The band formed in Sacramento, California 24 years ago and have produced 6 studio albums earning a platinum ranking on 2. They also have a handful of hit singles, with “Going the Distance” leading the charge. The current lineup consists of vocalist McCrea, bassist Gabe Nelson, trumpeter Vince DiFiore, guitarist Xan McCurdy and drummer Paulo Baldi.
In 2005 CAKE announced a split from Columbia Records. They quickly recovered, forming their own label Upbeat Records, on which they released compilation record. It was a full 6 years before the band cut its 6th record, Showroom of Compassion.
Vocalist John McCrea recently took some time to talk to us.
You guys touch on some pretty heavy stuff in your songs. How do you balance out and cut loose?
I think music itself is sort of frenetic and senseless. In a way people impose narrative onto music. There’s a good David Byrne quote: ‘Lyrics are a trick to get people to listen to music.’That’s not completely true with our band, but there’s something to that because the release from all the seriousness is the music. Sometimes it’s a way of becoming more serious, but in a lot of ways there’s a place where you just feel—that, and gardening.
Currently what are you compelled to write about?
I don’t have a set agenda lyrically; it’s more self-indulgent and whimsical. I do touch on seriousness in the process, but it’s not my prime directive to preach at people. I try to write a song that makes people feel something and has its own emotional gravity, where everything’s true to itself. That’s my goal. When you have too much of an agenda in terms of narrative, you really compromise the song.
Is the landscape of pop culture a hard place for you to be creative in?
No, because I don’t feel that much pressure about it. I’m not trying to make money in my music really. I like to make money, but that’s not why I play music. I want to make music that I like. I embrace the limitations of my medium and popular music is interesting in its limitation. I like a song that says what it wants to say and gets the hell out in 2 or 3 minutes.
So, what do you listen to?
I listen to a lot of old songwriters like Irving Berlin, Cole Porter, Harold Arlen, Jerome Kern—big band era guys (laughs). That songwriting’s great. I’m grateful there was an environment back then that supported songwriting and didn’t force musicians to tour constantly in order to survive. I like Vicente Fernandez too and some of the old Mexican and Cuban big band music, stuff that in the early days of CAKE, made me think, we don’t need another guitar, how about a trumpet? There was something about that searing, heroic lead guitar sound that I really started to question and sort of hate. I thought I could take these same melodies, put them on a trumpet and it wouldn’t sound all stupid and heroic.
On your website there’s a Hendrix quote: “If something needs to be changed in this world then it can only happen through music.” How do you guys do that?
Just by not trying too hard to do that. . .to express your truth without there being too heavy an agenda. My prime concern in writing a song goes back to that—just to make a good song. Because I’m the one doing it and I’ve got some opinions and certain worldviews, that’s going to come through. But that’s not the main thing. The most important thing is just that music, the sound that’s coming through the air.
Between Pressure Chief and Showroom of Compassion is quite a span of years. Why so long?
At the time we basically saw the whole music industry imploding and a lot of our friends were quitting because they weren’t really making a living. It was like a forest fire and we knew we had to get the hell out in order to survive. We were having a bad experience with the label we were on and knew if we were to release another record under those circumstances, we couldn’t be on a label. We had to do it ourselves, and if we got crushed like bugs, at least we’d know why, as opposed to giving up a lot of that decision making to people who may or may not get our music, may not even like it, and who’re taking a huge chunk of everything. So it took a lot of time to go from just playing to figuring out how to start our own record company.
Can you talk about the guys in the band?
Xan McCurdy is our electric guitar player, and he’s a great guitarist. There are not very many people who have the right sound for this band, but he did. Our bass player’s Gabe Nelson; he’s been with us on and off from the very beginning, and I wouldn’t want to play with anybody else. Vince DiFiore is our trumpet player and he’s been in since the beginning. He and I have been through a lot of adventures together, a lot of exploding vans catching on fire on the freeway. And Paulo Baldi—great drummer capable of a lot of different styles. Our music goes a few different places and not every drummer can play in different fields.
Can we expect some new material soon?
Eventually, but its harder and harder. We have to tour more than we’d like, and I don’t write songs on the road. It’s going to take some time at home. Bands have to tour more now than ever in order to just pay the bills and everybody’s like ‘where’s your next album?’and its like ‘actually we’ve been sick to our stomach in the back of a bus for 2 years!’
Photo: Courtesy of CAKE