{"id":3259,"date":"2011-08-09T12:20:13","date_gmt":"2011-08-09T19:20:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/?p=3259"},"modified":"2011-08-09T12:21:20","modified_gmt":"2011-08-09T19:21:20","slug":"cake","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/2011\/08\/cake\/","title":{"rendered":"CAKE"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/h1>\n

CAKE<\/h1>\n

Two decades after forming as a \u201cconvulsive gesture,\u201d an alt-rock stalwart doesn\u2019t look back<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Cake frontman John McCrea isn\u2019t given to retrospective analysis of how he, his music or his band has evolved over the past 20 years. \u201cI feel strongly that the song should be its own universe,\u201d he says. McCrea sees no need to find the threads that tie together either the band\u2019s career or its new album, Showroom of Compassion<\/em>. Fair enough. But McCrea does allow that adding piano to Cake\u2019s trademark sound on Showroom<\/em>\u2014the gritty guitars, dry trumpet lines and deadpan lyrical delivery of hits like 1996\u2019s \u201cThe Distance\u201d\u2014represents a shift. \u201cIn the early days of the band, I felt strongly about not wanting certain instruments that symbolized things culturally that I found repugnant,\u201d McCrea says. \u201cI thought keyboards were really dangerous, and piano was too classy. I still won\u2019t use saxophone. But my feelings have changed about piano.\u201d<\/p>\n

Piano wasn\u2019t the only change: Cake\u2019s sixth album is the first the band has recorded in its solar-powered Sacramento studio. It\u2019s also the first time the band has self-released an album since its 1993 debut, Motorcade of Generosity<\/em> (later picked up by Capricorn Records). \u201cThe more control we have over the music, the better,\u201d McCrea says. \u201cWe saw things becoming far less stable, so we thought we should have our own label and decide on distribution album by album.\u201d The approach paid off: The album\u2019s first single, \u201cSick of You,\u201d is Cake\u2019s biggest\u00a0radio hit since 2001.<\/p>\n

Showroom of Compassion<\/em> is the most collaborative Cake album to date, with all five band members contributing to the writing, recording and producing. \u201cOur process is very hands-on,\u201d the singer says. \u201cWe not only record and engineer our songs but we also produce, and those sorts of production decisions require a lot of objectivity. The only way to gain objectivity about what makes a good record is experience.\u201d<\/p>\n

That would be the experience\u00a0of 20 years as a group, which has brought McRea and his cohorts a long way from their original vision. \u201cThe band was started as a reactionary, almost\u00a0convulsive gesture against a lot of the music that was going on in the \u201990s,\u201d he says. \u201cWe wanted to be stridently\u00a0small-sounding, because of how big and bulbous we felt rock sounded at the\u00a0time\u2014rock that was purporting to be really rebellious and was in our minds just another form of big, dumb American rock.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2013Eric R. Danton<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

CAKE Two decades after forming as a \u201cconvulsive gesture,\u201d an alt-rock stalwart doesn\u2019t look back Cake frontman John McCrea isn\u2019t given to retrospective analysis of how he, his music or his band has evolved over the past 20 years. \u201cI feel strongly that the song should be its own universe,\u201d he says. McCrea sees no […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6],"tags":[2341,1334,10156],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3259"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3259"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3259\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3262,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3259\/revisions\/3262"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3259"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3259"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3259"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}