Ric Ocasek

Hello again: After an eight-year absence, the Cars frontman is back with a new album on his own label

By Charlotte Robinson
Published: November 8th, 2005 | 12:36pm

You probably don't need a primer on Ric Ocasek's accomplishments since his former band, the Cars, still gets tons of airplay on the radio, not to mention those ubiquitous Circuit City commercials. Although he's continued to write and record his own music, Ocasek has kept a lower profile since the heady days when "You Might Think" and "Magic" were on heavy rotation at MTV, often working behind the scenes as producer for artists like Weezer, No Doubt, and Le Tigre, and doing a brief stint as an executive at Elektra Records. After an eight-year absence from recording, Ocasek is back with Nexterday, a charming, hook-filled disc that is the first release on his own Inverse imprint. He spoke to Venus from Manhattan, where he lives with his wife of 16 years, supermodel Paulina Porizkova, and their two sons.

Your work with the Cars was very pop-oriented. Where did that influence come from, and did you consciously write with the aim of getting your stuff on the radio?

Quite honestly I wasn't. I never felt like I could write songs on commission or write them because somebody wanted a particular kind of song. I always wrote songs with every band I had. I started off with the aim of writing songs. And of course I was influenced by the radio, like Buddy Holly, by pop songs that I always loved. But I always had this craving for music that was outside the pop world. I was attracted to the Velvet Underground, [Bob] Dylan, and a lot of people that didn't write pop.

I guess I assumed that songs were based on verse-chorus structure, but on the other hand, even with the Velvet Underground it's verse-chorus. I just thought that was a rudimentary way to do songs but I never would have expected I'd have big hit records, certainly not before the Cars. I was probably the most financially insecure I've ever been. I just accepted the fact that I'd probably write songs forever and never really get too far with it but I'd keep doing it anyway because I wasn't going to do nine-to-five jobs. I probably didn't fit into any of those molds. I had to have freedom.

This is your first album in eight years and now you've done a few shows and some TV appearances. How does it feel to be stepping back into the spotlight?

Performing I don't think has ever been my favorite part of it. I've always been more interested in the background and writing and making records. Needless to say, the gigs that I have done now were fun because they were limited. It felt sort of good to play in front of people, which I've obviously done for a long, long time. The time in between was basically because I produced a lot of records in those years. I got a little bit jaded after my last Columbia record because I actually didn't want to do those things you have to do to promote a record. I almost feel like if I could silently put out records and make them just like another chapter in the book I'd probably be happy with that. I certainly don't want to recapture the past and I don't really live on applause, so I don't really take those things that seriously. Maybe that's one of the reasons I wouldn't put the Cars back together to do another whole rampage, because I don't want to revisit the past that much.

The last album featured guests like Billy Corgan and was a louder record with a bigger sound, while this one seems more intimate musically and lyrically. Were you consciously trying to make a different kind of album?

Yeah, I was. I was trying to make the opposite. I made this record mainly in my own studio here and I didn't want to make it into a huge production. I guess maybe because the records I produce are usually bigger productions. I thought, well I'm going to make it very simplistic. I almost made a folk record. [laughs] I mean, I almost made an acoustic record, but I decided to just play everything myself and do it like this and not rerecord anything in a big studio and just leave it as a sort of simplistic representation of the songs, how they would be if they were sort of broken down to the very simplistic songs. So I did make a conscious effort to make it simple, yeah.

Nexterday is the first release on your new label. I know your album Quick Change World was supposed to be released as a double album with a book of poetry and the label wouldn't put it out that way. Was that the kind of thing that led you to creating your own label, to have the freedom to put things out the way you wanted them?

One hundred percent. That's true. That and also to release other little bands that I might want to produce and put out, but not like having -- I didn't want record companies worrying about statistics and whether they were popular and all those things because I was more interested in putting out music that I felt was different and had something to say artistically and some of that stuff's not easy to get signed -- as I found when I was at Elektra. Even though Sylvia Rhone, the president of Elektra, was pretty open-minded about things -- I have to say she was wonderful -- the kinds of bands I was bringing into Elektra were like, I was trying to sign Devendra Banhart and Le Tigre, stuff like that. They saw no immediate commercial value but they didn't see the long-term artistic value of it. So that's when I decided to have a label of my own.

I read that the other members of the Cars persuaded you to let Circuit City use "Just What I Needed" in its commercials. Were you hesitant to do that?

Yeah, I was hesitant about that. Obviously I had opportunities for 20 years to do that but I didn't. It was obviously my decision to use it or not use it, but I did hear from the guys. They thought it would be good for them.

It's funny; philosophically, yeah, I was pretty much against that kind of thing and I think, in a funny way, I still feel that. However, I did do it so maybe I caved in, which maybe I shouldn't have done in retrospect. But whatever, you go through life and you do shit. So I did it. [laughs] I can't take it back. The only thing that made me feel good was that Dylan did Victoria's Secret. [laughs] So after that I didn't feel so bad.

Besides the new album, you've got a new Cars DVD coming out. What's going to be on that and when does it come out?

That's going to come out in the new year and that's really exciting to me because I don't think there's anything out on the Cars, visually, that people would really get to see like the whole transition from clubs to the big stage. It's about 25 songs and backstage footage, all kinds of extra stuff. It's a look at the Cars that nobody's really seen. It does have a lot of really cool performances on it from all the years. It's probably the most comprehensive retrospective of the Cars. At one point I just took all the old tapes I had, all the old videotapes and home videotapes, VHS tapes, Hi-8 tapes, three-quarter tapes, went through them for a darn long time, probably four or five months looking through tapes and compiled it all on a Final Cut Pro and edited it all. And it's more like home-movie style. It's not very slick but it sure is interesting, I think. If people never really got to know what the Cars were really like as people, I think they would find out from this. So actually I think it's pretty neat. It's called The Cars: Unlocked.

Then I have a DVD of my own called Different Times and I want to put that out, too. And that's pretty complete as well. But I didn't want to put them both out at the same time. I have little clips of it on my <a href="Web'>http://www.ricocasek.com">Web site</a>. I have little clips of the Cars DVD on my Web site too.

You and your wife were huge celebrities in the '80s and it seems like you retreated from the spotlight to raise your kids and do your music on a quieter level. Did you make a conscious decision that you were going to do that?

That's a good observation because that's exactly what we did. We both understood the celebrity thing when we were married. We both were not going to let it go to our brains. We also made sure that we communicated in a good way. And also if I was working she would go with me; if she was working I would go with her because I learned from other marriages that if you're away for like ten years you're not going to have a marriage. And if your relationship is going to be one via phone then you're not going to grow together. It seemed like I learned from my mistakes how to make it work better so therefore I've had a very successful marriage and it's still great.