Inside The Cars Reconciliation Before Ric Ocasek's Death

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The late Ric Ocasek was the subject of a lengthy Rolling Stone profile focusing on numerous parts of his life from playing in various bands until finally making it big with The Cars, the band's break up in 1988, the impact of Benjamin Orr's death on him, and his reconciliation with his Cars bandmates in later years.
The piece is well worth your time to read in its entirety, but a few bits stand out. First, the success of The Cars was a drain on Ocasek as he preferred experimental music as his creative outlet. Recording engineer Chris Shaw, who worked with Ocasek on some of his later records, told Rolling Stone "the pop stuff came naturally but he sunk his teeth into the experimental stuff.”

This played a role in his decision to leave The Cars. It wasn't some dramatic break up. Ocasek was in the studio listening to live Cars recordings being prepared for a radio show when bandmate Elliot Easton stopped by to visit. As Easton recalls, "we were just sitting and listening and talking, and he just kind of said, ‘You know, I’m think I’m going to leave the group.'”

That was that.

Ocasek's post-Cars career never saw much interest in a reunion. Outside of Greg Hawkes, Ocasek had frustrations with his other Cars bandmates. It wasn't until 2000 that a tragic turn of events began the reconciliation process.

Ben Orr was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2000, an event Ocasek's ex-wife Paulina Porizkova said "really scared and hurt Ric." 

The two reconciled shortly before Orr's death with Ocasek writing the song "Silver" from his 2005 album Nexterday about Orr.

Fastforward a few years to a phone call between Easton and Ocasek. Ocasek told Easton he had written some new songs to which Easton then asked if it was time for a new Cars album. As Easton recalls, “It was silence on the other end of the line, and Ric goes, ‘You know, that’s an interesting idea.’”

What resulted was their 2011 album Move Like This and a tour. For Ocasek, one of his main motivations to tour again was not because of his Cars bandmates, but because of his family. As Porizkova says, “our boys never got to see him as a rock star and he wanted them to see what Dad did. It was really sweet.”

The final gathering of the four original Cars members came in April, 2018 when the band was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. The Cars would perform a handful of songs that night, but the evening serves as a major reconciliation point between Ocasek and his bandmates.

“It’s funny, because after that night, I really had a sort of sense of finality about it. I didn’t realize quite how final it really was,” Hawkes said. Easton added the band did "a lot of healing" following the induction. 

While it's not known whether Ocasek and The Cars would ever work again in the future, it provided a nice moment following years of tension.

Revisit their performance of "My Best Friend's Girl" at the 2018 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony below.

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