Though a post on Cake's Web site reads: "What the frick are you people doing? Produce a CD. IT'S BEEN 3 YEARS ALREADY!!!," frontman John McCrea says fans won't have to wait too much longer for the follow up to 2001's Comfort Eagle. The band is finishing up the new record and plans to release it this summer.

"There's no wrong time to put out a good album and we just want to make sure that we don't waste plastic," McCrea says from his home studio. "We just want to build a chair that people can sit in that's not so stylish that it has to be thrown into the trash heap in a couple of months."

This time around Cake is recording in its home studio in Sacramento without any outside production help. McCrea says the experience has offered the band more opportunities to experiment with new sounds and not feel pressured to create. "This time we're actually rolling up our sleeves and doing everything," McCrea says. "Practically speaking it means that we can go into the studio whenever we feel like it and work, so I think it's actually a really great unencumbered feeling after all these years of having to book studio time."

McCrea says that having its own studio has also allowed the band to work more cohesively. "I think the band is becoming more of a band and less of a songwriter with some musicians," he says. "It's more a band of musicians that are all really creative and part of the process."

Earlier this year, Cake took a few breaks from the still-untitled record to perform a few of the eleven new tracks at secret shows around northern California. "People are singing along to certain songs without ever really having heard them before," McCrea says. "There's a particularly sort of chorus-worthy song called 'No Phone' and people are signing along to that and throwing their cell phones onto the stage.

"Actually, one hit my head," he adds, laughing, "but it's amazing how, I guess, worthless cell phones are."

Other new songs include "Wheels" and "Take It All Away." Fans can expect Cake's trademark wit and its eclectic sound on the album which McCrea says is "more connected to traditional songwriting." "I think this album has nothing to do with the last couple years of music," he adds. "We've always existed outside of larger trends. We've never had the luxury of being involved in that."

BRIAN ORLOFF
(March 17, 2004)