11 minute read
Elliot Easton of The Cars
Elliot Easton:
Legendary Guitarist of The Cars
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Interview by Kim Crain
I had the great opportunity to sit down and “Shake it up” with Elliot Easton of The Cars, the left handed guitar player who’s melodic solo compositions were part of the history of Classic Pop-Rock that led to develop The Cars signature sound. The Cars had 13 top-40 singles. The band was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of fame in 2018, where they reunited to perform at the ceremony.
Kim: As one of the original members of an internationally renowned band, how did The Cars come about, and what are some of your early memories of the group?
Elliot: The Cars came about as an outgrowth of a band with Ric Ocasek, Benjamin Orr and Greg Hawkes, that were previously called “Richard and the Rabbits,” which Johnathan Richman of The Modern Lovers named!
They had a different guitar player, different drummer. My roommate who was a sound engineer and mixed sound for bands, answered an add in a local Boston paper, I think the Boston Phoenix, for a sound man for Richard and the Rabbits. He was my roommate and I had nothing going on that night and he was going to go see the band and talk to them about maybe working for them. So we went, and it turned out to be this Warner Brothers Party for Foghat, at a Roller Skating Rink. (outside Boston ) So I went along with my roommate Alan. I ended up really liking the band, particularly Ric’s songs! It was the first local band around Boston that was doing original material that I thought could be hits and recordable.
The guitar player, who is a friend of mine, he had a different approach, kind of a fusion approach to it. The drummer was a little more technical..
That band broke up and Ric and Ben started playing as a duo, they called it Ocasek and Orr. Just with acoustic guitar and bass in Harvard Square in a little pub called The Idler. Alan my roommate kept mixing sound for them. After he would set the sound, cause it was just two mics, an acoustic guitar, and a bass, he would jump up onstage with them and play percussion. And all this time he was hyping me, you gotta hear my roommate, you gotta hear my roommate play guitar, over hyping me! During that time Greg was off playing with Martin Mull and the Fabulous Furniture and Ric was playing in that duo thing. Ric decided he wanted to have a band again! I got invited over to Ben’s apartment to try out after my roommate was telling them how great I am. I was so nervous almost paralyzed; he boosted me up so much! So I go over to Ben’s house, Ben sits apart from me with his arms crossed looking at me and he said; alright, so play something amazing!
Courtesy of the Elliot Easton Collection
Eventually we just relaxed and we started jamming and playing and we liked each other and it sounded good. That grew into a band (Greg hadn’t come back yet) called Captain Swing, which consisted of Ric, Ben Orr, myself, a different keyboard player, Danny Louis, who now play’s with Gov’t Mule, a different drummer, and Ben wasn’t playing bass at the time, he was singing lead. We had a different bass player. We made some demo tapes and Maxanne Sartori from WBCN in Boston was playing them. We were getting some local notoriety, getting a lot of gigs around New England. Then we went to New York to play a place called, Maxes Kansas City, one of the places in the 60’s and 70’s that the Velvet Underground, Iggy Pop, Andy Warhol and his
superstar crowd, used to hang out there. We had this band, Captain Swing, we went down there and did this show called the showcase gig. We invited down a lot of the big management companies from New York to come down and see us!
A manager, Bill Aucoin, who was managing KISS and Billy Squire. Lieber and Krause who had Aerosmith. They came down and saw us play, and they had some real constructive criticism. They said your image is all over the place. The bass player looks like he should be playing for the Grateful Dead. The drummer is playing like he’s in the Mahavishnu Orchestra. Ben is not playing bass, he is wearing this awful silk peach colored Karate outfit his wife made him. The songs are a little long. The solo’s were a little jammy. You’ve got to get your image together. You’ve to get the songs more concise.
So we took all those criticisms really seriously and to heart, and we went back to Boston, we tried to fix what we thought was wrong. And that resulted in us getting The Cars together. We got rid of the bass player and put Ben back on bass where he belonged. Greg came back to play keyboards. We got David Robinson from The Modern Lovers to play drums. So then we had a band that made sense. We were all on the same page. We consolidated our songs, tightened our arrangements, got our image together.
David Robinson, our drummer, was sort of like the art director of the band. He came up with the name, The Cars. He drew the logo, which is kinda like the license plate. He came up with that. We were talking about image and what we were going to wear onstage, and decided to wear black and white because we were so poor we could get away with a black T shirt and a pair of black Levis. And if everybody is wearing this same sort of stuff it looks like a band. We stayed with black and white for a long time, even after the band was making records, and eventually added the color red.
Then we made some demo tapes as The Cars. We did some live two-track demos of, “Just What I Needed”, “My Best Friends Girl”. Then this wonderful woman, this D.J., Maxanne Sartori of WBCN in Boston, she started playing our demo tape in heavy rotation alongside all the big hits of the day. So if you know anything about the radio business back then, they have like their own what they subscribe to like Billboard, but for radio, they called it a tip sheet, the Gavin Report. So our stuff is getting heavy rotation in Boston and getting reported in the Gavin. It would report all the top 20 records, Boston, New York, LA. This is 1976, 77. The Gavin Report will show you what the big markets are playing. They could see what the trends were around the country and what they were playing. So for BCN there was a column for the artist the label and the song. It would say like Aerosmith, Back in the Saddle/Columbia. Elton John, Goodbye Yellow Brick Road/Rocket MCA. The Cars, Just What I Needed, “Tape.” So all these radio people and record people and A&R people that subscribe to these reports are like, “What the heck is going on up in Boston?” These guys are getting reported nationally on the basis of a Courtesy of the Elliot Easton Collection
demo tape, so there must be something going on in Boston!
So they started coming up from New York, the A&R people, to check us out in Boston, and that’s what led to our record deal. This was like a fairy tale! I don’t think this could happen today! That’s how The Cars formed!
We signed with Elektra Records. We were looking for producers. Roy Thomas Baker who was just hot off doing Bohemian Rhapsody (Queen), was a contender to produce our album. We were excited about that. He came and saw us. I think it was called Holly Trinity College in Massachusetts, and it was snowed out. Big snowstorm. There was like a dozen people there in a gym. He came and he loved the band. He said how would you like to go to England and make the first album.
And we did, we went to Air Studios in London, George Martin, the producer of the Beatles studio. We made the first album. It took twelve days to record, nine days to mix! Like George Martin is dropping in and like lying down on the sofa in front of the mixing board. It was unbelievable! Paul McCartney was recording next door. It was very heavy!
None of us had ever been anywhere really. I grew up in Long Island, had never been out past D.C. We had no track record, We hadn’t even proven ourselves, yet Elektra just rolled out the red carpet. They rented an incredible house for us in the nicest part of London, with a couple who cleaned and cooked for us! It was a dream come true. Recording at Air Studio! It was unbelievable!
Then the record came out. After that it was common knowledge what happened. The first album just exploded! “The Cars” - the bands debut album (1978). We got to play the US Festival, Live aid! It was a good time! It was a life-long
dream!
Kim: Was “The Cars” your biggest selling album?
Elliot: I think “The Cars” album is one of the biggest selling and Heartbeat City, our fifth album. That had “Drive” on it.
Kim: The Cars revolutionized the sound of American Rock n Roll and have a timeless sound which appeals to all genres including our youth. In 1978, The Cars were named best new artist by the New York Times and Rolling Stone Magazine. The Cars had six Grammy nominations (including best new artist) between 1978-1984, and won MTV’s Video of the year in 1984.
Elliot: Ric was the songwriter of The Cars, A lot of it has to do with Ric’s lyrics, cause he always explored the darker side of the human existence. Like “Who’s gonna Drive you home,” or, “You’re just what I needed, I needed someone to please.” He always explored relationships, the relationships between people.
I think a lot of The Cars music has a timeless quality, not trying to jump on some cutesy bandwagon. We were just trying to make music, we did not care about trends. We were not interested in any of that. It was just what it sounded like with the five of us making music together. It was up to the writers to call it whatever they wanted. Everyone just pitching in! That’s how we made our records.
Kim : It was very tragic to hear about Ric’s passing. What were some of the hobbies or past times that you guys shared together as band mates and friends? Photo credit. Rob Shanahan
Elliot: Ric and I shared a love of reading and literature. He also had a really silly sense of humor, and we would sometimes text each other really goofy stuff. Ric actually was a very quiet closed person, and very private. Outside of working on the band he did not socialize a whole lot. I hung out with David and Ben and Greg more cause Ric usually kept to himself. He was usually writing, stuff like that! But we loved each other and It’s just the way people are!
Kim: As a guitarist, at what age did you pick up the instrument, and who were your influences?
Elliot: I got my first guitar at three, in 1956. My influences were the Cowboys, like Roy Rogers & Jimmy Dodd from the Mickey Mouse Club show. Stuff like that!
Also in 56, I saw Elvis Presley on television. It was one of the first shows he played. And immediately I brought my mom a comb and a glass of water. I had her comb my hair, slick it back, pull it down in the front, like Elvis. I grabbed my guitar and was checking myself out in the mirror. I’m a rocker at three! LOL! I’ve been doing this a long time!
Kim: With the pandemic going on, have you been working on any new projects ?
Elliot: People have been sending me tracks and I have been putting guitar on it! I am also putting together a solo R&B thing, which is something I’ve been wanting to do for a long time, with Sir Harry Bowens, who was one of the singers from the band Was (Not Was). We want to do some classic soul R&B. This is my next little venture.
I do a few different things. I do Elliot Easton’s Tiki Gods, which is kind of exotic, Polynesian Tiki music.
Kim: Very cool! Check out Elliot Easton’s Tiki Gods on Spotify or FB, and look out for shows with Sir Harry.
Thank you so very much for joining me today! You are very humble and kind. So many guitar players have been influenced by your guitar playing.
I will be listening to your Tiki Music and looking forward to hearing your new venture playing R&B.. Lets talk about this when it comes out!