By the time the Cars released their self-titled debut in June 1978, singer-guitarist Ric Ocasek and singer-bassist Benjamin Orr had been playing together in bands for a decade.
In Cleveland in the late ’60s they formed bands with names like ID Nirvana and Leatherwood. After moving to Boston in the early ’70s, there was Milkwood, Richard and the Rabbits — which included future Cars’ keyboardist Greg Hawkes — and Cap’n Swing — which added Elliot Easton who’d play lead guitar in the Cars.
None of those bands became more than locally successful, and then only for a time, says Bill Janovitz, author of “The Cars: Let the Stories Be Told,” who comes to Los Angeles on Wednesday, Oct. 8 for a book event that includes Easton.
So what magic kissed the Cars to give Ocasek, Orr, Hawkes, Easton and drummer David Robinson the kind of success that made them one of the biggest bands in the world in the decade from 1978 to 1988?
“One of the great joys I got out of writing this book is to trace [that history],” says Janovitz, who in addition to his writing career continues to perform with Buffalo Tom, the alternative rock band he formed in 1988 with two friends at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. “Sometimes there are artists that come out wholly formed, but they just can’t catch a break until maybe they do.
“But I think Ric’s ambition exceeded his actual talent as a writer, never mind as a musician,” he continues. “He didn’t know who he was. He just knew he wanted to write.”
Ocasek’s inspirations ran from Buddy Holly and the Beatles to the Velvet Underground and Bob Dylan, Janivitz says. The latter two fueled his desire to be a writer almost more than a songwriter, he adds.
“So to watch all those different iterations from this folk trio [Milkwood] like a Crosby, Stills & Nash wannabe to mash up with these cats who are real players who would been in a fusion band or something [Richard and the Rabbits] but not quite getting there? It’s like something that’s a little off. But it’s quirky. It’s interesting. A couple of good songs.”
Ocasek, who was always the chief songwriter in the bands he formed, discovered punk rock early thanks his friendship with Edward Hyson, who as a Boston disc jockey in the mid-’70s died his hair pink, adopted the on-air name of Oedipus, and created the first punk rock radio show in the United States.
“Ric was going down with Oedipus and listening to all these new records coming over from England, from New York,” Janovitz says. “Suicide, you know, Devo, of course. Kraftwerk. Roxy Music, who is a big influence on the Cars.”
The new wave of music that arrived on import singles or small indie labels turned a key in Ocasek’s imagination, he says.
And with Orr, who’d always been his musical wingman, and Hawkes, Easton and Robinson — musicians he’d kept for the talents they possessed — a new batch of songs sprang forth. Songs such as “Just What I Needed,” “Good Times Roll,” and “My Best Friend’s Girl,” which would lead off the debut record and launch the Cars’ career.
“David Robinson says in the book, he sat in that first rehearsal with these guys and he’s just laughing to himself,” Janovitz says. “He’s like, ‘Is it that good? Was it as good for you as it was for me?’ It’s like this incredible, and it’s almost like, bam, they hit the zeitgeist.
“It seems like Ric is chasing trends until the Cars when all of a sudden he’s on top of the wave,” he continues. “It’s him, it’s Devo, it’s Talking Heads, it’s Blondie, it’s maybe B-52s. It’s Patti Smith.
“You get the feeling in ’78 like we’re moving on from the ’70s, which were kind of a hangover of the ’60s, into something new. It’s magical to finally see it all come together.”
In an interview edited for length and clarity, Janovitz talked about how h got Easton, Hawkes and Robinson board for the book, what kinds of surprises he found in his research, why the Cars records still inspire younger musicians today, and more.
Q: After your previous book on Leon Russell, how did you decide to take on the Cars?
A: It was actually before that book. They had just learned the Cars were going to be in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame [in 2019] and I was in L.A. as a performer at the Wild Honey benefit for autism research. These benefits, being in L.A. get these big stars, bona fide rock stars, and then me. So it was like rock star fantasy camp for me.
I had Elliot Easton playing guitar and Dennis Diken of Smithereens on drums [to cover the Kinks’ “Stop Your Sobbing.”] I struck up a conversation and Elliot was just warm and welcoming. Then I wrote a little article about the thing and I pitched doing a Cars book.
Q: You mentioned Ric was still alive then and wasn’t interested in a book. After he died later that year?
A: The Leon book happened and I got Elliot to read it and be an early blurb for it. He liked it a lot. So I reintroduced the idea after that book and Elliot was on board. He was maybe a little bit more cautious about getting to yes than Greg Hawkes and David Robinson. The other two guys, I sent them the Leon book and I think they were just happy to have somebody tell their story.
Q: So why the Cars? What about them connected to you as a kid in Boston when they started?
A: I was 12 when that first record came out, and their journey from that through “Heartbeat City” [in 1984] was basically adolescence. I turned 18 when ‘Heartbeat City’ was coming out so I was finishing high school. It was just perfect. They were such a big part of my cultural currency in so many ways. They brought me into the ’80s, brought me into new music that wasn’t old Southern rock or Stones or blues-based stuff. It was like something that was for me.
Then meeting Elliot and having these discussions. Writing this article about him. I’m like, “Man, this is perfect,” never mind the fact that I’ve tread the same stages at the Paradise and the Rat in Boston [in Buffalo Tom]. The fact that there wasn’t a definitive biography about this Rock and Roll Hall of Fame band was kind of perfect.
Q: With Ben and Ric dead, how did you fill in the gaps around what Elliot, Greg and David told you?
A: For the most part [the surviving three] told a very similar story from different perspectives. It wasn’t quite like “Rashomon,” where everybody’s telling a completely different kind of story at odds with the others. We came to the truth pretty quickly. I had to be cautious and very fair to the guys that are not here to tell their stories.
Ric, I didn’t have any access to anything personal aside from the stuff that was already published. But he was pretty forthcoming in interviews given his secrecy about his personal life. He was very good at misdirection and deflection and telling sort of a mythology about himself. But I had Paulina Porizkova [whom Ocasek was still married but estranged from at his death] and she was, as she is on Instagram and in her own book, very frank and open.
Not just about her and Ric, too. It was about him talking to her about the band, his evolution of his feelings and relationships with those guys and the music over the years. From like, “I want to be solo,” to like, “Oh, I regret this or that.”
Ben, I had the benefit of talking to his exes. They all told similar stories about Ben [who died in 2000], as did the guys in the band. But Ben is definitely a harder nut to crack, I think. A guy wrote a book about him which was well-researched, but it didn’t give you a lot of insight into his personality. It was more like what a great guy Ben was, and he was a great guy but it was complicated and it got dark.
Q: Balancing all that history must have been a challenge.
A: For me, again, the fairness thing was important. As the Cars started to unravel, the relationship, which was a brotherly relationship, essentially, between Ric and Ben unraveled and went into complete darkness in the late ’80s into the early 2000s when Ben died. That wasn’t all darkness but it was a lot of darkness. So it’s a question of how much of this gets told? How much of it’s relevant to the book?
I judged that at least some of it was because people want to know who these guys were and what happened and why did they not get back together. How do these guys go from being brothers to not speaking really. That stuff is interesting to me.
Q: The Cars’ music still sounds great four decades later. How do you see its influence and appeal from the records and the songs then to bands and fans today?
A: You know, you’ve got Kurt Cobain saying the first song he learned to play was “My Best Friend’s Girl.” Of course, Weezer, getting produced by Ric, you can definitely hear how into the Cars they had gotten. Fountains of Wayne grew up just like I did listening to the Cars. They do an homage to the Cars with “Stacy’s Mom,” and have their biggest hit, to the extent they put a little Ric Ocasek kid in the video, in a Ric Ocasek costume.
You hear Olivia Rodrigo and she’s doing a version of ’90s throwbacks which in themselves are throwbacks to “Best Friend’s Girl” or “Just What I Needed.” So it’s those classic sounds perhaps hyped up to today’s standards.
I think the Cars’ first four albums before they get to “Heartbeat City” are pretty much classic, evergreen-sounding records. They’re not rooted in the [’80s] to the extent that “Heartbeat City” sort of is with the production. They were just doing what they wanted and it was a great blend of organic and electronic and just great songwriting and singing and production.
Those first four records, were all produced by Roy Thomas Baker. It was a great run like George Martin with the Beatles or Jimmy Miller with the Stones. It’s this rare combo of just good guys that all get along and find this magic together and have huge success.
‘The Cars’ Book Talk & Playback
What: Author Bill Janovitz and Cars’ guitarist Elliot Easton in conversation with actor Mike O’Malley
When: 6 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 8
Where: Wrensilva Studio, 8625 Melrose Ave., Los Angeles
How much: The event is free with RSVP but most tickets already are taken.
For more: To find out more about Janovitz, the book, and future events, go to billjanovitz.com.