Any conversation about Eighties music is incomplete without some mention of the Cars. Racing out of Boston under the horsepower of a string of hits from their self-titled debut, the Cars helped define the New Wave look and sound, towing puffy hair and squealing keyboards into vogue. Over the course of ten years and seven albums, songs such as "Just What I Needed," "Let's Go" and "Shake It Up" became staples of rock radio. In the fifteen years since the Cars dissolved, leader Ric Ocasek has continued to make a name for himself as a producer, helming the boards for such acts as Weezer, No Doubt, Jonathan Richman and Guided by Voices. With Rhino Records releasing the new Cars anthology, Complete Greatest Hits, Ocasek took time out to reflect on all of the above.

In the liner notes you say you were surprised that you had hit singles. As someone who grew up hearing songs like "Magic," "You Might Think" and "Let's Go," that's surprising for me to hear.

Well, mostly in the early days of the Cars obviously when I was writing songs, I never imagined that. They just didn't seem like songs that would be on the radio. I think that's kind of true of any new band. If they get on the radio they're always surprised they got on at all. I don't think that as a band we weren't intentionally attempting to be a Top 40 band or a singles band. So having some appeal was kind of a shock, but in retrospect it was kind of a good thing.

What songs have held up the best for you?

I think things like "Since You're Gone." I really always liked "All Mixed Up." Some of the things, like "You Wear Those Eyes" and "Up and Down" I still like a lot, and I like some of the things that were not singles, quite a few things. I always thought you could take and put out a greatest non-hits, that might be kind of an interesting record. You could do a funny record if you did "I'm in Touch With Your World," "Candy-O" and "Misfit Kid," and put a bunch of those songs together as B-sides. It would make an interesting alternative record for the Cars.

Any you got sick of?

We used to certainly get tired of playing "My Best Friend's Girl." You do get tired of playing songs that you know are the most popular ones. You always crave to play the other songs on the records, but sometimes when you have six records and everybody in the audience wants to hear twenty songs, you bite into a bit of that.

How do you look back on the Cars now?

Actually, quite fondly. I sometimes think that we could have made twenty records and maybe we should have. We kind of got in our little rift in '86 and disbanded it and kept it that way. Once that was done I didn't want to go back for the money or to reform, unless everyone in the band wanted to do it with good spirit and all that stuff. We never did even attempt to come back together, and in some odd way I thought it was kind of OK to just keep it finished. But in retrospect it was fun, and the band was very close. We probably let some kind of small trip upset the whole thing, which probably wasn't necessary. I think we were tired. I don't know if all of us were, but I was tired of being on the road eight months in the year. Some people love to be on the road all the time, and some people don't. I didn't.

Roy Thomas Baker produced your first four records. What kind of impact did he have on the band?

His impact on the band was great, because we really respected his technical abilities. In the studio he also had a good personality when it came to keeping things up. He kept the fun coming and the spirit up. He was good at getting good sounds and at trying elaborate ideas, especially harmony-wise. So he became a good friend of ours, and kind of like a friend who knew so much more than we did, who took us under his wing and did a lot of records with us. He also kind of left us alone, which was nice. We were pretty well rehearsed when we went into the studio, and we just kind of put it together, so it wasn't a matter of parts or arrangements or things like that -- just recording and getting interesting and good sound.

How do you feel he influenced you as a producer?

I think it was just in general ambiance, not as far as maybe sound goes. His attitude in the studio was good about not getting too picky. For a new band that pickiness takes a long time to wear off. You could spend a day trying to get a part or a sound you think is the most important thing in the world and come to find years later that you don't even hear it or it didn't make that much difference.

You got started producing early. Were you preparing for the day that you wouldn't feel like hopping around on stage with a guitar anymore?

I could have been, but not consciously. I love the studio. At one point the Cars had a studio of our own which propelled a lot of the experience you would get in a studio. I loved other bands and I loved music and it was fun for me to go in with other bands. Loving their music and feeling like I loved it so much, I wanted it to be recorded. That's kind of how it started.

What do you look for from a band you're thinking about producing?

I always look for something that I love to listen to anyway, whether mostly things I would love to hear on record, things I think are artistic, rather than just blatant commercial pop. What they're saying, that they sound like themselves not trying to sound like someone else, they don't sound like a lot of the other bands, like the tenth version of Pearl Jam.

How would you define your role as a producer?

I'm pretty much a song-oriented person. The song is the main thing. I would be good to bounce off of for advice on songs, arrangements and otherwise, probably politically. Bands always have trips between each other, and I would certainly be a buffer or a diplomat -- having a band gave me some experience with that. Making sure everyone is happy, which maybe I learned from Roy and making sure that the a band feels comfortable and safe with their music, like nobody's going to destroy it or do something with it that they don't want to be done with it -- somebody's who's on their side, not necessarily on the record company's side.

When you were with the Cars was there ever a suggestion a producer made that helped a song become a hit?

We only had two producers in our whole career. It was either Roy and then we had Mutt Lange for a record. Mutt certainly did some of that. I learned quite a lot about that. He was good at taking scraps of songs and putting them together like a little puzzle, a couple songs he did that. That was pretty interesting to me. "You Might Think" that was originally two different songs and when he came by my house and went through all my demos, he had an idea to put that "you kept me going when the sun went down" part, which was actually from a different song, with that one. It almost seemed sacrilegious to me. I kind of went with it and it was kind of cool to do, and then I figured out that the song we took that part from wasn't that good anyway. That was probably the best part of it.

Have you ever done something like that for any of the bands you've worked with?

I've changed arrangements. I've encouraged people to finish songs that were really on the brink of being great, and I usually have a pretty good hand in picking the songs people are going to use on the record, depending how many songs you get on the demo. Sometimes, it's a lot and I'll pick the good ones. For some reason they don't want to do their most popular songs or the ones that could be. I don't know what it is about those kind of songs that people shy away from them or are afraid about being too pop.

Can you think of a specific example of a song you had to battle a band to get on the record, that wound up being a hit?

Uh, well, yeah, but I don't know if I should mention it. Yeah, most certainly. There's been songs that probably would have gone by the wayside that were actually hit singles. And I haven't had too many records where there have been hit singles, so you can probably weed it down.