The Cars Hint at First Reunion in 23 Years

It's been 23 years since the Cars split, but the band is finally hinting at a reunion. On their official Facebook page, the band posted a photograph of the surviving members — singer Ric Ocasek, keyboardist Greg Hawkes, drummer David Robinson and guitarist Elliot Easton — gathered together in a Boston studio surrounded by their instruments. "I hate to be vague, but I really can't say," keyboardist Hawkes told the Boston Globe when asked whether the band was reuniting. "It's a crazy world." A rep for Ocasek did not immediately return Rolling Stone's request for comment, but a link on the band's Facebook to a story about the reunion rumors is accompanied with the following note: "Anyone in the mood for a reunion by the Cars?"

When RS caught up with Ocasek in Feburary, he said he was working on new material that was "a surprise." He added that the new songs are "more mature, because I'm older now." "It's hard to write songs these days, it's hard to have hope," he said.

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The Cars, one of the most popular New Wave bands thanks to a string of hits that included "My Best Friend's Girl," "Just What I Needed" and "Let's Go," last recorded together for 1987's Door to Door. While reunion rumors have popped up in the years that followed, any hope of a full-on Cars reunion was dashed when bassist-singer Benjamin Orr died of pancreatic cancer in 2000.

Since the band's breakup, Ocasek has carved out a notable career as a producer, recording with everyone from Weezer to No Doubt to Guided by Voices. In 2005, Hawkes and Easton recruited Todd Rundgren to form the critically maligned New Cars, but that project hit the brakes in 2007.

Reporting by Jennifer Vineyard

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Song Stories

“1999”

Prince | 1982

“I don’t consider myself a great poet,” Prince told Rolling Stone. “I just know I’m here to say what’s on my mind.” In the case of the apocalyptic party anthem “1999,” he was worried about then-president Ronald Reagan’s foreign policies. The song’s melody is based on a riff borrowed from the Mamas and Papas’ “Monday, Monday,” and Prince originally envisioned the first verse with three-part harmony but later split the vocals between himself and members of the Revolution. Because Warner Bros., with whom Prince was locked in a contractual battle, owned the original’s masters, Prince rerecorded the song and appropriately released that version in 1999.

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