When guitarist Greg Brown left the group Cake six years ago, by all outward appearances, it meant the band would become singer-guitarist John McCrea’s baby.
McCrea and Brown had split songwriting duties on Cake’s first three CDs, before Brown decided Cake wasn’t big enough to accommodate two songwriters. He left to join forces with former Cake bassist Victor Damiani in forming Deathray.
Many frontmen would welcome the opportunity to take full custody of songwriting, which is what McCrea did for the first post-Brown Cake CD, “Prolonging the Magic.”
But it turns out that kind of dominant role wasn’t something McCrea wanted, even though he had formed Cake in 1992 to be a vehicle for his songs.
“I actually found it pretty oppressive at first,” McCrea said. “Just think of all the music that I had to write. … That’s a lot of work. So for me, it was sort of overwhelming.”
Just as disturbing to McCrea was the notion that the other members of Cake – at the time, trumpet player Vincent Di Fiore, bassist Gabriel Nelson and drummer Todd Roper – did not seem eager to contribute to arranging or other areas of the creative process.
Part of the problem, McCrea said, may have been that the quality and quantity of music he and Brown wrote had caused the other band members to stay out of the creative process.
“Definitely Greg and I really worked well together and I think maybe people did feel kind of locked out,” McCrea said. “It was definitely not intentional, but that kind of thing certainly happens accidentally.”
It’s been six years since “Prolonging the Magic,” and in that time much has changed. For one thing the band added Xan McCurdy as a full-time guitarist. Roper, meanwhile, left after being one of three drummers on the new CD, “Pressure Chief.”
Paulo Baldi, who also played on “Pressure Chief,” is playing drums on tour and, according to McCrea, may well take over the slot full-time.
Just as importantly, over the course of making 2001’s “Comfort Eagle” and “Pressure Chief,” Cake has become more of a collaborative unit.
“What I thought I had was a band that wasn’t all that interested in participating creatively, back then,” he said. “I’m glad to have been proven wrong.”
McCrea said several “Pressure Chief” songs have been added into Cake’s live set, but the concerts continue to survey the band’s entire career.
“As much as our record company wants (the live show) to be in the service of just the one album, for us we’re trying to work in the service of the concert performance,” McCrea said. “We’re trying to choose the best collection of songs to work with as opposed to just promoting one album.
“I mean, we’re not like Pink Floyd where we feel like we have to play the whole album and nothing else,” he said.
Cake
8 p.m. Wednesday, Moore Theatre, 1932 Second Ave., Seattle. $28, 206-628-0888.
Cake
8 p.m. Wednesday, Moore Theatre, 1932 Second Ave., Seattle. $28, 206-628-0888.
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