Catching Up With... Cake

John McCrea has a cold. The singer and founder of one of Cake has just finished the opening volley of a tour supporting the group’s first album in seven years, Showroom of Compassion, and he’s come down with the flu. It might be the fever, but he seems in the mood to talk—about the music business, Frank Sinatra, an upcoming mustache competition, and a new Cake book and a series of 7” singles.

Paste: Showroom of Compassion came out on your label, Upbeat Records. You’ve been on an independent label (Capricorn) and a major (Columbia), and now you’ve got your own. What’s your perspective right now of the music business?
John McCrea: It’s not like it was in the ’70s. You can’t just sort of be in this music world and never have to touch the ground. The music business is sort of in collapse right now, so it struck us that we didn’t want to be tied to the sinking ship. Also, our culture was so markedly different than the culture that we found ourselves having to interact with at a major label. We initially signed with [Columbia] because we were on an independent label that got bought and taken over by another label, and everyone got fired. So we just thought, “Let’s try to find something that’s really secure.” Well, that ended up not being secure either. Everybody that was on our project got fired as our record was being released. We were just like, “We don’t want to work for two, three years on something and then have the fickle whimsy of corporate politics and so many things out of our control completely sabotage us.” We’re somewhat reluctantly getting into this, but it’s ultimately the only real choice for us right now.

Paste: Even though labels are dying, it seems like truly independent bands still need that backing to get anywhere. At least you have the weight of your name and an audience that will follow it.
McCrea: Hopefully, but people told us, “You better be careful. It’s been six or seven years. Everyone will have forgotten about you. You need us to help you.” We kind of thought we might be squashed like a bug releasing this album independently, but we’ve been happily surprised. We didn’t think we’d be on a late-night talk show ever again.

Paste: Why?
McCrea: Because the music business is kind of rigged. It’s not completely rigged, though, and I’m happy to see that.

Paste: This has been the longest break between records—about seven years. Were these songs being developed that whole time?
McCrea: The way it works for me is that I have a small pad of paper that I have in my pocket every day of my life. When I find things fascinating or interesting, I take notes, and then every maybe six months or so, I collect all the notes together and see what sticks, you know, when I sit there with my guitar. So, it’s hard to say when a song is written for me, because I’ve got all these shards of paper, just little bits of ideas everywhere, and some of them are ten years old, some of them are a month old. What I can say is that the process of making those songs into Cake songs took place over probably a three-year period, with the recording and that whole process. The arranging process is always more difficult for us—not necessarily difficult, but more involved—than if we had a clear genre definition. We kind of have to reinvent the wheel with every song, and it always amuses me when people talk about how we’re not evolving properly, because I feel like there’s more rhythmic and harmonic variance from song to song on one of our albums than sometimes bands have in an entire career. That may sound sort of arrogant, but I think if you just take the meat of what I’m trying to say, it’s that, from one song to the next on a Cake album is sometimes almost jarring.

Paste: I can see that, but there definitely is a “Cake” sound.
McCrea: It’s a sound that no one else wants, you know? [laughs]

Paste: First, it’s the rhythm section. As someone who studies Motown and Stax and picks apart James Jamerson’s bass lines, I always notice that the Cake rhythm section lays down that same kind of groove.
McCrea: That’s so good to hear. Oh, my God—the first white, I presume, music critic that gives respect to that era.

Paste: Hopefully not the first.
McCrea: Well, I mean, so many people—writers, especially—have such a hard time describing us. They say, “Oh, you sound like Beck combined with” whatever, and we have nothing to do with Beck.

Paste: I don’t hear Beck.
McCrea: No, I know. We’ve gotten, I think, rather pathetic attempts at trying to describe us, but here is the first person that’s actually said what it’s really about.

Paste: The second element is the way you sing. This might be a strange comparison, but I’ve always heard a lot of Sinatra in your singing style—not necessarily in the tone of voice, but with the way you sing around the beat and style the words.
McCrea: I don’t think any thought went into it, but upon reflection, it occurs to me how much I love Frank Sinatra, and how much also the arrangements put rock ‘n’ roll to shame in terms of just being musically interesting. So, yeah, that’s another interesting point that you make. Frank Sinatra made a huge, um—I don’t know, especially right now, it’s really odd that we’re talking right now, because I’ve just been thinking about Frank Sinatra, because I’m really discouraged about playing music right now.

Paste: Really? Why?
McCrea: Yeah, because it’s hard for me to be on tour. Like, for the last I don’t know how many nights, I’ve been singing two hours a night, and some people are like, “Two hours, what a rip off,” or whatever. Then, I come home from tour, and I had been resisting getting sick this whole time, and then finally when all my obligations were done, you know, “Here’s my time off; I’m going to be sick.” But, I was thinking about Frank Sinatra because the last couple shows, I was worried about losing my voice. A friend of mine once invited me to come and see Frank Sinatra play in Reno, and I remember Frank Sinatra explaining, “I’ve got a little bit of a [coughs], but I don’t even want to think about that.” He had a cold. But, he had so much force of will. Basically, Frank Sinatra was one of those symbolic moments for me in my youth, along with Hank Williams, Sr., and Benny Goodman and a few others.

Paste: The third element of the sound is that transcendentally shitty guitar.
McCrea: Yeah, that’s my acoustic guitar you’re talking about.

Paste: What’s the story behind that?
McCrea: Well, it’s about getting out of the way of other instruments. Basically, I am occupying the equalization, the tonalities, that no one else in the band would want. I don’t have to turn up very loud to be heard, because the electric guitar is basically trying to sound good, and everybody else is occupying frequencies that are not irritating. So, I’ve got this whole area that I can play around with.

Paste: So, you just released the album and will begin the second leg of the tour in February. What happens next?
McCrea: We’re going to have a mustache contest to sort of go with the “Mustache Man (Wasted).” We’re going to have categories for biggest mustache, most threatening mustache, I forget the other ones. It will be people from each town can come to the show and come on stage for a second and we’ll take their picture. Then, from all of these finalists, we’ll choose a winner.

Paste: That sounds like fun.
McCrea: We’re also making a book. We’re actually making the paper ourselves with shirts and old clothes of ours. There’s the San Francisco Center For the Book, it’s a collaboration. They’ve got old printing presses. So, the song “Bound Away,” we illustrated it and literally made books, printed them, sewed them together, and then we’re going to sell a limited run of those, just trying to bring a little bit of attention to lost arts like letter-press printing as well as paper making and book binding. Then, we’re going to put out a set of 7” records, one for each song on the album.

Paste: Each one separately, or in one box set?
McCrea: I’m not sure yet. What do you think we should do?

Paste: Releasing serial singles seems to be the hot new thing.
McCrea: It comes back around. It’s like we’re back in the ’60s.