Dr. Yogi Bup is the alias Elliot Easton uses when he checks into a room on the road. Imagine that. It’s not enough that the 33-year-old native of the BrooklynQueens-Massaqequa, Long Island, triangle changed his name from Elliot Steinberg (“Not,” he hastens to add, “Shapiro”) to Easton. No. Rabid Cars fans are actually scouring hotel registers to track down the affable guitarist. The mind boggles.

After all, the Cars don't exactly ooze personality, though it is surprising how quickly the individual components come to mind: the praying-mantis-in-leather steering wheel, Ric Ocasek; the sleek, angel-faced, chrome-bodied crooner, Ben Orr; the bespectacled computer egghead cum sparkplug, Greg Hawkes; the Jewish pop culture junkie accelerator, Elliot Easton nee Steinberg; and the garagetrained ex-Modern Lover alternator, David Robinson. A fairly impressive vehicle, with five hit albums, going on six, in 10 years, an enviable record by any performance standard.

Even though the Cars rode to prominence on the new wave, they were about as far from a punk band as you could get. Baltimore-born Ocasek and Midwesterner Benjamin Orzechowski met in the late ’60s in Cleveland, where the latter, under the name Ben Orr, fronted the house band on the TV rock show, Upbeat. The two paired up in various bands in New York, Woodstock and Ann Arbor before settling in Cambridge, where they formed a folk trio called Milkwood which actually released an album in 1972, with Hawkes sitting in on keyboards.

“I had millions of turndowns,” recalls Ocasek, flicking ashes from his cigarette in the direction of a tray across a hotel room at the Sunset Marquis in Hollywood. “There were times when Ben and I literally had to look for people to stay with because we had no jobs or money.”

In 1974, Elliot Easton joined what was then called Cap’n Swing. With the addition of Hawkes on a permanent basis and Robinson on drums, the Cars took final shape in 1976. After woodshedding in Ocasek’s basement, they produced a demo which included “Just What I Needed,” a tune that became an overnight hit on local radio.

“The thing I noticed that was different about the Cars was, from the onset, there was an enormous reaction when we played live,” recalls Ric. “And it seemed to keep doubling all the time. All of a sudden, there was press. And I had never even seen my name in print before, except for the occasional ad for a gig. I never conceived of hearing my stuff on the radio. So, when ’BCN played ‘Just What I Needed,’ it was a total thrill. I never expected the album to sell like crazy. It was just great to have a record out on a major label. I thought it would do well in Boston and that would be it. But that was OK. We got a $5,000 advance for that first record, and it was the most money I had at one time in 15 years. It was enough to pay the rent for eight months. It was amazing to think what you could do with that much cash. I was secure.”

When it first came out in ’76, the Cars’ self-titled bow perked up radio programmers, who saw the group as the acceptable face of the then-controversial punk rock. The band’s meticulously-crafted singles seemed right at home, wafting out of car speakers as the hits kept cornin’: “My Best Friend’s Girl” and “Good Times Roll” rounded out the platinum debut, while “Let’s Go” and “It’s All I Can Do” catapulted Candy-0 to similar heights and the band onto the arena circuit.

Live, the Cars were often criticized for their resolute non-theatricality and refusal to bow to stadium-rock conventions, which in turn lead to the conclusion that the group was cold, distant and uncaring— a feeling that was reinforced by the chilly alienation of Panorama, their third album. It is a charge that reflects the very different viewpoints which make up this outfit.

“It doesn’t feel that way to me,” insists Elliot. “If anything, I feel there’s a lot of humanity in this music. I feel passionate about it. So we don’t do splits onstage. So what?

“What constitutes a warm band anyway? Those that go into the audience and have a barbecue for them? I’ve never quite understood what that means. Does it mean going out onstage and asking, ‘Does everybody feel alright?’ Is that what it’s about? Because if it is, you might as well watch wrestling, as far as I’m concerned. Most of the music which has galvanized me and changed my life on black and white TV ... I can’t recall people saying, ‘Alright, Cincinnati, it’s great to be here!’ I don’t acknowledge that as being important, or even as being too cool.”

Ocasek, on the other hand, sees nothing wrong with the mechanical nature of the group.

“Pop is assembly-line music, y’know,” he says. “So is pop art. It’s kinda what America’s about, which makes it somewhat fitting. It’s not coldness, it’s just that people aren’t used to not being told how to react, especially at a rock concert. We’re unconditioning them. I don’t even know if we are consciously getting them to think that, but I’d rather they go, ‘What did they do?,’ than ‘They were slightly better than Bon Jovi because they jumped higher.’ ”

As for the frequently-heard gripe that all Cars songs sound as if they came off the exact same assembly-line, both Easton and Ocasek are willing to meet the criticism head-on.

“Buddy Holly has just one song, Bo Diddley’s got one song, Chuck Berry’s got one song, right?,” Elliot asks rhetorically. “And I don’t mean to insult those artists, either, because I think they’re all brilliant. The only point I’m trying to make is there are some great guitarists out there who do nothing but play the same solo their whole lives. It’s like, when an artist finally paints his masterpiece, you can look back and see all the elements which led up to it, or see what he was trying to do until he got it right. And that’s a life-long task.”

The studious Ocasek points to a wide variety of art forms, from Japanese haiku to William Shakespeare, to make his point.

“Music is essentially varied repetition anyway,” he says. “You write in a certain style developed over time. Like all Stephen King books are about horror, or all Burroughs books are gonna have blood. When you’re on a constant roll, I don’t know if changes can be that significant for any band. I don’t see where anybody gives you a complete left turn per album.”

Certainly the Cars’ new Door To Door album is far from that kind of radical departure, though the self-produced effort does seem to get away from the Fairlight machinations of their last LP, Heartbeat City, a fact both Easton and Ocasek freely acknowledge.

“It got to the point where just about anything that could be played by hand in three minutes, we’d spend three days programming,” admits Ocasek ruefully. “We were toying with technology, seeing how far we could go. It was like a game. But we slowly lost interest in what we started to do in the first place because we tried to get it all too perfect. It was a great learning experience, but it can be stifling. There should be some spontaneity.”

Of course, Door To Door is not exactly a jam session, but there is a great deal of variety here, from the raunchy rock of “Strap Me In,” “Double Trouble” and the punky title track to the country-folkish “Everything You Say” and the old-time Cars synchro-pop of “Leave Or Stay” and “Ta Ta Wayo Wayo,” two songs from the band’s early days.

“There was a conscious effort not to pile on a lot of overdubs that would take away the songs’ breathing space,” comments Easton. “We tried to keep it cracking and lively. Ric and I played some acoustic guitar on the album, which was pretty different for us. Whenever we do a new record, we always try to stretch it a little further, to make it stimulating. Add up a lot of those subtle things and they make a significant difference.”

“This one was more off-the-cuff,” confirms Ocasek. “I like the songs I wrote for it. I was quite motivated and had plenty of stuff to choose from. When we were ready to go into the studio, the material was still fresh. ‘Leave Or Stay’ could have been on the first album. The arrangement came from a live tape recorded during that period. It was like looking back in time for me. Listen to the words: ‘She changed into her silk/They stood there drinking their milk.’ I don’t even say that kind of stuff anymore... I wonder if I should now. We used to open our sets with that song, right next to ‘Just What I Needed.’ We recalled itimmediately, as if we had just played it two weeks ago.”

With the new album and a six-month U.S.-into-foreign tour beckoning, the group is raring to go, putting the lie to any talk of dissension caused by the recent spate of individual activity, including solo LPs from every member of the band, save Robinson.

“After 10 years, everybody still gets along pretty well,” observes a laconic Ocasek. “We don’t have any problems with anyone hanging themselves or anything like that. Everybody seemed real up to do this one.”

“We were ready,” agrees Easton. “Not having an outside producer in there made all the difference. While Ric was the actual producer, everyone in the band basically co-produced themselves with him. And to me, that’s cool. That’s the way I’ve always worked with Ric. They are his songs and he knows in his head what they sound like. What better person to look to in order to stay true to the initial inspiration?”

As for Ocasek, he insists he doesn’t write with specific parts in mind for each Cars member, but rather to get to the essence of each composition.

“I’d like to think each song should come through without anything else on it, except maybe an acoustic guitar or a keyboard,” he explains. “If it works that way, any kind of tasteful arrangement will only improve the number. I do feel that everyone in this band can enhance it with the way they play. They’re also pretty quick. I discovered that making my solo records.”

The group leader recorded a pair of efforts away from the band, Beatitude and This Side Of Paradise, which were both commercial disappointments despite sounding not that much different from the Cars.

“I didn’t think Beatitude would be a big seller, but I thought This Side Of Paradise was much better,” says Ric. “Still, I was totally aware of the fact that people don’t like musicians in bands to break off and go on their own. They don’t like to see the family split up, just like they wouldn’t like to see their own families split up. I’m the same way. If I like a band and someone goes off to do a solo record, I don’t wanna hear it. But, if anything, these solo pro-' jects gave me an opportunity to mess around by myself in the studio. I approached them the same way I would a Cars record, but I thought, by using different musicians, they would sound different—only to find they didn’t. I realized it was the songs themselves that would have to change. The next solo album I do, which is the next record I work on, I’m going to make drastically different.”

Don’t expect Ric to emulate prodigies like Suicide or Bad Brains in his own work, though. Like the old Hollywood studio directors, Ocasek chooses to create within a very formalized pop song structure, expressing his individuality by how he executes the genre.

“Exactly right,” he concurs. “You have to develop your own work to the highest point you can get it to. And hopefully never get too satisfied or you’d quit. The thing that motivates me for the next record is ‘Screw all these records I’ve done ... I don’t like any of ’em ... I wanna make a new one.’ I know my own stuff, so what seems like a drastic change to me might seem minor to the general public.”

Spoken as a true minimalist.

“I’m still searching, but there are limits to how much you can learn over a certain period of time,” muses Ric. “Even if I did make a different kind of album, I’d still want it to be somewhat available. I appreciate melody and stuff; on the other hand, I’d just as soon not buy those kinds of records. I want to hear what people are doing with music, formwise and lyrically. I don’t listen to pop; I listen to other things, which is probably why I’m attracted to groups like Suicide and the Bad Brains. I appreciate the fact that they’ve strayed from the whole structure of things and I feel that’s important for the development of rock ’n’ roll.”

And while Ric and the Cars’ music have never approached that kind of discordant edge, there are certainly elements of avant-gardism in the incessant Reich/Glass-styled repetition which is woven into the fabric of some of the band’s biggest hits.

“There’s definitely a subliminal edge going through the music which pulls you in,” Ocasek agrees. “It’s like hypnosis. I also like melodies which counter the emotion of a song.”

In fact, the Cars are one of the few arena-rock bands who can attract both swooning teenyboppers and progressive intellectuals, a fact that doesn’t seem to bother them.

“I don’t feel caught between the two,” claims Easton. “We don’t go, let’s do a bubblegum one, then let’s do an arty one. We just make records and let the singles emerge. It’s elitist to only play for a certain, sophisticated audience. This band has always tried to bring out good music within a pop format.”

Photos by (left) Ross Marino; (center) Jonathan Postal/Retna; (far right) Bob Leafe

‘‘As long as a pop song has a really good melody and the words aren’t too silly, I’ll go with it,” chimes in Ocasek. ‘‘For instance, I had trouble with ‘Shake It Up,’ which was a #2 record for us. On the other hand, ‘Drive,’ I thought, was a pretty sensitive song. I was extremely surprised that it was our biggest-ever single. And very happy. I felt the public was accepting some of our other side. I don’t just toss off the pop songs. But I do feel the difference between the two, even if they’re both part of the whole thing.”

As for maintaining the band’s record for success, Ocasek insists sales expectations aren’t that important to him.

‘‘It was a shock to me that the first record did so well, but I’m not competing with anybody,” he says firmly. ‘‘I feel very strongly about that. I’m not into sports. I write songs and make records. I try not believing what people would make me out to be. I’ve kept a pretty even keel. I don’t get absorbed in the successes so I won’t have to crawl with the failures. I try not to be goal-oriented in that regard ... but I’m meticulous and crazy when it comes to working. I’m like a lawyer going through a contract. I just lose it there. But don’t let myself feel the highs and lows of the business part of it. I feel the highs and lows of the music, the writing and the things that are going on in my life.

‘‘If you could figure out the puzzle of the lyrics, you’d see the songs are coming from what I’m going through, in a subconscious way, of course. When I’m writing, I feel like a different person. Not schizophrenic, but I do feel like I’m able to say anything I want. It’s therapeutic, yeah ...”

So, are the Cars having fun? Well, that’s a tricky subject for this band. In songs like ‘‘Let The Good Times Roll,” ‘‘Let’s Go” or even the seemingly upbeat ‘‘You Are The Girl,” the first single from the new album, the Cars set off the notion of fun in ironic/modernist quotes, as if putting a dark frame around the whole notion of emotion.

“Those words sound good, but I don’t know if it’s as conscious as all that,” observes Ric. “I wish I could write as well as you talk. I do believe the emotions are real, though. They are to me, anyway. They might be totally upsetting or totally fun, but they are real”

“The whole thing with us being cold ... I don’t think people who meet us and talk to us come away with that impression,” protests Elliot. “I’m certainly not a detached person. I don’t suffer under the delusion that we’re demi-gods or something. I just love working and making music. And it’s still a lot of fun making music with the Cars ... roll credits, fade to black.”

Well, not just yet. As we bid adieu to our friends the Cars for another few years, we find them in pretty good shape, with a hit album, an upcoming world jaunt, and pretty happening personal lives to boot. Although he won’t exactly confirm, the spindly Ocasek is indeed making the scene with none other than Sports Illustrated bathing beauty Paulina Porizkova. Throw in a pair of thespian appearances in fellow Baltimorean John Waters’ upcoming Hairspray, opposite Pia Zadora (“We play ’60s beatniks who encourage kids to get into drugs and art”) and Made In Heaven, with Timothy Hutton and Kelly McGillis, and the immediate future looks pretty bright for Ocasek and company. A little maintenance has gone a long way with these Cars, 10 years old and still finely-tuned. ®