News

Cake Goes 100 Percent Solar for Sixth CD and New Ringtones

2:29 a.m. · October 14, 2009 · by Tony Sclafani

Looks like Cake is really going the distance when it comes to being environmentally friendly.

Earlier this year, Billboard magazine honored the post-alternative group as one of the greenest bands on the planet (along with Radiohead, Pete Seeger and John Legend). One of the reasons for this was that the band teamed with Boorego Solar to convert their Sacramento home studio to being entirely solar-powered.

Cake’s forthcoming album is being written, rehearsed and recorded using only the energy of the sun, and now the band is sharing the product of these sessions with fans via a series of six ringtones. Each ringtone is based on a song from the forthcoming album; the first one is called “Long Time,” and it’s available for download to members of the Cake mailing list (sign up here). Every six weeks, a ringtone for a new Cake song will be released by e-mail blast to all mailing-list members until the new album comes out, in spring 2010.

You can also see how the group broke away from its city’s energy grid by watching a video of its solar-studio installation. Or, you can read all about it in this article, which ran in the Sacramento News and Review in August.

The band was most recently in the news when it reissued its first album, Motorcade of Generosity, as an enhanced CD with previously unavailable video footage and a limited-edition decal.