Led by singer/guitarist/songwriter , The Cars were the prototypical new wave band. Scoring a string of hit singles during the late 70s/early 80s, selling out arena tours and becoming darlings of MTV, it appeared the band could do no wrong. But by 1988 the once tightly knit group had completely unravelled.
A decade later, Ocasek explained that the situation hadn’t improved: “We don’t keep in contact at all,” he said, “apart from I see Greg quite frequently. But I haven’t seen Elliot in a few years, I haven’t seen Ben in about eight years, and I haven’t seen David in about three years. We don’t talk on the phone.
We’re pretty much a dysfunctional family.” It wasn’t always that way. Ocasek, from Baltimore, and Ben Orr, from Cleveland, got together in the early 70s when they moved to Boston.
There they put together a short-lived folk group before returning to their true love, rock’n’roll, and formed Richard And The Rabbits followed by Cap’n Swing. It was during this time that Ocasek and Orr brought in keyboardist Greg Hawkes, guitarist Elliot Easton and drummer David Robinson (a member of proto-punkers The Modern Lovers). Easton recounts his first impressions of Ocasek and Orr: “They were playing at a Warner Brothers party for Foghat.
I remember being very struck because it was the first local band I’d ever heard in Boston that was doing their own music – really strong. I distinctly remember having the thought, ‘I want to play in this band’.