“Short Skirt/Long Jacket” isn't your average pop ditty. There are no polished, mellifluous vocals or sing-along hooks. No crashing guitars or cathartic rhythms greet the listener. and although the lyrics are about a girl, they're just as much about public image and materialism. Yet Cake's quirky single is utterly infectious: hordes of radio programmers across the nation have happily slotted it in rotation alongside the more turbulent fare of bands such as Creed and Train.
MTV embraced the Short Skirt/Long Jacket video largely because of its unconventional structure. Rather than contrive a hokey narrative or provide live footage, Cake simply played the song for listeners in New York, Mexico City, San Francisco, and Los Angeles and filmed their reactions.
“The idea was to be sort of like a BluBlocker [sunglasses] commercial. Just let people try on the sunglasses and describe what they see,” said Cake front man John McCrea over the phone from his home shortly after the release of the band's new record, Comfort Eagle. “Doing it like that was our way of coming to grips with the fact that a video is just an advertisement for a song.”
Yup, McCrea's an odd duck, and thank goodness for that. As a result, his music is unconventional, innovative, and adventurous. Like the band's three prior albums, Comfort Eagle provides an alternative to the alternative. Similar in feel to various alt-rockers including David Byrne, Camper Van Beethoven, and King Missile, Cake also imbue their sound with elements of classic and ethnic songwriting, from Mexican ranchero music to Irving Berlin, Cole Porter, and even Hank Williams Sr.
“When I first really started writing songs in earnest, I was listening to a lot of Hank Williams Sr.,” says McCrea. “But then I really got into Tom Ze and Sly and the Family Stone. What I liked about them is that they were so unabashedly populist. At the time that the college snobs and hipsters were really rejecting Motown and all this great music, including Stevie Wonder, I was taking it all in.”
McCrea believes in embracing a variety of styles and idioms: “I think you just have to be very careful about narrowing your spectrum too far. I like a lot of gospel music. The members of the Golden Gate Jubilee Quartet are some of the most badass singers and performers. The song ‘Jezebel’ has so much groove to it that you can dance to it without drums. Not that we can do that or would ever attempt that, but we appreciate it, and I think it has some sort of effect on us through osmosis.”
Considering how offbeat their sound is, it should come as no surprise that Cake's not your average touring rock band. They've undertaken some extensive worldwide tours in the past, and after the considerable success they earned with their 1996 radio hit “The Distance,” they found themselves graduating from small sweaty clubs to spacious midsize venues and even booming stadiums. Although they could easily sell out 3,000-seaters every night in most towns, they prefer crowds less than half that size. In addition, they'd rather not tour overseas at all.
McCrea isn't at all afraid to admit such things. In fact, he and trumpet player Vince Di Fiore are refreshingly candid when it comes to their profession, speaking unflinchingly about the rigors of the road, the disorientation of success, and the motivation behind McCrea's quirky, clever songcraft.
You've toured a great deal in the past. Do you feel in your element onstage?
John McCrea: I like to play live, but I don't like touring for extended periods of time. We'd prefer to do what Buck Owens does: he has this place called the Crystal Palace in Bakersfield, and everybody comes to visit him, and he plays every Friday and Saturday night. That's our goal, but for now we have to travel. If we have to tour, we'd much rather play small shows than big Viking stadiums.
Do you prefer clubs because they are more intimate?
McCrea: Not just that. Bands like AC/DC are completely great in a large venue, but our music is more structured. There's a smaller geometry to it. So if you hear these 16th notes [of ours] echoing endlessly through a stadium, it becomes a blur. Whereas if you hear a slab of guitar echoing over people's heads, it sounds good and mighty. Our music is sort of dinky, but that dinkiness sounds good in a small club or bar. Unfortunately we can't always play them. We do sound okay in some amphitheaters, but not huge ones.
How do you minimize sound problems in a big venue?
McCrea: We get close together onstage, as if we were in a bar; that helps us hear each other and remain cohesive. That's because it takes a while for sound — especially bass tones — to travel. And if I'm hearing the bass from across the room instead of right next to me, that's gonna be a problem. Things get really out of control in these huge settings, and sometimes you can hear the kick drum from the opposite wall coming late and making you maybe play late. We also turn our volume down instead of up so that things are a little bit cleaner and not quite so desperate. The higher the volume goes, the more clamorous it sounds, the less clean communication occurs with the band.
Do you rely heavily on your stage monitors?
McCrea: We need to have monitors, but I try not to put too much in there beyond the bare necessities. In other words, if I'm playing guitar and singing and I've got my amplifier behind me and I can sort of hear my guitar through that, I don't put the guitar in the monitors. I just put the voice and nothing else. No drums, no bass, no anything.
Vince Di Fiore: We played this big festival in Atlanta recently, and there were reportedly 90,000 people. The important thing was, even though there was a lot of space onstage, we had a good monitor mix so we could find the groove.
McCrea: Yeah, the outside shows tend to be a lot better than the sheds. The sheds have the huge echo thing happening.
Di Fiore: But sometimes wind will mess with your sound, and it will be hard for the soundman to set your levels. Really, the smaller shows help us to get our bearings. But the larger shows have their merit, too, just because they're such a happening of humanity. The fact that all these people have driven out to this central location to hang out and listen to music is an amazing phenomenon more spectacular than a playoff sporting event.
McCrea: It is about spectacle more than it's about music.
Di Fiore: Being a part of that spectacle is sort of a kick.
McCrea: In a way. I don't know. But it's nice to know that all that fossil fuel is being burned to get to a central location.
Is it hard to go from playing small to large venues and vice versa?
Di Fiore: Sometimes it seems like we're our own worst enemy at these smaller places. The reason we want to play small places is that's how we developed our sound. But the reality is that we play bigger places a lot now, so when we play these smaller rooms, often times we're too loud because we're anticipating the bigger shows.
Is it exciting to head out on a new tour?
Di Fiore: At first it's very exciting because you're seeing a lot of cities you always wanted to see. Then after a while, it becomes surreal because you realize that this is the life you've chosen and you're gonna be spending a lot of time away from home. And then you get it in perspective and make the best out of it and realize that you're not the only one who has to be away from home for a living.
McCrea: Yeah, and some people sell carpeting instead of music, which would really be a drag. I think you can't have the idea that this is some kind of vacation. You have to understand that this is a job and you probably won't be able to see Paris when you go play Paris. You'll probably have about a half hour to see that city before you have to get back in the bus and drive to the next town. And that's okay. I think the mistake is having higher expectations than can be fulfilled. Having really low expectations is probably the best way to go.
Is it physically unhealthy to be on the road?
McCrea: It's one of the worst things in the world you can do to yourself. You know how when you go on a family vacation for five days, when you come home you're absolutely ready to be home? Most people say, “I had fun, but I'm so relieved I'm home.” Well, multiply that five days by 100, and you get an idea of what it can be like going on tour for two years. It can be just wrenching. And you face all the challenges of being a traveler: never really knowing where to get good food, always being at other people's mercy, not knowing where you go to buy a pair of shoes, not knowing which part of town is dangerous. Then there's this sheen of celebrity that's pasted over it which makes everyone — whether they're a celebrity or a sociopath — treat you the same, which is this sort of unrealistically friendly demeanor. So there's this real sense of not knowing where the hell or what the hell things are.
Could that be why a lot of artists resort to booze, drugs, and groupies?
McCrea: Yeah, I never had much tolerance for all those clichés until I had to be on the road for two years and realized, “Okay, you take away sense of community, family, and security, and you fill it with strangers, radio stations, promo people, opportunists, and what do you get?” You become either a chain smoker or an alcoholic or a sex addict or a heroin addict.
So what's good about being on the road?
McCrea: You have moments when you feel like you're in the right place at the right time. Everything falls together really well, and you're left with a sense of satisfaction. You certainly don't get rich from being on tour — not a band our size. We go to Europe and sell out all of our shows and come home $50,000 to $60,000 in debt to promote an album on which we get pennies on the dollar. So it's not about money or glamour or health. It's about having something you do well and having moments when you realize it.
What are some of the worst experiences you've had on the road?
McCrea: In Holland I insulted the Dutch by mistake, which was pretty bad. The Dutch talk through your whole set. They're pretty much having a party the whole time. And we're kind of a quiet band, so we could hear them talking. Then we finished playing, and they wanted three encores. So I think it was coming back the second time for an encore that I stuck my foot in my mouth. Obviously they really liked us, yet they were talking loudly and boisterously, so I saw these conflicting messages. It occurred to me how opposite the Japanese are to that in their demeanor. In Japan you can hear a pin drop during the time that the band stops playing one song and begins the next. So I thought of those two extremes, and I suggested to this Dutch audience that maybe they should breed together with the Japanese and create this middle compromise. There were some Dutch people that got really angry. This one longhaired guy tried to spit at me from below the stage and just barely missed me. There's nothing more sacred, I guess, than the genealogy of a nation, and you don't talk about them blending.
You recently added a new drummer, Pete McNeal. How is that working out?
McCrea: It's just great. If I say anything too great about him it might sound like I'm saying something bad about our old drummer, but Pete has a lot of artistry. He's a very lyrical drummer, and he really locks in with the melody of a song and the rhythm of the vocal in a sensitive way. For me, as the one who has to sing, that's the best possible scenario, because usually the singer and the drummer are at opposite ends of the music. If they're tied into each other, it creates this knot that holds the whole thing together. Tonally, rhythmically, and harmonically, it creates this sealant. And when drums echo the rhythm of the vocals and are listening to that instead of only the bass or the guitar, then they key into the entirety of the song, and I think that's what Pete is doing very well.
Vince, as the trumpeter, you are not always playing along with the rest of the band. What do you do when you're not actually blowing your horn?
Di Fiore: When I'm not involved integrally with the trumpet, there's maybe a keyboard part or a percussion part or a background vocal I'm doing. When I'm not doing any one of those things, I try to move with the fluidity of someone who has some semblance of soul. And then I just wait until my next part comes up. I'm always thinking about my next part. I'm never suffering in my silence for that long. I'm not really a dancer, but I find that in between parts I actually have to move a little bit to be a part of the band while everyone else is playing. So I'm learning how to move my limbs without any self-consciousness, and that's a major project.
What role does the trumpet play in the Cake aesthetic?
Di Fiore: We wanted a second melodic instrument. There were some lines for these songs John had written, and he wanted an instrument to play them. He was humming them, and they were sort of sing-along melodies for an instrumental section, so I came in on the trumpet.
McCrea: A lead guitar playing those lines would have been really hokey. I like it when it's a contrapuntal thing, where the guitar is doing one melody, the vocal is doing another melody, and the trumpet plays this third melody. If the music can be transparent enough, you can hear all three at the same time.
Do some people view Cake's horn parts as some sort of a gimmick?
Di Fiore: The words kitschy and cheesy have been used so many times. And when I read stuff like that, I just think, “Wow, thanks a lot. You're discounting everything I've ever played by calling it kitschy.”
McCrea: That goes with the entirety of the sound in a way. To a lot of people, we seem like the emasculated court jester that comes in and tells jokes in front of the king until the guards haul him off. Then it's back to the real songs — the Creed songs and the serious, striving, earnest struggle music. Yet, to us, our music is normal. And to us, our music is pretty serious.
The whimsical quirkiness of your music is a refreshing change of pace from the glut of radio rock.
McCrea: Yeah, but people think it's insincere. We're not engaged in that earnest struggle that people seem so into these days. We don't sound like we're striving. But honestly, this is us striving. The lyrics I write make me feel sad most of the time when I listen to them.
How did you find your sound?
McCrea: It was very difficult, and I don't know if we were trying to find a sound. We were just trying to find the right way to arrange each song on a song-by-song basis. Every song has different demands, and we've really had a difficult time figuring out exactly what they are. But I like it that way. It would be a drag to have to play all your songs on the album with a certain approach. I don't see us heading in any particular direction. I see us more as just trying to figure out how to do these damn songs justice.
Cake Mixer
As Cake's front-of-house engineer, Will Cotter's job is to accurately translate the band's unusual sound from the stage to the audience. Cotter, who's also the band's production manager, spoke with Onstage about how he approaches mixing Cake.
Cake has a pretty organic sound compared to many contemporary rock bands.
Yeah, we have a pretty mellow sound spec. I started mixing these guys in Sacramento ten years ago. The way I approach mixing them has grown with the band. The P.A.'s always been an instrument to get the idea across. John [McCrea] has very definite ideas of how he wants it to sound. I don't know if you're into any of the old-school country bands like Bob Wills, early George Strait, or Hank Sr., but when you listen to the stuff, you hear everything. But what's really coming across is the essence of the song. That's how I try to mix it. You want to hear the drums, and you want to hear everything. And the great thing is that Cake is such a dynamic band that when they want to kick it, they'll kick it — and if you've gotten their gain structure right, there's room for them to really speak out and sing.
So you keep the instruments — especially the drums — at a moderate level in the mix? You don't really pump them?
It all depends. Sometimes at a festival, you've got all these kids, and you're coming on after some monstrously loud band, and you need to push the drums a little bit more to get some of that impact across. They're [Cake] so different from what else is out there. On some of those shows it's hard. Unless it's a Cake crowd. If it's not a Cake crowd, you're in a bind if you don't try to slap people a little bit.
What effects do you use on John McCrea's vocals in the main mix?
John likes his vocals pretty much dry. I might run a little slapback if it's to emulate the album sound. There are a couple of tunes on the new album where there's — at certain points — a little bit of slapback, so I'll put that on there. But usually, his vocal runs pretty much dry.
What about for the other band members?
Usually I put some reverb on the background vocals — not a lot, but enough to fill them up a little bit. Depending on the mood, maybe a little chorus or thickening and a little bit of ambience on the snare and the tom.
Do you have to use much compression on the trumpet?
I mess with a little bit of compression; it depends on what kind of mic we have to use. Compression is the kind of tool for when you don't know what will be going on, like, “I don't know how this mic's going to respond; I don't know what he's hearing today.” He might be either real on or real off in terms of proximity to the mic, so you have your compressor there as your chaperone.
