An Interview with Cake’s Vince DiFiore - 8/30/2007

When Sacramento band Cake released their first album in 1994, they were quickly both embraced by college radio and alt-rock fans and shunned by those who dismissed them as “quirky” and “kitschy.” On the strength of “The Distance” and a skewered cover of Gloria Gaynor’s “I Will Survive” (sung in lead singer John McCrea’s distinct, deadpan baritone), 1996’s Fashion Nugget earned them a platinum record and a strong foothold on the bourgeoning modern rock scene. More than a decade later, when most of their contemporaries have gone the one-hit wonder route, Cake continue to establish themselves as one of the most consistent, inventive bands in rock. After releasing two albums on Columbia, the band has set up their own label, Upbeat Records, to release B-Sides and Rarities as well as future new material. Trumpter Vince DiFiore spoke to Baeble about the band’s past, present and future.

In 1992, did you think you’d be talking about rarities album in 2007?

No. The rarities album is probably something we thought of because we were doing our own independent thing now with our label. If we were still on a record company, they’d probably be trying to put out a greatest hits record and we’d be going back and forth about it saying maybe we didn’t want to do it because it’s sort of the death knell of a band. When it comes time to do something like that, the record company wants to do it because it’s an easy turnaround for them. But instead, we do have all these other tracks that we just never fit on other LPs because most of them are cover songs and we felt like there was already one cover song on an album. We didn’t want to put too many on there. We have five studio albums and every time we started recording an album, there was sort of a situation where we were getting to know the studio and the engineers and starting a new phase of working together. A lot of the se tunes are some of the first ones we did in the [respective] recording session.

It sounds almost like an anti-greatest-hits.

A little bit. Once we put ‘em all together, it sounded like they all belonged on a record together. Also, since we’re on our own label, we wanted something original to start things off with and to test the waters. We wanted to give our listeners something because we haven’t had another studio album for about three years.
Upbeat Records: Only band on their label.

What are some of the major differences between being on Columbia and self-releasing your album?

One of the question marks that you have when you’re with a label is how much of a push you’re gonna get. If they’re gonna maybe push the Beyonce record or the Pete Yorn record instead of your record. Now that it’s under our own control, it’s really all up to us. We could fail just as much as any major label, but it feels better that it’s in our hands and we’re aware of the money being spent on marketing or promotion and we’re making all the decisions. In that sense, it feels better to be in control .There’s this feeling of vulnerability and helplessness if you’re on a [major] label and you’re not really sure if they’re gonna be behind what you’re doing or if the way that they’re gonna promote it is the way that you want to be presented.

This would seem to only get worse with more consolidation and more pressure for the big-selling album.

Yeah, they’re doing what they can do to keep themselves afloat, but we made it to a point where we had a listener base and thought, “Gosh, why have a major label sell to our listener base? Let’s just sell the record ourselves.”

Was that decision made after the last record came out or was that the plan for a while?

After the second album was released [2004’s Pressure Chief], we were on tour for a year, year and a half and the contract had expired. We came to a point where if they didn’t make an offer for the next album, we could bail. That’s when we just decided to go out on our own. It was a harder decision for me because it really means that you’re not gonna be getting that long arm of that label’s distribution. You have to work a lot harder to sell the records, which is what we’re doing now and there’s something satisfying about that.

Where do you see your band’s role in the music industry now?

We’re definitely not an American Idol band and [laughs] we’re not a Disney band. We’ve always liked the amount of credibility that we had. We always thought we had a certain amount of street credibility because we started out in bars and cafes with small audiences and we’ve always kept that by continuing to play in small clubs in addition to the theatre shows. But we’ve just always stayed low to the ground and economical and made music that doesn’t sound too contrived. We’re honest about the music that we’re making and we just want to keep that integrity and remember how we originally started making music and keep on coming from that place.

Are you going to continue putting stuff out on your own label?

We’re gonna keep on doing this. We’ll see if we can pull off this B-Sides and Rarities thing and then we’ll put out a live album called Live From the Crystal Palace. After that, we’re gonna put out our next studio album on Upbeat. I don’t think we’re gonna take any other bands on our label though. If we figure out how to do this, we might do that, but we certainly don’t want to screw up anyone’s career.

Do you ever get concerned about the band’s perception? You’ve always been seen as a bit, uh, goofy.

We do have to be careful about that, that we don’t follow into the doomed footsteps of others that have taken the same path as we have. We’ve always been under the radar so we could so easily fall even lower.

Like how no one really knew if your “I Will Survive” cover was sincere or not?

It was sincere and it was funny that it was sincere. That’s why the song works because you’re thinking, “This could be a guy. Why does it have to be a woman?” This is a song that’s all about breaking up and feelings and men have feelings too.

Did you ever feel you weren’t taken seriously as a band?

We never really experienced that first-hand. We take ourselves seriously as musicians. We’ve maybe been somewhat of a foil to the doom-and-gloom material that has been on FM radio like emo rock. But we never thought that it was ironic. There’s humor mixed with sadness which is just a reflection of how life is.

Was the ironic aspect of your music more media-generated?

I guess I do understand it as being “ironic” as we’re sort of anti-rock but isn’t it ironic that we’re doing rock? Like someone wearing a “Happy Days” shirt even though it was such a corny show. Maybe we’re ironic in that sense. Isn’t it ironic that disco would be played by an alternative rock band?

Do you factor that in when deciding which songs to cover?

Sometimes it’s as simple as we like these songs, but actually it’s more interesting because disco was dead and who would’ve thought an alternative rock band would do a disco song or a Kenny Rogers song. But not because, “Isn’t it funny we’re doing it?” but it’s actually a really good song.

Does that bother you if you read phrases like “Cake’s kitschy take on…”?

I think it’s just missing the point. But it’s usually okay because the journalists have to take some sort of angle on it. A lot of times it seems like a lazy angle because it seems like something they read from another review. Like “Oh, okay, they picked up an adjective from some Spin review in 1997.” So I think that journalists have deadlines and they’re writing something ‘cause they love it, but sometimes they take short cuts and end up sounding like other journalists doing the same thing.

Your new album comes with a Scratch and Sniff cover. Is that an attempt to keep the idea of “the album” alive?

Yeah, hopefully it’s not a quixotic effort, but it is something that’s important to me. When you think of your favorite music, I think it’s a lot easier to think of your favorite albums than favorite songs. If you can go back to your favorite albums, there’s more of a comprehensive feeling. Once you take a whiff of the smell on there and then you listen to the music, it is multi-dimensional and feels like home. People throw out seven dollars on an US or a People magazine, surely they can still shell out 10 bucks for a CD, y’know?We’re gonna try to keep the LP alive or if it doesn’t work then we’ll think of something else.

Now that you’re running your own label, how does it feel to be a free man?

We feel more than ever that this is all very tenuous and it’s all hanging by a thread and you’re responsible for your fate now more than ever. There’s no “being a rock star.” You gotta really get in there and duke it out.

B-Sides and Rarities is released on Upbeat Records next month. In the meantime, check out the band’s extensive website HERE and Myspace HERE for more info. - Jason Newman