The Story of The Cars & Ric Ocasek

About this episode

This episode explores the journey of The Cars and Ric Ocasek, detailing their struggles, musical evolution, and impact on future artists.

If any band defines the long odds of the garage-to-stadiums journey... it’s The Cars. Grinding through years in Boston, they cycled through wildly different sounds before finally striking gold—fusing punk edge with pop precision to help define a new musical decade. In this episode, you’ll learn: How bandleader Ric Ocasek and his partner Ben Orr struggled for years to unlock their breakthrough sound The surprising number of genres the band attemped before succeeding The reveal of the secret formula of musical styles they combined and perfected The strange, behind-the-scenes reasons the band unraveled at their peak How Ocasek’s vision went on to shape countless future artists Access the Episode Transcript Want to learn more music history? Subscribe to our bonus Garage to Stadium content across our social + web channels for more interesting music history facts delivered to you Episode Guest Peter Aaron is the author of Moving in Stereo: Ric Ocasek, The Driving Force Behind the Cars. Peter is a veteran of the music industry having written on acts like the Ramones and the Band, and as the arts editor of Chronogram Magazine. Peter is also the front man of influential New York band The…

People in this episode

Host: Dave Anthony

Guest: Peter Aaron

Topics covered

• The Cars
• Ric Ocasek
• music history
• garage rock
• band dynamics
• musical genres

Keywords

• The Cars
• Ric Ocasek
• music history
• garage rock
• punk pop fusion
• band dynamics
• Peter Aaron

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Chronogram Magazine, The Chrome Cranks, The Village Voice, Boston Herald, The Cars

Books & works: Moving in Stereo: Ric Ocasek, The Driving Force Behind the Cars

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