The Cars: Let the Stories Be Told, the new book about the 1980s hitmaking band from Boston by Bill Janovitz, was published Tuesday, Sept. 20 and is already receiving rave reviews and extensive write ups in The Guardian and Rolling Stone.
We took a look at those pieces to come up with a list of some of the biggest reveals in the biography, extensively researched by Janovitz, who’s also a member of the veteran indie rock band Buffalo Tom and has authored previous books on Leon Russell and the Rolling Stones.
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Here are some highlights, though we recommend you check out Janovitz’s book–which includes interviews with surviving members of the band, guitarist Elliot Easton, keyboardist Greg Hawkes and drummer David Robinson–to get the complete story.
- Cars frontman Ric Ocasek was losing his hair and wore a wig, which he kept secret from almost everyone. This was decades before having a shaved head was an acceptable look for a rock star, thanks to R.E.M.’s Michael Stipe and Billy Corgan of the Smashing Pumpkins.
- Prior to his death, Ocasek wasn’t thrilled about having Janovitz write the Cars story, the author revealed in Rolling Stone.
- Cars drummer Robinson had to convince fans he was actually in the band because he was hardly shown in the band’s videos, per The Guardian.
- Before his music career took off, Ocasek married at 18 and had two kids, but kept it secret from most people, including his band mates.
- Ocasek was nine years older than guitarist Easton and kept his age secret, fearing it would make him look more like a classic rocker than a new wave upstart.
- Manager Elliot Roberts catered to Ocasek’s control-freak tendencies, only sharing important information with the frontman rather than the whole band.
- Ocasek took most of the credit for writing the band’s hit songs, although other members contributed, helping to flesh out his early song sketches into the complete songs we know today.
- Early on, Ocasek welcomed singer-bassist Benjamin Orr, who had a sweet voice and good looks, but eventually he shut him out as well, leading Orr to increase his drinking to dangerous heights. At one point, he threatened to kill himself and his girlfriend. Orr died in October 2000 from pancreatic cancer at the age of 53.
- Ocasek split from his second wife, whom he had also had two children with.
- He hooked up with supermodel Paulina Porizkova when he was 40 and she was 19.
- Although Porizkova was a supermodel, Ocasek also got tired of her and had affairs while he demanded she remain faithful to him.
- Porizkova was shocked to find that she was cut out of Ocasek’s will, which left the majority of his fortune to his two youngest sons, with 20% going to his middle children. His first two children received nothing.
- Porizkova inherited the townhouse they shared in Gramercy Park, which sold for $45 million after Ocasek’s death in September 2019 at the age of 75 from cardiovascular disease.
