Taking Cake A Pop Quiz For Cake Singer And Songwriter John Mccrea

Cake is going the distance.

Cake is having its success and eating it, too Cake will survive.

Cake is enjoying the sweet taste of success.

Cake is in fashion.

So, let’s see:

What other puns are the media using in talking about the country-funkin’ Sacramento rock band Cake these days?

“Get with it or get out of the way,” Cake singer John McCrea says in that droll deadpan voice of his. “I just think that those are slogans for the product, and some of them may be snide or kind of self-consciously enthusiastic. But, you know - whatever.”

Here are the undisputed facts about “the product”:

Cake’s second album, “Fashion Nugget,” has sold just over 500,000 copies since its release in September, according to the sales-tracking service SoundScan. The critically praised recording is currently among the country’s top 40 sellers.

“Fashion Nugget’s” first single, “The Distance,” was a major national radio-video hit. A newly released single, “I Will Survive,” also is enjoying success on both alternarock radio stations and the music-video network MTV.

And, um, the icing on the Cake?

The quintet (singer-guitarist McCrea, guitarist Greg Brown, bassist Victor Damiani, drummer Todd Roper and trumpeter-percussionist Vince DiFiore) had no problem whatever selling out its biggest show yet as a headliner, Friday at the 4,000-capacity Memorial Auditorium. The last of the tickets to Cake’s first hometown show in almost five months sold out more than a week ago.

Cake front man McCrea took the pop quiz last week during a drive through the tree-lined streets of midtown Sacramento.

First - and, apparently, foremost - on the agenda: the criticism McCrea has received recently from the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Audiences for being, well, verbally cruel to Cake’s audiences. (“Shut up,” for instance, has become one of his favorite performance phrases.)

Q. People have been calling you petulant and contentious because of your on-stage antics. Defend yourself.

McCrea: Oh, man, what a drag. Well, when one is on a stage in front of a thousand people, it’s an unnatural situation. It’s not me on stage. If you talk to me one-on-one, most likely, it’ll be me. But on stage, I do what I see as the most effective way of keeping the show moving with some sort of rhythm. Things that interfere with that rhythm, I find the fastest and, hopefully, most entertaining way of eliminating those facets of the experience. I see the job of musician and the job of law enforcement coming closer and closer together as we reach the new millennium.

Q. Speaking of law enforcement, after a beer was thrown at you during a show in San Francisco last month, you mentioned that you wanted to start wearing riot gear on stage. How’s your pursuit of protective concertwear going?

McCrea: Well, I don’t know if we’re going to be able to do it. I’m not sure it goes with our music. Maybe if we played a different kind of music we’d do it. I really would love to wear riot gear, because I feel it’s the most honest statement we could make about where we’re headed as a society. I see us coming into a new medieval period, and it’s going to be fashionable to wear riot gear.

Q. You could start by trading your fishing hat for the meter maid helmet you wore in the “I Will Survive” video.

McCrea: I was thinking about that. But it might be a little hot on stage. And they don’t really have a good visor. I’d like to be able to have the brim of my hat to hide behind a little bit if I wanted to.

Q. You are, of course, Cake’s principal songwriter. But neither of the two singles from “Fashion Nugget” was written by you. (“The Distance” was penned by Brown and “I Will Survive” is a cover of the Gloria Gaynor disco anthem.) Is that any sort of …

McCrea: Am I insecure about it?

Q. Yeah. Is it an ego-deflater?

McCrea: No, actually, because I think I’m a pretty good songwriter; I just happen to be taking the low road. I think it’s also probably good for me and, in some ways, appropriate. It may be true that my songwriting is not necessarily the style of songwriting that’s appropriate for today’s marketplace.

Q. People have a hard time separating music and the people behind it, though.

McCrea: Right, and I think that’s a problem. They invest all their sense of victory in basketball teams and presidents of the United States and pop stars who, really, are only symbolic representations of hope and actually have very little to do with victory. It’s so sad. So in a way, it’s good that I’m - what are the words that you used?

Q. Petulant and contentious.

McCrea: Yeah, it’s good that I’m petulant and contentious because it maybe prevents that from happening. I think it’s healthy for me to be a (jerk) on stage. My prime directive is to keep the show moving, and I do whatever it takes - although I really, honestly feel no emotion toward anybody in the audience. It’s really strange that people would think that I don’t like the audiences.