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\n\tBill Janovitz was 12 years old when his friend\u2019s older brother introduced him to the Cars<\/a>. It was 1978 and their self-titled debut LP \u2014 featuring \u201cGood Times Roll,\u201d \u201cMy Best Friend\u2019s Girl,\u201d \u201cJust What I Needed,\u201d and \u201cYou\u2019re All I\u2019ve Got Tonight\u201d \u2014 had just come out. \u201cIt was the first time I felt, \u2018Oh, this is a band for me,’\u201d Janovitz says. \u201cI wasn\u2019t just going back and buying old Stones or Skynyrd records. I felt like, \u2018Here\u2019s a band I can follow now.’\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tHe moved away from the Cars as a teenager in the Eighties when the glossy, processed sounds of MTV-era singles like \u201cYou Might Think\u201d turned him off. He was also focused on creating his own music as the frontman of the cult alt-rock band Buffalo Tom. But Janovitz began a second career as an author of rock books a little over a decade ago. He released Rocks Off: 50 Tracks That Tell the Story of the Rolling Stones<\/em> in 2013, and a biography of Leon Russell that became a New York Times<\/em> bestseller in 2023.<\/p>\n \n\tWhen it came time to think of a follow-up, he turned back to his favorite childhood band. It took several years of work to come to fruition \u2014 especially since Buffalo Tom remains active and Janovitz also has a third career as a real estate agent<\/a> in the Boston area \u2014 but The Cars: Let the Stories Be Told<\/a><\/em> hits bookstores on Sept. 30.<\/p>\n \n\tThe book<\/a> features brand-new interviews with surviving Cars members Elliot Easton (guitar), David Robinson (drums), and Greg Hawkes (keyboards), along with many other key figures from the band\u2019s long history. (Ric Ocasek<\/a>, the band\u2019s primary songwriter and frequent lead singer, died in 2019; bassist Benjamin Orr died in 2000.) We hopped on a Zoom with Janovitz to learn how Let the Stories Be Told<\/em> came together, what revelations he unearthed, his favorite under-appreciated Cars songs, why the band was so incredibly dysfunctional, and the possibility of unheard Cars music coming out one day. We also talked about the night in 2018 when he found himself playing one of his own songs with Pearl Jam during a sold-out show at Fenway Park.<\/p>\n