Xan McCurdy joined Cake in 1998 in place of Greg Brown. It wasn’t an easy task, since Brown was an idiosyncratic player who’d helped make The Distance and a cover of Gloria Gaynor’s I Will Survive – both of which appeared on 1996’s Fashion Nugget – special and successful.
McCurdy thinks he was hired less for his skill and more for the hang.
“I think they had rough experiences with their previous bass and guitar players,” he says. “They were maybe a little wary, like, ‘How is this guy gonna be a problem?’”
He quickly proved there would be no problem: 2001’s Comfort Eagle challenged Fashion Nugget via cuts like Short Skirt/Long Jacket and Love You Madly. His initial unease was gone by the time the record hit.
“We’d finished the album and I was driving to rehearsal. They were already playing Short Skirt/Long Jacket on the radio!
“I was like, ‘Wow, you just put out a record, they’re gonna put it on the radio. How easy!’ Of course, it wasn’t – Cake had to totally prove themselves with several records before that. But it was still cool.”
The band launched Pressure Chief in 2004 and Showroom of Compassion seven years later before falling silent – but that’s about to change: McCurdy confirms a new record will arrive in 2026. Still, Comfort Eagle will always be the feather in his cap. “It was great,” he says.
“I like my playing on that, and I like my tone. It sounds like a guy who knows what he’s doing – even though, at the time, I felt like maybe I didn’t. I’m proud of that, and our live shows.”
Did the guitar choose you, or did you choose the guitar?
“I think I chose it. In the mid ‘70s I was living with two older boys, sort of a communal house. They weren’t my brothers by blood but they were very influential. They were listening to all the guitar hero rock stuff: Hendrix, Santana, Ted Nugent, and AC/DC.
“They were the type of dudes who’d air-guitar all the time. They probably looked like buffoons, but I thought they looked cool! I wanted to impress them any way I could, so I decided to try to play guitar.”
What was your first proper guitar?
“I don’t remember the brand, but my mother got it at this store in Oakland, California, called Leo’s Music. To her delight, you could rent the guitar in case your kids didn’t take it up. But I ended up taking to it and practicing non-stop. She ended up buying it for me, but it was a real cheapo!
“The first real one was a baby blue pre-CBS Fender Mustang. I was a very small kid; I didn’t have a growth spurt until I was 17 or 18, so that Mustang was perfect for my little hands. I played that guitar exclusively until I was about 18.
“I sold it to the boyfriend of a girl I knew. She was dating the frontman of a band called The Mummies. Like 30 years later I said, ‘Do you still have it?’ He sold it back for the same price I sold it for – $225. I gifted it to a friend whose son is learning guitar. So I don’t have it anymore, but I know exactly where it is. That gives me great joy!”
After selling the Mustang, what gear did you move on to?
“I’d was super-immersing myself in ‘60s British R&B groups. Mostly obscure, but also the Rolling Stones’ first couple of records and that type of thing. There were pictures of Keith Richards playing a Harmony Meteor – but I didn’t look closely enough and thought it was a Harmony Rocket.
“So I got a Rocket instead of the Fender. I know it’s kooky, but that’s what I wanted! I wanted that look, and the hollowbody mid ‘60s garage and R&B sound.”
Did you have an idea of the type of player you wanted to be?
“I was absolutely single-minded; I totally knew what I wanted to play like. I’d started out wanting to be a hard rock guy to impress my brothers, but once I became a teenager, I started to obsess about mod and British sounds.
“I took lessons from several different teachers in Berkeley, California, one of them being Joe Satriani. He was teaching so many exercises. I felt like he was trying to build an army of shredders. It was nonsensical, non-musical things; just finger exercises. Not even scales!
“That was not what I was into. I did not care at all! I mean, there was a moment when we all got into Van Halen, but I sort of found my niche world – I was all about Chuck Berry and the blues guys.
They hired me because I wasn’t as good as some players. Do you want Joe Satriani in Cake? No!
“So, I stopped going to Joe. He’d have no memory of me whatsoever. I didn’t take a lot of lessons and he hated me because I didn’t practice his stuff enough. I found a guy who, instead of being this long-hair shred master, he’d smoke a joint and be like, ‘Alright, so what do you wanna do?’”
Your first brush with Cake came in 1998, when you played on Hem of Your Garment from Prolonging the Magic. There were several players on that record as Greg Brown had left the band. Why did they choose you as his replacement?
“I was in a band called The Loved Ones in the Bay Area, and we were doing well. We put out two albums on a small label called Hightone, which had some success with Robert Cray. That’s where I got my 10,000 hours – we traveled and played every night.
“We were an R&B four-piece but kind of bluesy, and super into Paul Butterfield. They started throwing us on an opening bill for Cake, who were just getting started. Cake liked us and they were like, ‘We can’t get into the San Francisco market; could you help us with that?’
“So we’d have them open for us in the Bay Area, and we’d open for them in their town. Then our band broke up, and Cake hit and got big, even though they were kind of weird – especially in the middle of the grunge times! There was all this super mega heavy guitar, and there was Cake with a trumpet and a goofy acoustic thing, but also some monster riffs in their own way.
“One day their manager hired me to paint her house, so I had some rent cash. She was on the phone and went, ‘Fuck! Greg Brown just quit!’ It just popped out of my mouth: ‘I’ll try out!’ And I did have to try out. Even though they’d seen me play a million times, they wanted me to go through the process of learning their songs and all that.”
What was the audition process?
“I was against players, who – let’s be real – were way better than me. Like Jim Campilongo, this Bay Area guy, a Telecaster wizard; when he picks up the instrument it’s just different. He’s got an extra couple of fingers, or something!
“He’s on Prolonging the Magic and so is Chuck Prophet, who’s awesome too. But I think they hired me because I wasn’t as good as them – like, do you want Joe Satriani in Cake? No!”
It wasn’t about skill as much as it was about vibe and feel.
“I’d been vetted. Clearly I wasn’t a lunatic, and that’s a huge part of it.”
Greg’s a very unique player. Was it difficult to fill that space?
“I was a fairly decent mimic, but there were some solos that were done in a certain way. I was a huge admirer of Greg – I remember he was playing this Guild Starfire through a Silvertone amp, and I went, ‘He found the tone right there. That’s it. That’s perfect.’ All of that stuff was fun to play.”
Our last album was the least-selling number one ever, I think. We thought that was perfect!
Your first full record with Cake was 2001’s Comfort Eagle, which features one of the band’s best-known songs, Short Skirt/Long Jacket.
“When we were recording we’d try and come up with a part, and play it on every instrument, thinking, ‘Is this good on piano? Is this good on trumpet?’ Sometimes a part would end up in my hands, even though it was written on bass, for example.
“So I didn’t write the guitar part for Short Skirt/Long Jacket. I don’t know if it was [Cake frontman] John McCrea, or possibly this guy named Tyler Pope – he used to be in LCD Soundsystem and he was working with John on some stuff. But I remember John sang the part to me and then I played it.”
What gear did you use on Comfort Eagle?
“I don’t remember the amp situation, but I had this Guild X-170 Manhattan, which was sort of a fatter hollowbody. You’ll notice I never left the hollowbody thing! I love solidbody guitars, but I loved this X-170 Manhattan, and I still do.
“But I never had a proper road case for it. Twice, when I opened the case I had, the neck had separated from the body. It’s been re-glued but it's never played the same. It used to play fantastically; I loved the difference between the pickups because each was perfectly dialed.”
After that, Cake recorded Pressure Chief and Showroom of Compassion, but nothing since. Is there a reason?
“It never really ground to a halt – we’re all always writing. We play new songs at soundcheck all the time. We’ve never stopped playing except for the couple of years during lockdown. It’s not for lack of material; we have killer fucking songs.
“But I think John is a little trepidatious about putting out stuff that he doesn't feel is up to snuff. It’s nerve-wracking to expose yourself like that. So it's just about waiting for the time to be right, I guess. You’d have to ask John!”
Do you think Cake will put out another album?
“I’m very confident that we will have a release by next year. Maybe early 2026. The last one came out in January 2011 and that worked out well for us since the album went to number one – and it was the least-selling number one ever, I think!
“We thought that was perfect because we’re not a ‘number one’ band, you know? So, if we’re gonna be a number one band, at least we’re the least-selling. That makes it better for us!”
- Check out Cake’s upcoming tour dates.
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