Vince DiFiore, Cake's longtime trumpet, keyboards, and percussionist took some time out of his busy day to talk about the music, the new CD and life as a member of one of the most versitile bands around...
(Album Info)

Music Guy: You releasing a B-sides and Rarities album... That's a lot cooler than a greatest hits CD, this is for your fans!

Vince DiFiore : Yeah, that's right. If you are interested in greatest hits, you probably know the music already and have the albums already. Greatest Hits are sort of a way for the record companies to make a little bit of money...

MG: Exactly. It's marketing.

Vince: Where are you?

MG: We're in Delaware, best described as the southern-most suburb of Philadelphia.

Vince: I love being there. I go south Philly all the time. I go to Bella Vista, go to the cheese shop, the spice shops, pheasants' hanging from the butcher shop windows... it's an interesting area.

MG: You guys are doing this truly independent of the record companies, you're getting no help from a major label.

Vince: When the industry changed, album sales weren't so great. We decided why be trapped into a label deal when we can just own what we're doing. I'm not sure if owning what we are doing is going to be more profitable, because there is a lot of free promotion you can get from being on a major label.

MG: On the other hand, especially online, you can reach the whole world.

Vince: That's right. I think we're all just beginning to understand just what the internet means and what it can do. It seems like you can reach the world, but people only have a certain amount of time in the day... the thing is to get something to go viral.

MG: The viral and the Buzz...

Vince: You get that going and then your cool, you get on the right sites. It was not so long ago, nobody knew that myspace would become as big as they are. This is all new, and it continues to be a new development. We're doing the best we can to keep an eye on opportunities, and doing the best we can.

MG: Let's get into some Cake history, first off, how did you choose the name?

Vince: At the time, we were in Sacramento, playing in small clubs, and we got word out by putting up flyers. It was in the vogue to go around with a staple gun in the middle of the night on your bicycle and tack flyers up on telephone poles. We did a lot of that and we needed something that would grab attention. A name not too long, the letters had to be big enough that you could possibly see in a car driving by. We picked a four letter word that had some phonetic oomph to it, a little punch, something that was the sign of the times (the early 1990s). Cake is meant to be a verb.

MG: This CD release is going to be scratch and sniff?

Vince: It's impossible at this point in time to download the olfactory sense. Your nose just cannot pick up anything digitally. We are, probably in vain, trying to beat the system a little bit and make something of a little extra value, replacing the missing album art. We've tried to have interesting album art, but we wanted to offer something really tangible, satisfying to have the CD in your hand.

MG: Dating myself, I remember the days when you'd get the Who album with the brown vinyl, or Split Enz had a lazer etching across the record on their first album. It added some excitement. It was so cool.

Vince: When I was a sophomore in high school, Led Zeppelin's In Through The Out Door came out. It had different covers and it had a water color on the inner lining you could paint yourself!

MG: I remember that. Mine was a water color ashtray! It was something fun, and it's good to see you guys attempt to bring some of that back! Especially for the fans.. this is fan orientated.

Vince: we have some great listeners, we want them to know that we're still thinking and still want to entertain them.

MG: The band does original stuff, and you are gutsy enough to take on some some other people's signature songs, other people's "standards." I Will Survive, originally by Gloria Gaynor comes to mind. You guys too it and kind of made it your own.

Vince: It was such a strong song, and if you're going to cover a song, it's should be a surprise. Good music usually has an element of surprise, so if you add an unexpected genre choice, especially a disco song, I think it makes a little more fun for the listener. That's something we went for on this album. You wouldn't expect us to be covering Barry White, Black Sabbath. We're supposed to be an alternative rock band!

MG: I'm looking forward to hearing Strangers In The Night!

Vince: The Frank Sinatra thing. That was originally on the Stubbs The Zombie PS2 soundtrack. Never, Never Gonna Give You Up was on the soundtrack for An American Werewolf In Paris. Mahna Mahna was on the album, For The Kids. So theses were songs that we recorded and gave to different projects here and there, and we brought them all together. They fit very nicely on the album. We were actually pretty surprised at how cohesive this collection is. It is a solid body of work.

MG: How did you and John (McCrea) meet up?

Vince: We have pretty fun local music scene here. You can live her affordably, I was going to school and doing music, had odd jobs, John had fronted several different bands and wanted to start something new. He had just come back from Los Angeles, kind of disillusioned with the rock scene there, and we met up here in Sacramento, with the idea of paring down the music, really communicating with the audience like in a coffee shop.
I was in a jazz group, kind of an open jam session, he came by, invited me to a rehearsal, I did, we did a show, that was the fall of '91.

MG: So you stared out in the earliest days of Cake?

Vince: We were doing songs John had done previously, but I was in the band before it was called Cake.

MG: John has an unusual voice. No your usual rock start singer.

Vince: I guess his voice is more like a country voice, on line of someone like Johnny Cash. We are very respectful of his vocals. We are very conscious that he is delivering his words to an audience.

MG: He speaks distinctly, he enunciates every word... He's the opposite of REM's Michael Stipe.

Vince: I remember when REM started out, that was an exciting thing about their music, he was speaking in some alien language, in an indulgent way you could hear what you wanted to hear. Everything's been said already, just hear what you want to hear.

MG: That was part of their artistry.

Vince: When they came out with Murmer, I saw them in a small theater in Santa Barbara. I saw them a few years later when Reckoning came out. Big Country opened for them.

MG: What's your home situation? Married? Kids? Family?

Vince: I have three children, 6, 4 and 1. All boys.

MG: You kids are too young now, but at some point, there you are, rock and roll guy, and your kids are just gonna roll their eyes when you talk about work.

Vince: I'm trying to train them to be musicians . They keep asking when they can be in a rock band. I'm not really going to push it in them. They have an interest in music though. My oldest is playing piano. I'm trying to talk them into being doctors.

MG: What's next?

Vince: We're going to Europe in July, we have a few gigs here at home in May and June. We're looking forward to getting back in the studio. I think tour will give us more time together to gather more album-worthy material.

MG: We're always working on music and band lists... I'm thinking of adding Cake to the Nerd Bands list. I think you should be on that list. Are you guys nerds?

Vince: (laughing) no, no! But at first, we were grouped in with band like The Eels, Weezer. I never feel that way about the music. I think we're pretty cool, we don't have the darkness. We don't have that gloomy aspect. Maybe we try too hard to be toughtful...w what makes you a nerd?

MG: We'll its the look, and nerds have a confidence now, and we can thank Weird Al Yankovic for that. I appreciate you taking the time to talk to me today. have fun in Europe!

Vince: We will. Thanks for calling!