Ric Ocasek 'Nexterday' album

If I told you about an individual whose musical odyssey included starting a band in the late ’60s in Ann Arbor, Michigan and opening six shows for the MC5 and the Stooges, befriending Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers on his first day in Boston in the early ‘70s and producing some of the most seminal artists of our time, including Bad Brains, Suicide, Iggy Pop and Guided by Voices, you would likely say that this person sounded like one the coolest people in the world. Now suppose this same person rounded out his resume with a decade-long stint in one of the most influential rock groups of the’70s and ‘80s, selling over 25 million albums and spawning legions of imitators twenty years later; did more board work for some of today’s most lauded bands, including Weezer, Le Tigre, Mercury Rev and No Doubt; AND a gig at a major label working as a VP of A&R where in a year’s time he attended only one meeting -- you might think this unnamed person was a pathological liar - and that’s not even taking into account marrying a supermodel, a cameo in a John Waters film, and working with Andy Warhol. Ladies and gentlemen meet Ric Ocasek.

While the above anecdotes are absolutely true, Ric Ocasek has never sought out these situations. Rather, he has simply lived by a single guiding principle that has enabled him to achieve incredible success without compromising his beliefs. That is, he lives for great music, whether he’s writing, recording, producing, signing bands, starting his own label or performing.

His eclectic, off-the-beaten path tastes, date back to his childhood in Baltimore where he was raised on a steady diet of pop radio. “The first album I ever bought, other than 45s,” he says, “was the first Bob Dylan album. When I got that, I fucking freaked. I really got into folk music and musicians like Eric Anderson, Phil Ochs, and the Incredible String Band.” It was these artists who inspired him at the age of seventeen (and now living in Cleveland where his family had moved) to become a songwriter. “I was going to write songs and not do anything else,” he says.

In high school Ric met Ben Orzechowski (later shortened to Orr) who was a year older and a like-minded musician who he would play music with for the next three decades. They started out as an acoustic duo and after Ric attempted college, the two moved to Ann Arbor where they formed a band called Leatherwood. It was through former White Panther chairman John Sinclair that Leatherwood found themselves opening for the Stooges and the MC5. “I think I was nineteen,” Ric says. “We used to be a real wreck-your-equipment type band.”

Burned-out on Ann Arbor by the early ‘70s, Ocasek relocated to Boston where he honed his songwriting in the Cambridge coffeehouses. “The first day I got to Cambridge the Modern Lovers were playing on the commons. I thought, ‘This is the Velvet Underground all over again. I love this band.’ I just found myself getting to know them and Jonathan. I’d go see Jonathan play in Gloucester and he’d be up there by himself reciting Shakespeare and doing all this great stuff, and people wouldn’t understand it at all.” In fact, it was Jonathan Richman who named one of Ocasek’s bands. “It’s the silliest band name in the world – I dare not tell that one.” (F.Y.I. it was Richard and the Rabbits).

By the time The Cars started in 1976, Elliot Easton, Ben Orr, and Greg Hawkes were already playing with Ric. Drummer David Robinson, who had played in the Modern Lovers and DMZ, filled out the line-up. “The Cars were the third band I had in Boston,” Ric says. “Most of the members had been in all three. Every time we changed a member I would change the name of the band.” When their self-titled debut dropped in 1978 on Elektra, The Cars were already an established Boston band. Over the next ten years The Cars released six albums, had many top 10 hits and sold over 25 million albums.

As time went on, The Cars soured for the same reason many bands sour. “It wasn’t any big deal,” he says. “We weren’t punching each other out or anything. After nine or ten years, traveling and touring, it was really starting to freak me out. I felt like I was mimicking myself and I didn’t want to do that anymore. I just wanted to write songs like when I started. So we kind of quietly disbanded in the mid-80s, but The Cars are still my favorite band.”

The influence The Cars had and the sound they pioneered - the keyboard-based, up-tempo pop with Ric’s hiccupping voice - is undeniable. Their wholly unique sound presaged the ‘80s new wave explosion and is heard in today’s rock revival. “It’s very flattering” Ocasek says, “but I don’t always think we’re as influential as other people do. If somebody has a keyboard in their band or plays eighth notes, people say it sounds like The Cars.”

In 1982, while still in The Cars, Ric released his first solo album, Beatitude, which again showed him pushing musical boundaries with a more eclectic and experimental sound than the usual Cars fare while retaining his love of good melodies. Subsequent solo albums include This Side of Paradise (1986), Fireball Zone (1990), (Quick Change World (1993), and Troublizing (1997), which he made with members of the Smashing Pumpkins, Bad Religion, and Nada Surf.

“I learned a lot from working with producers like Roy Thomas Baker and Mutt Lange with The Cars, but I learned the most from having my own studio, and having time to play around. In the early ‘80s he began recording a variety of bands including Bad Brains, Suicide and Romeo Void.

While his stature as a solo artist grew, Ric began producing a whole new crop of bands in the ‘90s, scoring repeated critical and commercial acclaim with bands like Hole, No Doubt and Weezer. “I remember getting Weezer’s demos and thinking it was the greatest thing I’d ever heard,” he says. “I went to their rehearsal and they were all cool nerds who then proceeded to pin me up against the wall with volume.” Their collaboration yielded Weezer’s Blue and Green albums, considered two of the band’s finest recordings.

Ric’s success both behind and in front of the boards led to Elektra bringing Ric in to work as a VP of A&R. “I had a corner office which I probably went to about 10 times and I went to one marketing meeting just to see what it was like.” What Ric did do was try to bring in dynamic and forward-thinking music. “I wasn’t doing what I was supposed to be doing. I was bringing in obscure bands because if I was going to be at Elektra I was hoping I could do a little Jac Holzman trip and sign bands like Love and get back to signing adventurous music.”

All of which brings us to today and Ric’s collaboration with Sanctuary Records. In addition to releasing Ric’s sixth solo album Nexterday (out September 27, 2005) the label is distributing Ocasek’s imprint, Inverse Records. “I wanted a label because I wanted to sign music that I thought was adventurous without worrying about outside factors,” Ocasek says. “When I got my own label I started going back to things I liked that Elektra probably wouldn’t have taken.“ That included the band The Hong Kong whose debut will be released on Inverse in early ‘06.

Nexterday, it turns out, actually comes from the mind of a four-year old. “My youngest son Oliver didn’t know the word for tomorrow and he called it ‘nexterday,’ which I thought was a cool name.” The album, like the title, actually proves quite prescient an appellation as Ric approached this project from an entirely new direction combining elements from yesterday, today and tomorrow. “When I was making this album I was listening to a lot of homebrewed things,” he says, “so I was inspired to keep the demo versions of songs rather than re-record everything.” In fact Ric recorded almost the entire album himself without any outside help (ex-Car Greg Hawkes and Darryl Jenifer from Bad Brains make brief cameos). “It was pretty much a fool wise in his own folly,” he says. Except in this case his folly is thankfully our gain.

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Ric Ocasek - Nexterday