In many respects, if you’ve heard one Cake song, you’ve pretty much heard them all. For nearly twenty years, over the course of six full-length studio albums and a solid handful of modern alternative rock hits ("Short Skirt, Long Jacket," "The Distance," "Never There"), Cake have perfected a musical style all their own. No one else sounds even remotely like Cake, which is quite a feat in today’s indie-rock clone age. Utilizing the same trademark elements that have come to define their sound—stalwart and mildly funky bass/guitar riffs, trumpet interjections, disintegrating vibraslap (Google it), and vocalist/lyricist John McCrea’s venomous, half-spoken/half-sung words, stinging with precision, they’ve done things their way, regardless of trends.
Showroom of Compassion, the band’s newest album, is no exception to this recipe. After a nearly seven year break (Has it really been that long?), McCrea and company have returned with another great—not mind-blowing—but great album. Which is totally fine—in today’s "Make A Grand Statement" age, it’s nice to know that Cake are still the great little band we’ve always loved, even if they aren’t blowing anyone’s minds. This time around, the band did decide to record with 100% solar energy, which is undeniably impressive, but outside of that press release-clogging tidbit, pretty much nothing has changed.
Glide recently had the chance to catch up with McCrea between dates on the band’s current tour. Along the way, we chatted about Showroom of Compassion, learned about the band’s songwriting process, discussed some added benefits to solar energy, and found out, hilariously, that being a rock star is sort of like "being a truck driver."
You recorded your new album completely with solar energy. Was this your idea, and what was the breaking point that led you guys to make that decision?
You know, it was my idea, I guess, but everybody was into it. I think the sort of tipping point for me was touring in Germany and knowing what a bleak, sort of cloudy place it is there and knowing Germany was the #1 producer of solar energy in the world. So just realizing that—our studio is in California—and realizing how inexcusable it is for us not be making our own energy with the sun beating down on the roof every day—it just didn’t make sense anymore. And when they did the numbers about what kind of economic sense it makes, they calculated it would pay for itself in like eight years or ten years or something. What they’re not doing is calculating the price of what energy is going to cost in ten years! And as far as I’m concerned, energy is just going to get more and more expensive, so to lock in a price right now just seems practical. It seems like common sense!
And it’s not just about our being smug, you know?…Well, maybe it’s partially about our being smug! (laughs) It’s a practicality issue. And we’re not trying to be hippies; that’s for sure! It’s really just like, "OK, we’ve done the research, and energy is going to get more expensive. And we realize we can afford this, and with the world recession right now, going solar is lower than it’s ever been—it’s down 30 or 40 percent. So yeah, not such a bad idea!
Did it create any obstacles? Did it take longer to record? And how do you go about obtaining the materials to actually do this?
There’s no difference for us in the studio—we don’t run out of electricity. And in terms of putting the panels on, we have like 13 panels up there—it’s more than enough. Actually, we have more energy than we need, and we end up selling electricity back to the public utility in Sacramento, which is nice because as the value of recorded music descends into the garbage can, we get a $25 check every month.
Hey, every little bit helps!
That’s right, especially in the future!
Maybe my favorite thing about Cake is that you know what you’re good at, but you still explore slightly different sides of yourself with each album—like you have nothing to prove, and any experimentation is kind of just to interest yourselves. Would you agree, and what would you say separates this album from the others sonically?
Well, thanks for what you said—that is what we’re trying to do. We’re not trying to create some sort of totally new product every time. We don’t believe in that. That seems like some weird kind of consumerism. What we do try to do is realize every individual song in the way that it wants to happen, so it really just varies. Our approach to arranging changes with every different song and actually creates quite a job. So we have to approach every song differently, whereas some bands kind of approach every song the same way—the same drumbeat running through the whole album, a lot of eighth notes. So we have to stop and ask ourselves, "What do we have to do here?" So that’s part of why this album took so long—because we have to sort of reinvent the wheel with every song.
You are known for writing songs beforehand and presenting them to the band. Did you do that this time around?
Yeah, I bring the songs in with a sort of basic form, and then they sort of gradually become Cake songs as people add their ideas. It’s kind of important—the layering of parts is very important in our music. It’s important that there’s a clarity to the overall arrangement—you can hear all the parts, and there are no parts happening that are muddled or covered over. It takes us a long time to get to the point where there’s a balanced geometry to the song.
What instrument(s) do you write on?
I usually write on acoustic guitar and piano, and sometimes I write basslines. Sometimes ideas start with the basslines, but usually acoustic guitar and piano.
You guys have been around for a long time, almost 20 years. What’s the secret, especially in this flash-in-the-pan internet age?
I don’t know! (laughs) A lot of times, I want to quit, so I don’t know how we got through it. I love music, but all the things that go along with music sometimes add up to sort of an unpleasant experience. It’s more like being a truck driver than being a movie star. But beyond that, I don’t really know how to answer that question. I know that we’ve learned how to work together. It’s been a gradual process learning how to not destroy yourself.
You’re well known for the speak/sing style you’ve implemented on numerous tracks, but you also have some really melodic songs. How do you decide which style you want to use on a given track—does it just depend on whether you have lyrics or melody first?
I guess I would have to explain the way I write. Sometimes there’s just a melody in my head, and there are some words that are also there in my head, and it just kind of happens. In that case, there’s no real conscious decision, I guess. It’s about the communication, not about the idea of writing a song. It’s abou having this feeling I need to express, and I’m not even thinking I have a feeling I need to express. Without even being self-aware, this thing is being expressed. It’s really a hard question to answer, but I’m glad you asked it because it’s an interesting thing to me to realize—that I’m not thinking about it too much; it’s really subjective.
"Sick of You" is a very anti-materialistic track. Are you just venting about how materialistic our society is, or are the words coming from a more personal place? Or both?
I think it’s both. That song started as just sort-of a break-up song. But as I kept writing it, it turned into a sort-of "break-up with the world song." It’s also about the fleeting nature of thrill and the fleeting nature of satisfaction—how, in a way, you better be there for it when it’s happening because it’s going to be over really soon.
