Ric Ocasek

Richard Theodore Otcasek (born March 23, 1949), known as Ric Ocasek (/rɪk oʊˈkæsɪk/), is an American singer, songwriter, musician and record producer. He is best known as the vocalist, rhythm guitarist and songwriter for the rock band the Cars. Ocasek has been married to model Paulina Porizkova since 1989.

Early life

Ocasek grew up in Baltimore, Maryland.^[2] When Ocasek was 16 years old, his family moved to Cleveland, Ohio. After graduating from Maple Heights High School in 1963, Ocasek briefly attended Bowling Green State University and Antioch College.^[3][4] However, he dropped out to pursue a career in music.^[5]

Ocasek met future Cars bassist Benjamin Orr in Cleveland in the 1960s after Ocasek saw Orr performing with his band the Grasshoppers on the Big 5 Show, a local musical variety program.^[6] He reconnected with Orr a few years later in Columbus, Ohio, and the two began booking bands together. Soon, they formed one of their own and began to perform in and around Ohio State University.^[7]

Early career

Ocasek and Orr were in various bands in Columbus and Ann Arbor, Michigan before re-locating to Boston in the early 1970s. In Boston, they formed a Crosby, Stills and Nash-style folk rock band called Milkwood. They released one album, How's the Weather, on Paramount Records in early 1973 but it failed to chart. After Milkwood, Ocasek formed the group Richard and the Rabbits, which included Orr and keyboardist Greg Hawkes, who had played on Milkwood's album. Ocasek and Orr also performed as an acoustic duo during this period. Some of the songs they played became the early Cars songs. Later, Ocasek and Orr teamed up with guitarist Elliot Easton in the band Cap'n Swing. Cap'n Swing soon came to the attention of WBCN disc jockey Maxanne Sartori, who began playing songs from their demo tape on her show. After Cap'n Swing was rejected by several record labels, Ocasek got rid of the bass player and drummer and decided to form a band that better fit his style of writing. Orr took over on bass and David Robinson, best known for his career with the Modern Lovers, became the drummer. Hawkes returned to play keyboards and the band became "The Cars" in late 1976.

The Cars

Ocasek's breakout success was as a founding member of the Cars, which had numerous hit songs from 1978 to 1988; he played rhythm guitar and sang lead vocals for a majority of songs (bassist Benjamin Orr was lead vocalist on the remaining tracks). After splitting writing duty with Orr in the 1970s, Ocasek became the principal songwriter of the band, and wrote nearly all of the Cars' material, sharing credit on only a few songs with bandmate Greg Hawkes as co-writer. In 2010, Ocasek reunited with the surviving original members of the Cars to record their first album in 24 years, titled Move Like This, which was released on May 10, 2011.

Solo career

The singer released his first solo album in 1982. Beatitude is a somewhat more experimental variation of the Cars' new wave rock sound. On some tracks Ocasek played all of the instruments.^[8] Greg Hawkes played on the album.^[9] A more synthesizer-heavy follow up, This Side of Paradise, was released in 1986. This featured Hawkes, Elliot Easton and Ben Orr.^[8] A No. 15 hit single, "Emotion in Motion," accompanied the album.

The Cars disbanded in 1988, and Ocasek disappeared from the public eye for a couple of years. He resurfaced in 1990 with his own album, Fireball Zone. One track, "Rockaway," enjoyed a brief stay on the charts, but his solo albums have seen disappointing sales, especially compared to his success with the Cars. He subsequently released other solo works throughout the decade, including 1993's Quick Change World, 1996's Getchertikitz (a collaboration with Suicide's Alan Vega comprising only beatnik poetry set to music, sound effects, etc.), and 1997's Billy Corgan-produced Troublizing (which Ocasek supported with a very brief tour, his first since leaving the Cars). In 2005 Ocasek released another album, Nexterday, to little fanfare, but it received positive reviews.^[10]

Production

During his time with the Cars, Ocasek developed a reputation as a successful producer, and took this role for many up-and-coming bands of differing genres including Bad Brains' Rock for Light and Guided by Voices' Do the Collapse. His other production credits include Weezer's Blue Album & Green Album (both multi-platinum), Suicide,^[11] Romeo Void, Hole,^[11] Bebe Buell,^[12] No Doubt,^[11] Nada Surf, Irish folk-punk band Black 47, Bad Religion, Johnny Bravo, D Generation, The Wannadies, Possum Dixon, Martin Rev, Jonathan Richman, and the 2006 album by The Pink Spiders titled Teenage Graffiti. He also produced a portion of the third Motion City Soundtrack album, Even If It Kills Me. In 2014, Ocasek produced Everything Will Be Alright in the End, the ninth studio album by Weezer and his third collaboration with the band, and For All My Sisters, the sixth album by The Cribs.^[13]

In other media

Ocasek wrote a book of poetry, 1993's Negative Theatre. It was at one time expected to be incorporated into an album and multimedia incarnation of the same name, but those plans were dropped abruptly. For many years Ocasek had a hobby of making drawings, photo collages, and mixed-media art works which, in 2009, were shown at a gallery in Columbus, Ohio as an exhibit called "Teahead Scraps".^[14]

Ocasek had a cameo role as a beatnik painter in the John Waters film Hairspray,^[15] and had a small part in the 1987 movie Made in Heaven^[16] in which he played a mechanic.

Ocasek stated in a 2005 interview in Rockline that he hated touring and it was unlikely that he would do so again. He also stated he would not be reuniting with the Cars again, but gave the okay to his former bandmates to do so with Todd Rundgren replacing him on vocals as the New Cars.

On April 17, 2006, Ocasek appeared on The Colbert Report and volunteered to put Todd Rundgren "on notice". He appeared again on the July 26, 2006, episode to cheers from the audience as he volunteered to lead a commando mission to "rescue" Stephen Jr., the baby eagle at the San Francisco Zoo named after Stephen Colbert. He also appeared again on April 18, 2007, in order to support his wife during her appearance on the show, after remarks that she found Colbert "extremely attractive". He has been mentioned many times in other episodes as well.

The Cars, with Ocasek, appeared on The Colbert Report on August 9, 2011, to promote their new album, Move Like This.

In 2012, Ocasek wrote another book, "Lyrics and Prose", a complete collection of lyrics from his solo albums, as well from the Cars' albums. It also contains prose and poetry never set to music, also photographs and artwork done over the years that was previously unpublished.

Personal life

Ocasek has been married three times. He married early in life, but divorced and was married to his second wife, Suzanne Otcasek, in 1971.^[17] Ocasek was still married to Suzanne when he met model Pavlína Pořízková during filming of the music video for the Cars' song "Drive" in 1984. Ocasek and Porizkova were married in 1989.^[18]

Ocasek has six sons, two from each of his three marriages. His eldest son, Christopher Otcasek, was a singer who formed the rock group Glamour Camp which released one album in 1989. Adam Otcasek was born in 1970. Eron was born in 1973 and Derek was born in 1981.^[17][19]

He and co-founder of the Cars Benjamin Orr were known to be close friends. Their friendship was commemorated in the song "Silver" which Ocasek wrote as a dedication to Orr upon his death in 2000.

Discography

Solo albums

• Beatitude (Geffen, 1982) (US #28)
• This Side of Paradise (Geffen, 1986) (US #31)
• Fireball Zone (Reprise, 1991)
• Quick Change World (Reprise, 1993)
• Negative Theater (Warner Bros., 1993; European release only)
• Troublizing (Sony, 1997)
• Nexterday (Sanctuary, 2005)

Spoken word album

• Getchertikitz, a collaboration with Alan Vega (Sound Effects, 1996)

Singles

Other appearances

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Ric Ocasek.

• Official website
• Ric Ocasek VH1 artist page
• Ric Ocasek AOL artist page
• Ric Ocasek Billboard artist page
• Ric Ocasek Allmusic artist page
• Ric Ocasek on IMDb