The New Cars Hit the Road with a Classic Sound

When word spread that guitarist Elliot Easton and keyboardist Greg Hawkes were planning to form a new version of the Cars, many music fans were excited. With a sleek, catchy pop/rock sound, the Cars had been the most successful American new wave band to emerge in the late 1970s. From 1978 to 1988, the Boston band racked up a string of platinum albums and Top-40 singles including “My Best Friend’s Girl,” “Shake It Up,” “Just What I Needed,” “Let’s Go,” and “Drive.”

But when some fans learned that the New Cars would not include original drummer David Robinson or singer-songwriter Ric Ocasek, their reactions quickly changed from elation, to confusion, to disappointment, to anger. Some believed that Easton and Hawkes were simply cashing in — trying to squeeze a few final bucks out of the namesake of their beloved ’80s band.

Of course, Easton and Hawkes, both original members of the Cars, had the legal right to be associated with the band’s name. Robinson had retired from music and expressed no interest in the reunion. Ocasek hadn’t enjoyed touring the last time the original band was together, and wasn’t about to embrace the idea 17 years later. Most significantly, bassist Benjamin Orr, who had shared lead vocal duties with Ocasek, had died of pancreatic cancer in 2000, ending the possibility of a reunion of the entire original band.

“Greg and I would have been thrilled if [Ric] and David had decided to do this,” Easton said in an interview for the June 2006 issue of Calabasas magazine. “But they opted not to. So what are we supposed to do? Stop working? ... Everybody should be able to do what they’re comfortable with. [Ric] doesn’t want to do it. We do. So let’s work it out.”

To work it out properly, Easton and Hawks knew they would have to find a vocalist/frontman who could capture the essence of Ocasek’s and Orr’s vocal styles without sounding like the lead singer of a Cars tribute band.

Enter Upper Darby, Pa. native Todd Rundgren.

“I wasn’t sitting around thinking, ‘Oh, what band should I join?’” the veteran singer, songwriter, producer, and multi-instrumentalist said in a November 2006 interview. “Elliot gave me a call — I was on some sort of short list that they had. My attitude was: I’ll try anything as long as it doesn’t sound fake; as long as it doesn’t come off like American Idol. We just took it a step at a time, and lo and behold, here we are out on the road.”

With a career that began in the late ’60s with Woody’s Truck Stop, and which included work as a solo artist, producer, and leader of his on-again off-again group Utopia, Rundgren brought instant credibility to the group, which was dubbed the New Cars. He also brought along his own loyal fan base (some of whom, Rundgren admits, would prefer he spend his time working on a new solo or Utopia album).

In concert, Rundgren handles the lead vocals on songs that were originally sung by both Ocasek and Orr.

“There are distinctive differences in the way Ric sings and the way that Ben sang, and indeed in the way that I sing,” Rundgren says. “For instance, if I want to most resemble Ric, I never sing with any vibrato, because Ric never did. Overall, I can’t stray too far away from my own inclinations as a singer.”

The final element that Rundgren brought to the New Cars was his long-time rhythm section — bassist/vocalist Kasim Sulton, and drummer Prairie Prince.

“I think Kaz was an obvious choice, once I settled into the guitar player/front man mode,” Rundgren says. “Then once we chose Kaz, Prairie was an obvious choice as drummer. So it’s less of me joining the Cars and more of a merger of two bands, because this is the rhythm section that I’ve been working with for the last 20 to 30 years.”

In addition to all the Cars classics, fans can also expect to hear some Todd Rundgren songs, as well as a few new tunes. The band is promoting a new CD, It’s Alive!, which Rundgren says was recorded shortly after the group formed.

“Last October we got together and recorded some studio tracks, just to figure out what the sound of the new entity would be like and how we collaborated,” Rundgren says. “And then in January of 2006 we did the live recording. It was kind of a little ass backwards — the usual procedure would be to go out on the road and tour for a few months before you record a live album.”

During its first year as a band, the New Cars experienced more than its fair share of bumps in the road. A summer tour had to be cancelled when Easton fell and broke his left clavicle in a tour bus accident. Then Sulton had to miss most of the current tour so that he could fulfill a prior commitment to tour with Meat Loaf. Atom Ellis, veteran of California’s Bay Area music scene, is filling in on dates Sulton is not available.

Despite the difficulties, Rundgren hopes to record a full album of new material with the New Cars in 2007.