded some interesting portraits of Ric by all accounts, he was a pretty secretive guy, [00:03:01] Peter Aaron: yeah , that's, and that's really why it was, like, being an archeologist and, combined with, I don't know, a private investigator or something. He covered his tracks really well. So to really get a good picture, the interviews that ran [00:03:20] in magazines and outlets like that were only gonna be useful to a certain point, trying to talk to people around him was really the only way to really get a bit of a grip on what he was like. I tracked down his sister, his younger sister who no one had spoken [00:03:40] to ever before, Maureen Otcasek -Rohrs, and she was very sweet and very helpful. So that was, that was a good place to start. [00:03:52] Dave Anthony: Ric seems like obviously the leader of The Cars, but there often bands have those two principles, Jagger, Richards, Lennon, McCartney, Frey and Henley, et cetera. [00:04:04] Dave Anthony: There's two main principles that come through in your book, and one is of course, lead singer Ric Ocasek and bassist and sometime vocalist Benjamin Orr. Can you tell us a little bit about their early lives as kids and their family life, where they came from? [00:04:20] Peter Aaron: Yeah. Well, Ric was born Richard Otcasek in the Baltimore area in 1944. And later on he dropped the t from his name,, to make it, I guess you'd say more streamlined. And when he, his father worked for [00:04:40] NASA. He was working with early computer systems on the technical side. And then when Ric was about 16 years old, the family moved to the Cleveland, Ohio area when his dad got a job And, Ric was, very much, an introvert and a loner. He got picked on a lotbecause he was tall and socially awkward. He was very influenced early on by beat writers. He spent a lot of time reading the beat poets like Ginsburg and especially Lawrence Furlinghetti was a big influence on him as a lyricist. This sort of surreal style that he and other beat writers used. And his first musical influence came before he moved to Ohio. He'd heard Buddy Holly 's single, That'll Be The Day on the radio when he was about 14. And he has said that was what made him \ want to play guitar and write songs. His grandmother bought him a guitar when he was 14, and that's how he started playing. And, so his family moved to Ohio when he was 16 and , he bounced around in early college days and ended up getting a job at Ohio Bell telephone company based in Columbus. [00:06:06] Peter Aaron: He moved there and Benjamin Orr had grown up in Cleveland. His name was Benjamin Orzechowski. People called him Benny 11 letters. He had been in a band called The Grasshoppers who were the local, the big local Cleveland Beatles style band. [00:06:26] Peter Aaron: They actually had a couple singles out, and one of 'em got picked up by Warner Brothers song called Mod Sox. It was a regional hit, and they were on the house band on a TV show that was like the local American Bandstand teen dance how. And so it seems like Ric would've had an awareness of who he was. [00:06:46] Peter Aaron: But it's a little bit fuzzy about the circumstances around their meeting, but it seems to be the way it went was Ric was in Columbus and he had started a band called Id Nirvana. And I guess they were, you could say they were a sort of [00:07:00] a psychedelic band of the time. [00:07:02] Peter Aaron: This is the mid to late 1960s and around 1969 or so Benjamin Orr is visiting Columbus because he wants to start a booking agency and get into booking bands from the promotion side of things. He'd already been in a few bands and obviously everyone knows that, in the music business everyone makes money, but the bands. On the promotion side a lot of musicians get into that side. [00:07:34] Peter Aaron: So he went to see Id Nirvana and liked them, and then they ended up [00:07:40] hanging out at Ric's apartment after the show and, on Ric's acoustic guitar. Ben played and sang the Beatles yesterday. And Ric was so blown away by his voice that he asked him to join Id Nirvana, and that's really the beginning of their musical partnership. [00:07:58] Dave Anthony: One thing that's surprising to me as I read the book, because you, pictured The Cars as part of that new wave movement that took over in kind of the late seventies, early eighties, was Ric was born in 1944. He's in the Mick Jagger era. [00:08:15] Peter Aaron: Yeah. [00:08:16] Dave Anthony: He's older, when he got big. He wanted to remind the audience this [00:08:20] fellow really slugged it out as we'll find out here.. But in the meantime. He's already married and he's got kids in the mid sixties. [00:08:28] Peter Aaron: Yeah. He's got married, right outta high school. And, had his first son Christopher, not long after that. And he was very [00:08:40] much, artistically consumed and was focused more on playing music. And, that ended up causing problems at home as it does sometimes. He was out playing and checking out other bands a lot of the time. [00:08:56] Dave Anthony: And you wrote that during the day he'd be practicing in the basement not even really paying [00:09:00] attention to the family. [00:09:01] Peter Aaron: Yeah, it seemed like he was conflicted about getting dragged into this sort of, traditional post-war, family life. His father was a very conservative guy and, he didn't want that at the time and wanted to connect and express his creative side [00:09:20] and, being, he was being a loner and wanting some kind of validation. That sort of subconsciously pulled him deeper and deeper into wanting to be a musician and create. And then he ended up, splitting up with his first wife, a woman named Connie, and they split up to [00:09:40] the time she was pregnant with their second son. So it was a bit of a rocky situation there. [00:09:46] Dave Anthony: In the early 1970s, Ric and Benjamin Orzechowski relocated to Boston and formed the band Milkwood. And surprisingly for the guy who is [00:10:00] synonymous with New Wave, this was more, in that early seventies. Folk Rock, Crosby, stills Nash, , like harmony band, [00:10:08] Peter Aaron: right? [00:10:08] Dave Anthony: And when you play songs like Lincoln Park off that first album that they put out, man, I, that was the most shocking fact in your book, was that the guys you fronted The Cars [00:10:20] were actually. The full on sort of folkies with the requisite full long hair and mustaches and fringe coats. [00:10:27] Peter Aaron: Yeah. Well, it's surprising in a way, but not so much when you think about, I'll say but between Id Nirvana and Milkwood , Id Nirvana morphed into a band called Leatherwood, [00:10:40] which is a little bit of, in that vein too from what I've, there was no recordings that exist that have come out. [00:10:46] Peter Aaron: But from what I understand, they had a little bit of that sound too. So yeah, 1972, Ric had already moved out to the Cambridge area and he got Ben to move out with them. They had been in Michigan a little bit [00:11:00] before that in New York. And then Ben went back to Cleveland after his father died. [00:11:05] Peter Aaron: But yeah, what you're saying with the sound of the band, the folk rock style, like very much Crosby Stills and Nash sound, which was the sort of dominant sound for original rock music around the [00:11:20] time that they started in 19 71, 72 it does seem in incongruous, but harmonies, vocal harmonies were a big part of their, that sound that Crosby Stills Nash sound that Milkwood had. [00:11:33] Peter Aaron: And you hear that very much on the first Cars album. But that's an important element [00:11:40] of the early car sound that they developed by playing folk rock, ala Crosby, stills Nash with Milkwood So in a way, it's not, such a shock that they would have done music in that style before The Cars. [00:11:57] Dave Anthony: Yeah, that's a good point. They evolved [00:12:00] into different iterations of bands, because in 19 73, 74, they formed a band called Richard. & The Rabbits [00:12:08] Peter Aaron: Yeah. [00:12:09] Dave Anthony: And that was with Benjamin, Orr of course, [00:12:11] Peter Aaron: yes. It was always with Benjamin Orr, and Ric and Ben, they were playing together in bands for about eight years before The Cars. There [00:12:20] was definitely an inseparable partnership there. [00:12:24] Peter Aaron: One of Ric's other big influences along with Bob Dylan as a lyricist and songwriter was the Velvet Underground. He had seen the Velvet Underground a lot when he lived in Cleveland. Cleveland was one of the few cities where the Velvet Underground were accepted and were popular. [00:12:44] Peter Aaron: And when he moved to the Boston area in 71, one of the first bands, the very first band he saw was The Modern Lovers, which was band fronted by Jonathan Richman, who suggested the name Richard. And the [00:13:00] Jonathan and Ric had gotten to be friends, and when Ric told him he was starting a new band, he said, oh, you gotta call it Richard and the Rabbits. [00:13:08] Peter Aaron: And of course the drummer for the Modern Lovers was Dave Robinson, who became the drummer for The Cars, jumping ahead of ourselves a little bit. Even though the sort of proto punk [00:13:20] sound of the Modern Lovers and the Velvet Underground were big early influences on Ric, he was trying other things that seemed to be the styles of the moment. [00:13:33] Peter Aaron: When he was writing the music for Richard and the Rabbits, a little bit of Steely Dan bit of [00:13:40] of soft rock stuff, and the sound was not defined. It was kind of all over the place, [00:13:47] Dave Anthony: yeah. That really came through in the book, how these guys slugged it out for years playing and just the evolution of the sound. Like you said, they start with the Crosby Stills & Nash [00:14:00] they're evolving to this Velvet underground, Steely Dan. Like they tried literally every formula of music, it seemed. [00:14:07] Peter Aaron: Yeah, it was. And I think Ric wanted to make it. He was just learning, getting inside different styles and learning how those styles worked, and maybe taking different things from them and figuring out [00:14:20] what to hang on to and what could be combined with something else. But, he hadn't found his true self yet. He was going through trying different things and trying to come up with something original. [00:14:32] Dave Anthony: So Richard and the rabbits evolves to a band called Captain Swing, which like you said, he is got this affinity for Velvet Underground, but [00:14:40] ultimately, they are starting to work some early versions of cars, tunes. [00:14:43] Dave Anthony: And that leads us to late 76 The Cars are formed, but in June 78 they finally evolve into the sound that'll ultimately take them to the top. And you painted it well, that album has Good Times Roll My Best Friend's Girl, [00:15:00] Just What I Needed, Bye-Bye Love, You're All I've Got Tonight, Moving In Stereo. [00:15:06] Dave Anthony: They were fortunate to recruit producer Roy Thomas Baker, who had worked with Queen on the Breakthrough Queen album the Night at the Opera in 1975. What were the sounds that they combined to make this kind of car sound? [00:15:17] Peter Aaron: It does seem incongruous but [00:15:20] harmonies, vocal harmonies were a big part of their sound, that Crosby Stills & Nash sound that Milkwood had. [00:15:27] Peter Aaron: And you hear that very much on the first Cars album. Obviously Good Times Roll is a prime example of that. Those vocal harmonies that they did, that Roy Thomas Baker with his [00:15:40] production style, what he'd done with Queen, he was able to take full advantage of it. But that's an important element of the early Cars sound that they developed by playing folk rock, ala Crosby, Stills & Nash with Milkwood. There were some of the things we were just talking about. [00:16:00] You hear Ric's first influence Buddy Holly in his vocal style. [00:16:05] Dave Anthony: That's a great point. Actually, I'd like you to illuminate that Buddy Holly Staccato, [00:16:10] Peter Aaron: yeah. [00:16:10] Peter Aaron: Yeah. And the overall sort of tamber of his voice was on the quirky side too, and that was one thing that really worked [00:16:20] for The Cars in the time they were evolving. You had. Bands would sing like David Byrne with Talking Heads or Tom Verlaine with Television or Mark Mothersbaugh with Devo or David Thomas with Pere Ubu. [00:16:32] Peter Aaron: You had Ben who was like, just, a flat out great singer in the traditional way, but you have this sort of [00:16:40] expressive weird style that Ric did with throwing a little bit of, that hiccupy Buddy Holly style in there too. [00:16:48] Dave Anthony: Yeah. [00:16:49] Peter Aaron: And that's something that another point in history might not have been acceptable to enough people, but it was able to couch that within. [00:17:00] Yeah, some elements from fifties rockabilly style songwriting, some elements from the sort of arty, abrasive, Velvet Underground style. Mm-hmm. The electronic pulse type feel of Kraftwerk and Suicide [00:17:16] Peter Aaron: He was taking these things and putting them together in a way that worked [00:17:20] together and with the bands that he had before. Rich and the Rabbits and Captain Swing. And there was still some jammy, Steely Dan meets, overly ambitious kind of prog rock type tropes, banging around, and there weren't [00:17:40] focused songs that, the pop element with enough weird touches in there to keep it interesting. [00:17:46] Peter Aaron: They hadn't honed that style yet, but it really came together at exactly the right time. [00:17:52] Dave Anthony: It's almost like a fifties to the future amalgamation of punk, electro synth and rockabilly. It all came together. It's [00:18:00] really interesting. [00:18:01] Peter Aaron: Yeah, with obvious, pop elements of, there's some 1960s bubble [00:18:06] Dave Anthony: harmonies. [00:18:07] Peter Aaron: Yeah. I mean, Just What I Needed the opening that is lifted from, Yummy, Yummy, Yummy. (I've got love in my tummy). [00:18:14] Dave Anthony: Oh, that's right. [00:18:15] Peter Aaron: Yeah, [00:18:15] Dave Anthony: That's right. [00:18:16] Peter Aaron: Yeah. And it's not blatant or flat out, but it's clever and you [00:18:20] get the people that lean toward hummable melodies, but you also get the people that lean toward, something that's weirder. [00:18:28] Dave Anthony: That 78 self-titled debut album was a massive commercial success and peaked at six times platinum certification. Just unbelievable. It spent 139 weeks [00:18:40] on the chart solidifying the stardom that they were experiencing. [00:18:43] Dave Anthony: The CAR'S second album, Candy-O, was released in June, 1979, with singles. Let's Go the major hit at number 14, followed by, , number 41 and Double Life. [00:18:55] Dave Anthony: Peaking at number three on the US Billboard 200 and earning four times [00:19:00] platinum certification. Critics praised it as a new Wave classic with a more polished sound. Produced again by Roy Thomas Baker. Younger fans of this podcast, Peter, give them a sense of how big they were after this second album release and how, atypical it is almost to have two successful albums in [00:19:20] a row. [00:19:20] Peter Aaron: Yeah, especially now when everything is so, short attention span, one moment to the next moment, to have two albums that sold that well, right in a row. And let alone the success of their very first album on the level that it was. [00:19:37] Peter Aaron: I mean, they were jokingly referring to it [00:19:40] when they were touring on that album as their greatest hits album, their first album, yeah, highly unusual, it's a band was lucky if they had one hit record at that, anywhere near that level. And to have two of them be that successful with that many hit [00:20:00] singles. [00:20:00] Dave Anthony: Mm-hmm. [00:20:00] Peter Aaron: And to sustain that over a couple years is not something that is gonna be repeated just because the music industry is not, is not what it was. [00:20:11] Dave Anthony: The next album was Panorama 1980, which had a song called Touch and Go, which was fairly popular. The album peaked at number five in the US it achieved [00:20:20] platinum status with Touch and Go noted for its distinct fifties style melody. But Peter, this album didn't do as well as the first two, and it marked a bit of a change in the sound for the band. How would you characterize that sound change? [00:20:32] Peter Aaron: Well, it's interesting. A lot of people call that The Cars Devo album, but it was, it was very much a left [00:20:40] turn. The first couple albums had for The Cars, some pretty straightforward pop songs that became huge hits and. By the time that they were getting ready to do Panorama the band Suicide was becoming more of an influence on them. And Ric especially, in fact, he [00:21:00] produced their second album at the same time, roughly, that The Cars were making. Panorama came out in 1980. And, yeah, it flopped. It was too weird and confusing for a lot of the fan base that they had built up. [00:21:17] Peter Aaron: And a lot of the [00:21:20] more underground listeners had moved on from The Cars because they'd become a big hit band and they weren't embracing it because they weren't following The Cars anymore. So it put them in kind of a weird place, but in retrospect, it's come to be viewed as one of their best albums.. I think it [00:21:40] definitely deserves another look for anyone that maybe didn't get it at the time. [00:21:44] Dave Anthony: In 83, Ric Ocasek releases a solo album. [00:21:49] Dave Anthony: It's called Beatitude. [00:21:50] Peter Aaron: And again, that's a really experimental album and, confused a lot of people, [00:21:57] Dave Anthony: I thought he sounded like, his vocal sounded like [00:22:00] a combination of Lou Reed of the Velvet Underground singing in front of Kraftwerk. [00:22:05] Peter Aaron: Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's a great description. Both of those artists were obviously, like we said, big influences on him. You've got that song Jimmy has that vocoder treatment on the vocals. Yeah, it's a cool record. [00:22:18] Dave Anthony: They returned to form [00:22:20] with Shake It Up in 1981? That album peaked at number nine in the US. The Shake It Up single was their first Top 10 single. I was surprised to read that. [00:22:30] Peter Aaron: Yeah. And that another early MTV Staple . 1981 is like right at the time that MTV , was, newly on the air [00:22:38] Dave Anthony: The next album was interestingly [00:22:40] recorded in London, and that was Heartbeat City, 1984. And you mentioned MTV, this might have been Peak MTV for The Cars they had, You Might Think. [00:22:51] Peter Aaron: Mm-hmm. [00:22:52] Dave Anthony: They had Magic, which was sung by Ocasek and Drive, which was sung by Benjamin Orr. [00:22:58] Peter Aaron: Yeah. Yeah. [00:22:58] Dave Anthony: And Hello [00:23:00] Again. Two top 10 billboard hits in the US You Might Think at number seven. And Drive became a massive hit with Benjamin's smooth voice on vocals. [00:23:09] Peter Aaron: Yeah. The biggest, that was the biggest car single ever by far and the bestselling album. [00:23:16] Dave Anthony: What I find interesting about this album is the hiring of Mutt Lange, [00:23:20] who was known as the, producer of AC DC's Back in Black and Def Leppard's Pyromania, which are both obviously pretty heavy guitar sounds. What do you think was the rationale there? [00:23:30] Peter Aaron: I think they just wanted to try some, something different work with a different producer. They'd done four albums also, it seems to be part of the reason for that decision [00:23:40] was that Roy Thomas Baker had taken a job as head of ANR at Electra. So he was, maybe, not available to produce it. [00:23:50] Peter Aaron: And Mutt Lange was sort of the producer at the moment. Ric loved AC/DC. He loved Back and Black and Mutt Lange had also [00:24:00] produced Highway to Hell, and he loved those records, especially the guitar sounds. But, the thing was that when they, by the time they got to work with Mutt Lange was focused more on working with the Fairlight synthesizer, which is kind of an early sampler where they would collect sounds of instruments and sort of [00:24:20] play them through a synthesizer piece of equipment. And he used that on the Def Leppard records. You talk about Def Leppard's having guitar, but there were actually a lot of synthesizer samples of guitars being recorded in that way. It wasn't a live band in the room so much. So that's the way that [00:24:40] Mutt Lange wanted to work with The Cars. And he's a very exacting producer [00:24:46] Dave Anthony: the production tension started to mount during this album as the recording of the album. Heartbeat City was a slog, under Mutt Lange, who was so meticulous that some members felt excluded from the process. [00:25:00] Drummer David Robinson even had many of his parts replaced by programmed loops. [00:25:04] Peter Aaron: Yeah. When they started, they were told, oh, this should take two weeks. And they ended up being there for six months. And, the drums tracks that are on that album are not for the most, not really natural drum tracks. [00:25:17] Peter Aaron: Ric tried to get Mutt Lange to [00:25:20] record David playing live in the room and mutt Lange gave it some sort of nominal try. And after, I guess like three days, it was like, I can't get a sound that I like on this. Let's go back to using the electronic fairlight synthesizer sampled drums. [00:25:40] But when you listen to that record, it's got a signature sound, but it doesn't sound like a band playing live in a room. [00:25:47] Peter Aaron: It works for the songs. But the first Cars album is obviously very layered, very separated instruments and, with the vocals and the harmony stacked the way that Roy Thomas Bakker did it, Candy [00:26:00] O is much more of a stripped down kind of Garagey album. [00:26:04] Peter Aaron: And, so it's a long leap from those first two albums to the sort of processed sound of Heartbeat City. Sales wise, it did the trick and it was certainly driven, you might say, by the single Drive which [00:26:20] crossed boundaries In terms of who it appealed to in the record buying public. [00:26:26] Dave Anthony: Was that written by Ric and Benjamin or just Ric? [00:26:29] Peter Aaron: Just Ric, yeah. And actually, he demoed it for Beatitude and it was done with almost a low key, samba style rhythm. [00:26:40] And it didn't end up using the song and Ric ended up reviving it for Heartbeat City. But one trick that, really, defines the car's characteristic sound is that Ric would sing the more straight up pop songs. And a lot of times Ben would sing the [00:27:00] kind of more dramatic, dark and strange songs. Ben's kind of smoldering torchy, almost a, separate clubby, jazz singer style voice is just so perfect for that song. [00:27:15] Dave Anthony: The painstaking sessions for Heartbeat City were the beginning of the end for The Cars, although in the [00:27:20] short term, they paid big dividends. MTV absolutely exploded things for bands and created the demands to do a little bit different things when they released their albums and The Cars became known for their videos, Ric was the quirky new wave perfect for TV screens. Ben [00:27:40] Orr was the handsome leading man that MTV videos loved. Give the younger audience a sense of how important videos were and how The Cars delivered in that regard to really break them out. [00:27:52] Peter Aaron: Yeah, it was a whole new outlet for popular music. It was very novel at the time. [00:27:59] Peter Aaron: [00:28:00] Now it's very much taken for granted, especially because you can make your own video and put it on YouTube you can let people see you playing your music. That was not a common thing at that time. . And MTV was 24 hour videos, music videos around the clock. They needed videos to fill that time. [00:28:20] So The Cars were fortunate enough to be a band that existed in the right place at the right time and had the record company budgets to make videos. And so The Cars had done things for that. But they didn't want to get into videos and it seemed to be because they thought videos were sort of a [00:28:40] cheesy passing thing that was, it was just like the novelty would wear off a lot more quickly. And the record company really pushed them, their management pushed them to get into doing videos for songs around the time of Panorama. And [00:29:00] their manager was a guy named Elliot Roberts, and he worked with mainly singer songwriters. [00:29:07] Dave Anthony: Mm-hmm. [00:29:07] Peter Aaron: Like Jackson Brown and Joni Mitchell. But he also worked with Devo and Gerald Casale, the bass player for Devo. Had worked on videos [00:29:20] for Devo and wanted to get into making videos for other bands too. The Cars ended up hiring them to make videos for Panorama and touch and go. So they really didn't, they got into it reluctantly, but, with MTV came the way, we could circumvent radio airplay and kids were just riveted by it. It was a whole new thing. [00:29:45] Dave Anthony: You Might Think was the one where he was like a fly Ric's face on a [00:29:49] Peter Aaron: Yeah. [00:29:49] Dave Anthony: On a fly flying around. That was a popular video. [00:29:52] Peter Aaron: Yeah. Well, that ended up winning the very first MTV video music award. [00:29:57] Dave Anthony: Mm. [00:29:58] Peter Aaron: And it was, it was very [00:30:00] novel and cutting edge. There were a lot of early CGI type techniques that were used. The rest of the band was standing on a bar of soap, floating in the bathtub playing, but yeah, it was goofy, but it was very gripping and striking for the time. And they ended up winning the very first MTV Music [00:30:20] award B beat out Michael Jackson thriller, which was like an epic video . They were one of the bands that was like the face of MTV when MTV was new. They were inescapable. So, yeah, they made waves outside of music. [00:30:37] Peter Aaron: By the mid 1980s, , they were one of the [00:30:40] biggest bands in the world. They were playing to tens of thousands of people at the US Festival and Live Aid festivals, which were monumental events. [00:30:51] Dave Anthony: Peter, you write that tension starts to emerge around 1980 fours heartbeat city from a variety of angles to understand [00:31:00] that tension. I think it's important to understand the personalities of Ric Ocasek and Ben. What are these two guys like? What would you say about the personalities and the nature of the culture of the band? [00:31:12] Peter Aaron: It seems to be the case that Ric was very much a consumed artist who wanted to be taken seriously as [00:31:20] an artist. And he also was the songwriter of the band. and he was directing everything musically. And Ben was, he loved to perform and he loved, obviously loved to sing as a great [00:31:40] singer but he wasn't a, he wasn't a songwriter. , There's one song that he wrote on the Millwood records, not very memorable., From what people told me when I was working on the book, it seemed to be a case of Ben hitched his wagon to Ric, and Ric gave him the, [00:32:00] platform to shine on. And there were also feelings for certain songs that had to, really would be best served if sung by Ben and Ric could not do that. So it seemed like a perfect case of being able to have it all [00:32:20] artistically. But yeah, that kind of built up some resentments. Ric was, obviously, he didn't really need to tour because as much as the other guys, because he was the writer, so he was getting the songwriting royalties as well as the performing royalties. The other guys were only [00:32:40] getting the performing side of things. [00:32:42] Dave Anthony: And as we've talked about on many episodes, all the members collaborated on songs, but there isn't any royalties paid for arrangements. [00:32:50] Peter Aaron: Absolutely. And Ric also was getting more into producing and working in the studio, especially with other bands. Ric didn't like [00:33:00] touring. The novelty of that wore off for him, pretty early on and, he'd certainly been through paying his dues before, as had Ben. [00:33:09] Peter Aaron: But, Ben didn't have anything else besides, getting out there and playing and Ric was being artistically satisfied by seeing his [00:33:20] songs come to life and become successful and, being able to, go through the process of making the songs and recording them. And then the situation with their management. Elliot Roberts, who I mentioned before, he mainly worked with singer songwriters like Jackson Brown and Joni Mitchell. And [00:33:40] that was the way he interacted with his acts that were on his roster. Elliot Roberts, saw the entity of The Cars as Ric and these guys that he plays with and plays his songs. And obviously The Cars, the whole thing worked because it [00:34:00] was a combination of people that then the way they played those songs and they knew what to do and they knew what sounded great and what would work for the song ' [00:34:09] Dave Anthony: The Car's 1987 album Door to Door was considered a commercial disappointment. It was their lowest charting album. They had a single, it's really interesting., These guys by this time knew each other for 20 [00:34:20] years. Tell us a little bit about the bizarro rift that emerged between the two lifelong partners, Ocasek and or over. There was a girlfriend involved in writing songs of Orr's, is that correct? [00:34:32] Peter Aaron: Yeah. Ben wanted to get involved in the songwriting side of things, and he came to Ric and said, "Hey I've been writing [00:34:40] songs with my girlfriend and she writes lyrics , can we have a couple of these on the next album?" And Ric just, shut 'em right Down was just, that's not The Cars, and , a few of those songs were on Ben's solo album, the Lace, which did very well, commercially. But it doesn't really sound like the Cars. It's more, I would say, more straight ahead mainstream rock. There's no quirkiness and the experimental elements of The Cars aren't really pledging in that music. [00:35:11] Dave Anthony: Peter, in your book Orr was drinking and really isolating himself on tour? [00:35:15] Peter Aaron: Yeah, by the time they were touring, Door to Door, when they were making that record, [00:35:20] they weren't in the studio at the same time for much of the recording. And yeah, he was traveling separately. Ben and the rest of the band would fly and he would ride with the crew on the bus and meet them in the next town where they were playing. And, he'd become withdrawn. Obviously he'd [00:35:40] become resentful that Ric had become the face of the band in a lot of ways, and was also the one who was being seen as the quote unquote creative genius of the band. And they had been friends and Ben felt he was getting left by the wayside and trivialized. [00:35:58] Dave Anthony: During the door to door [00:36:00] tour in 1987, the mood was tense and O Kasic was giving interviews in which he likened himself to Sting, who "had to leave the police to really get noticed". In 1988, The Cars disbanded and longtime partners, Ric Ocasek and Benjamin Orr entered a 23 year cold war of not interacting with each [00:36:20] other. [00:36:21] Dave Anthony: In 91 Ocasek marries the model. Paulina Porizakova. This is his third marriage. She was a Sports Illustrated swimsuit model. [00:36:32] Peter Aaron: Oh yeah, definitely. To be fair, Paulina was the most famous model in the world. She was a powerful [00:36:40] force in the area that she worked in. It was two high profile people coming together in that relationship. [00:36:48] Dave Anthony: And as the nineties emerged, younger bands really came to respect the achievements of The Cars and Ric Ocasek. And he went on to become a producer of some bands of [00:37:00] note. [00:37:00] Peter Aaron: Yeah, Ric, he was a deep guy. He had always had his ear to the underground. He would encounter bands that he liked, that he thought were doing something interesting and. Would help them, because he was a champion of what he thought was cool music. He also knew how to make [00:37:20] records that would appeal to a lot of different people. And, he said you can make money or you can make art. So to Ric, both things were vowed in terms of making music that was interesting, experimental, challenging music. But that's not gonna be commercially successful. But you could also [00:37:40] make commercially successful music that was satisfying . They were both equally valid. So yeah, he worked with, probably the biggest band he worked with was Weezer, the Blue album, which was [00:37:53] Dave Anthony: massive, [00:37:54] Peter Aaron: incredible, huge, super influential album that gave birth to a whole new [00:38:00] generation of the term emo pop. Pop, punk bands and that record was a defining record for a certain generation of people that came of age in the early 1990s. He had also produced, before that I mentioned Suicide and the Bad Brains in the early 1980s. [00:38:20] Around that time, he produced Romeo Void, the song Never Say Never, which was another big influential, unique, era defining hit of the early eighties new wave period. [00:38:35] Peter Aaron: He produced. No [00:38:36] Dave Anthony: Doubt [00:38:37] Peter Aaron: He Produced No Doubt. He worked on The Rock [00:38:40] Steady Record, a song or two off it. [00:38:42] Dave Anthony: And 2000 Benjamin Orr dies of cancer. [00:38:46] Peter Aaron: Yeah. [00:38:46] Dave Anthony: Despite their years of estrangement, apparently Ocasek and or reconciled shortly before, or his death from pancreatic cancer, Ocasek later wrote the song Silver in Memory of his old friend, quote. His old [00:39:00] friend Ben. [00:39:00] Peter Aaron: Yeah. [00:39:01] Dave Anthony: But then I kind of forgot about this. In 2011, they actually reformed with the album move like this. [00:39:12] Peter Aaron: Yeah. Yep. And that is a great record. There were some things that happened in between there. [00:39:17] Peter Aaron: The rest of the band, Elliot Easton [00:39:20] and Greg Hawks they put together a band called The New Cars, which featured, Todd Rundgren as, lead singer and guitar rhythm guitarist and they went out on tour, didn't last very long. [00:39:34] Peter Aaron: They were mainly doing Cars hits. So that kind of came and went. [00:39:40] And Ric wasn't happy about it, but he knew the other guys wanted to work and he didn't wanna stand in their way, so he kinda let that happen. But then right around 2010 he had been writing some newer songs and I guess it didn't really feel to [00:40:00] him like songs that would work on one of his own records as a solo record. And he just called up Elliot and Greg and David and said, Hey, what do you think about us getting together and doing something as The Cars. And, so that's how that came about. And. I think that's a great record. I think there's [00:40:20] some songs on there that are up there with, especially the single blue tip, I think that's up there with singles from their first couple albums., [00:40:29] Dave Anthony: The Cars made their triumphant return with the album move like this. Debuted at number seven on the Billboard 200 and number two on the Top Rock albums [00:40:40] chart, capturing their signature new wave sound with a modern twist , blended crunchy guitars with synth pop earning praise as a successful comeback With a 3.5 star review from Rolling Stone a brief but memorable 10 city tour followed, including a standout performance [00:41:00] at Lola Palooza Move like this was widely seen as a successful reunion and became the perfect final chapter for The Cars. [00:41:11] Dave Anthony: In April, 2018 in a testament to their impact on music history. The Cars were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame by Brandon Flowers, the lead [00:41:20] singer of the Killers, and they performed together for the final time. [00:41:29] Dave Anthony: Nearing the end here, Ocasek dies in 2019. He suffered from cardiovascular disease, emphysema, and he was [00:41:40] recovering from an unspecified surgery when he died on September 15th, 2019. And in Manhattan, his wife, the former model Paulina Porizikova said he passed away peacefully in his sleep. What is the legacy of The Cars? What's the place in music history that they'll be remembered for? [00:41:57] Peter Aaron: I think, just being a masterclass [00:42:00] in how to put together, tightly constructed, very memorable pop songs that have elements in them that are sonically and thematically challenging and interesting at the same time. A perfect hybrid of [00:42:20] art and pop. I love a quote. There's a quote that Elliot Easton [00:42:25] Peter Aaron: He says that first Cars album was the one sort of mainstreaming album that a lot of punks had in their collection, but it was also the one album that a lot of [00:42:40] mainstream people had when they wanted to have something punky in their collection. So that's a rare proposition for a band that can please people that want challenging music and also people that want just easy to [00:43:00] follow, catchy pop music. That, and also combining sounds from different eras, through that same kind of methodology, [00:43:09] Dave Anthony: It seemed like The Cars were one of the safe entries for rockers to get into that new wave. A lot of, people who I would characterize as into, more traditional rock had, the car's [00:43:20] cassette tape and maybe the police as well, but yeah, [00:43:25] Peter Aaron: Absolutely. And that was important, because that helped change mainstream music and keep it from getting too stagnant. . And keep it interesting. And, [00:43:40] also connects a lot of underground people, giving them something to find in the pop world that they could latch onto. [00:43:49] Dave Anthony: The last question we're gonna ask you is what three songs do you think the audience should give a listen or re-listen to? [00:43:54] Peter Aaron: Oh, I was dreading that. Tough question. It's hard. There's so many great ones. Yeah. I [00:44:00] would say Just What I Needed was [00:44:03] Dave Anthony: sung by Benjamin Orr [00:44:05] Peter Aaron: sung by Benjamin Orr, written by Ric just a song that's, I find it impossible not to like, no matter how many times I hear it. That song that put them on the map, a song that broke them through. So I think it's important and for that [00:44:20] reason alone, going a little bit deeper from CandyO, Double Life, I think that's my favorite car song. [00:44:27] Dave Anthony: Hmm. [00:44:28] Peter Aaron: And that's one that Ric sings and it's just got this incredibly poignant, atmospheric, very addictive, feel to it. [00:44:40] Interesting that it's maybe also a little incongruous because, that's one that Greg Hawkes doesn't play keyboards on, he plays guitar on. But I just love that song. I just want to hear it over and over again. And it shows that introverted brooding side, that's a defining aspect of Ric's [00:45:00] personality. And then for the last one I'm gonna go a little deeper again, and I'm gonna say, Up and Down from Panorama which is a very, pulsing electronic type of tune. And I think that's an [00:45:20] important, part of the car sound is that. And, I think that that song shows that in, in a perfect way. [00:45:30] Dave Anthony: Our guest today has been the author of Moving in Stereo, which has the subtitle, Ric Ocasek, the Driving Force Behind The Cars. [00:45:39] Dave Anthony: And our [00:45:40] guest has been Peter Aaron. Peter, your book. I really enjoyed a look behind a very compelling, unique character. Ric Ocasek is a mystery figure in the history of rock, but clearly as you've outlined in this interview and in that book, this man took several sounds from way back in the. [00:46:00] 1950s from Buddy Holly through to several iterations of bands and created a very unique sound that cranked through the charts of the late seventies and early eighties and even into the screens of MTV and today you've really illuminated that journey and we wanted to thank you for coming. [00:46:17] Peter Aaron: Oh, thank you so much for having me on. It's been a [00:46:20] pleasure. Hopefully this will get people to go back and listen to the car's music if they haven't listened to it and Ric's music, anything associated with him in a while. And hopefully it will get some younger fans to check it out , and see why it matters and to find something for themselves in it as well. [00:46:36] Dave Anthony: Absolutely. Thanks again. [00:46:38] Peter Aaron: Alright. Thank [00:46:40] you. [00:46:41] Some closing notes on The Cars. [00:46:45] The Cars had a little used secret weapon for a lead singer for years. Many fans did not realize that bassist. Benjamin Orr, not Ric Ocasek, sang lead on many of their biggest hits, including Drive, and Just What I Needed. [00:46:59] [00:47:00] How's this for a surprising fact about the quirky lead singer of The Cars, Ric Ocasek? You may recall he was known for his unique head of black, new wavy hair. Ocasek was highly private about his appearance and kept the fact that the hair was actually a wig, and not even his band mates were aware of the hair piece. Ocasek maintained the secret for [00:47:20] decades. [00:47:21] The iconic cover of The Cars debut album was painted by Peruvian American artist, Alberto Vargas, known for his pinup art in Esquire and Playboy during the 1940s through 1960s. The idea came from car drummer David Robinson, who was a pinup collector, and the band's visual [00:47:40] director, though retired artist Vargas was convinced to take on the project by his great niece, A Cars fan. The painting featuring a woman on the hood of a Ferrari 365 GTC 4 was based on a photo shoot directed by Robinson at a Ferrari [00:48:00] dealership. [00:48:00] The Cars were known for taking sounds from various eras to create their own pulsing guitar and synth driven harmonies. Remember those famous hand claps in the Let's Go Hook. Well, those were lifted from a 1960s song by a group called The Routers on their 1962 hit with a very similar [00:48:20] name. Let's go Pony. [00:48:23] Benjamin Orr was born Benjamin Orzechowski and had the nickname as a young man of Benny. 11 letters. He decided to change his name to, or largely based on the fact that he had moved from Cleveland to Boston in the early 1970s during the time of Boston Bruin's [00:48:40] hockey superstar, Bobby Orr's reign as a popular Boston sports figure. At that point, Benjamin thought Orr would be the perfect and easily pronounced surname. [00:48:52] . Rock stardom usually strikes young, the Rolling Stones. The Who, even U2, are barely out of their twenties. Ric Ocasek of The [00:49:00] Cars was 34 when fame finally happened after a succession of attempts with various musical styles. First came Milkwood, an early seventies country rock with Crosby Stills & Nash style harmonies. Then a dramatic switch to punchy stones like R'n'B with his band called Richard and the Rabbits from 1972 to 74. [00:49:20] And when that flamed out, Ocasek formed a band called Capn' Swing. Emulating the art rock shadows of Lou Reed and the Velvet Underground .Grit, experimentation, determination. When The Cars arrived, it wasn't sudden, but it was certainly earned. Punk edge, synth sheen, sleek harmonies, and a rockabilly snap all rolled up [00:49:40] into the winning sound of The Cars. proving that the long road does pay off. [00:49:48] We mentioned that Ric Ocasek married Czechia born supermodel, Pauline Apor Kova. They met when she was 18 and he was 40 on the set of the car's award-winning video. You might think I'm crazy. [00:50:00] They married in 1989 and separated in 2017, but continued living together. In 2019, Paulina was the one who discovered Oasis's body when she brought him a morning coffee while he was recovering from recent surgery. However, after his death, it was discovered that Ocasek had weeks earlier cut Paulina out of his [00:50:20] will, citing abandonment amid their pending divorce, which if you think about it, brings a whole new meaning to the Ocasek penned Cars hit Song Byebye Love [00:50:32] The Cars were known for their unique sound. Additionally, in our Cars episode, we discussed their creativity in video form. In [00:50:40] fact, The Cars won the very first MTV video of the Year award for You Might Think at the inaugural MTV Video Music Awards on September 14th, 1984. The video, which utilized early computer graphics, featured singer Ric Ocasek on the body of an animated fly. Their [00:51:00] video beat out heavily favored contenders, including Michael Jackson's thriller and Herbie Hancock's Rocket. [00:51:09] Special thanks to our guest today, Peter Aaron, author of Moving in Stereo, Ric Ocasek, The Driving Force Behind The Cars. [00:51:20] Thanks to you for making Garage to stadiums, one of the top 5% of podcasts in the world. We'd love for you to follow our shows on your favorite podcast platforms so you can be alerted when our next episode drops. [00:51:34] Follow us for some great music history content posted on our social channels, Instagram X, [00:51:40] Facebook, LinkedIn, and YouTube. Our YouTube channel has additional bonus coverage from our interviews. Visit us at the website for more bonus content on all the bands featured, and links to great downloadable playlists on Apple and Spotify. [00:51:55] Thanks to our program director Scott Campbell, creative director Chad Raymond. [00:52:00] And video director Nigel Campbell. You've been listening to Garage to Stadiums. I'm Dave Anthony. See you next time for another Garage to Stadiums Story. [00:52:09] Another Blast Furnace Labs Production