"I don't know how that happened," McCrea said. "Holy cow. Can you imagine how frightening that would be?"
Cake also gives free life/relationship advice on its site. Fans send in their questions, and the band posts answers online.
All of this interaction has helped Cake build a wide fan base. They sold out that 2007 show at Pier Six, which holds 4,200. And in late May, they sold out a two-night stand at the 9:30 Club in Washington.
"They had some monster hits, and they got a lot of radio play," said Mark Mangold, a promoter for Rams Head Live, which books Pier Six. "They haven't really gone away. I think it's a testament to how good a live band they are that they're still selling tickets."
After the 2004 album Pressure Chief, Cake left Columbia Records and formed its own label, Upbeat Records. They recorded a live album in 2005 called Live at the Crystal Palace, but it never surfaced. Then they released B-Sides and Rarities, which featured a buzzed-about cover of Black Sabbath's "War Pigs" in 2007. Since then, the band has been working on a new studio album - their first since parting ways with Columbia five years ago.
McCrea doesn't have a name picked out for the new album, or, for that matter, a release date. But he thinks it will include 13 tracks and could see the light of day in the next few months. This album has taken longer to write and record than any of the previous ones because, for a change, all of the band members have had a say in how it sounds, McCrea said. And unlike with past albums, there is no major label breathing down the band's neck.
"There's been plenty of give and take over the years," McCrea said. "I'm building a lot more of it into the process. I think, so far, it's served the album well, but it takes forever. But we're not in a hurry."
Should fans expect the new album to sound drastically different than anything Cake did before it? McCrea scoffs at that question.
"I always think each album sounds completely different than the one before," McCrea said. "Then I read about them, and apparently to other people they sound exactly the same. So I'm not going to say this is a departure. I've been foiled before trying to think that we are capable of departure."
Cake has always been hands-on when it comes to recording albums. The band has produced its own music, put together its own album artwork and directed its own music videos.
