AVC: Those early Cars albums don't really sound like anything that was on pop radio at the time. What was it like dealing with the label when you had a sound that wasn't necessarily familiar?
RO: Things were more open then. We were lucky enough to get radio play with our demos, before the band even broke. So that was kind of a nice coup for us. I think we really wanted to be different. It wasn't something we could have contrived. The songs and the arrangements came out the way they did because of the people in the band. And after the first album, the label didn't complain too much. [Laughs.] They really, totally left us alone. I never saw an A&R person coming in and checking to see if everything was going all right. We just did what we felt like in the studio.
Now, producing a lot of new bands like I do, there's so much pressure from labels. I have to lock them out of the room. It's not as free an experience, unless you're making indie records. In those days, they really left us alone. I think Elektra was probably just happy that they had a hit. They didn't want to destroy what it was. And I don't know that we would've listened to anybody anyway. There was really nothing for anyone to say.
AVC: It's hard to pinpoint any hard influences on The Cars besides old-time rock and maybe krautrock. What were you listening to then?
RO: As a songwriter, oddly enough, my influences were people like Bob Dylan, The Velvet Underground, and Buddy Holly. Some psychedelic stuff, too. Back then, there wasn't a lot of press on bands. There was Creem and Rolling Stone, and that was about it. There certainly wasn't the Internet. You would stay in your basement and create something and then come out. You didn't have anything to rub off on. You didn't know what the band down the street was doing, because you couldn't look it up, and you couldn't see it on TV. I think people tended to come out with things that were different because they weren't influenced by their environments as much. I find these days, you almost have to force yourself to stay in a vacuum to become different—if you really want to be different. Maybe you have to have something different inside of you as well.
The Cars—we all liked different things. Greg [Hawkes] and Elliot [Easton] liked The Beach Boys and The Beatles, and certainly I did as well. Other people in the band liked other music. We didn't usually cross-collaborate. We never said, "Oh, this should sound like this," or whatever. We were in sort of a hole, and we tried not to pay too much attention to what was going on outside.
AVC: Were you collegial with the other bands of your era?
RO: Since the beginning of our career was in Boston, there were a lot of Boston bands we knew, of course. But we didn't really hang out with other bands much. We were in that little Boston scene, but the names of those bands escape my mind, except for Aimee Mann's band, The Young Snakes. I was kind of looking for something new, but there wasn't a lot. But it was a fun scene in Boston then. Radio was real supportive of local bands. I don't know if Boston's ever been as influential as it probably was in those times.
AVC: Until recently, it seemed that The Cars were one of the few great bands that hadn't had a lot of influence on modern rock, but now a lot of bands sound at least a little like The Cars.
RO: I see that written a lot. I suppose it's true. There's more keyboards in bands now. I would certainly never take credit for it. It's funny, sometimes I read about a band that people say sounds like The Cars, and I think, "Oh, it doesn't really." Maybe little twinges here and there vocally. But it's flattering if it's true.
AVC: How have your experiences as a recording artist affected the way you work as a producer?
RO: It's a big advantage, because I think I understand what bands want, just from having made records myself. I understand what it takes to get a good vocal sound, or to make people comfortable in the studio. From minor things like their headphone mix—and if a singer's singing, how they should hear themselves—to how to make people feel that they're getting exactly what they want. All those things, I think, are an advantage, especially the part about having done it myself. I'm not just an engineer who records the sounds well. I'm not afraid to take chances.
And some of it's just band politics. I've been in a band, so I understand the politics. Sometimes the bass player doesn't like what the guitar player is doing, and you have to sort of even that out. But I've also always loved the technology part of it. I've always loved the studio part. Making albums. Besides writing songs, which has been my primary thing, making records would be second. Obviously, touring would be third. Touring wasn't my favorite thing to do, but the first few tours were pretty fun. Seeing the world and everything.
AVC: Were there places you looked forward to visiting? Like, "Oh boy, San Francisco!" vs. "Oh crap, Houston."
RO: Certainly. [Laughs.] Houston was pretty good, actually. There were about eight cities in America that I would be excited to play. And of course it was always fun to play in Europe. We only did that a couple times. There were some places that were always very fun, and then there were some places that you kind of dreaded. It didn't matter what year we went to San Jose, they just spit on us. [Laughs.] Even when we sold out there! It was funny. I think we sold out so that people could spit on us. It was always fun to go to Los Angeles and San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle, Chicago. Mostly the big cities. But I guess once you've seen the world, you don't really need to revisit it.
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