John McCrea and Cake, courtesy.

This story originally appeared in the Oakland Tribune.

The New Year is a time of earnestness. It’s usually celebrated with a renewed hope for the future — not snarky cynicism, which is generally the type of lyric that rattles out of the mouth of singer-songwriter John McCrea. 

McCrea’s often monotonously dry voice drips of sarcasm; his satirical lyrics are drenched in irony. 

It may be a holiday miracle, but McCrea, whose band Cake performs on New Year’s Eve at the Warfield, resolves to be more hopeful in 2008. 

“There’s a sliver of hope for humanity,” McCrea says in a recent phone interview from his Boston hotel room. “I haven’t been looking at that tiny sliver. I’m going to try to be a little bit more hopeful.” 

Each morning when he wakes up he has a positive outlook for that day, he says, but mathematically speaking, he thinks humanity is in for some tough times in the future. 

“I’ve said too much — I’m just a musician,” McCrea says. “Let’s make this light. I’ve been resolved to make another Cake album next year.” 

The New Year’s Eve show promises to be a wild one, even though McCrea says he usually celebrates the holiday by going to sleep before the clock strikes midnight. 

“There’s going to be all sorts of interesting surprises,” he says. 

Cake’s next studio album, which McCrea says is in the works and will be released next summer, will be the band’s sixth in its 17 years. 

The group came together in 1991 in Sacramento and gained a steady following in Central California and the Bay Area. Although its music plays mostly on alternative stations, genres such as funk, country, folk and jazz are fused into the sound. 

After releasing their first album, 1994’s “Motorcade of Generosity,” independently, band members signed with

Capricorn Records and re-released the record. Their second album, 1996’s “Fashion Nugget,” gained national attention with two songs: “The Distance” and a cover of Gloria Gaynor’s “I Will Survive.” 

Their popularity continued to grow despite extensive lineup shuffling. These days the only founding members remaining are McCrea and trumpet player Vincent DiFiore. Guitarist Xan McCurdy, bassist Gabriel Nelson and drummer Paulo Baldi complete the band. 

Cake’s third album, 1998’s “Prolonging the Magic,” had several popular radio tunes. including “Never There” and “Sheep Go to Heaven.” The group released “Comfort Eagle” in 2000. The album, which was a commentary on America’s “super-sized” culture, featured another uniquely Cake single, “Short Skirt/Long Jacket.” The band’s most recent studio album, “Pressure Chief,” was released in 2004. 

Cake is doing well right now, McCrea says. A lot of that has to do with the band’s parting ways with the big label to start its own, Upbeat Records, in 2004. 

The first release on the new indie was Cake’s “B-Sides and Rarities” in October. 

“It’s a satisfying thing to circumvent a traditional label,” McCrea says. “It’s a lot easier to be in business with people you respect. Conversely, it’s difficult to be in business with people you don’t respect.” 

He doesn’t mince words when he talks about the band’s experience on Columbia. 

“Honestly, the major label thing is a sinking ship — I very much enjoy watching the major labels plummet,” he says. 

The B-Sides album is a mix of original songs and covers such as Black Sabbath’s “War Pigs” and Barry White’s “Never, Never Gonna Give You Up.” A limited-edition version of the disc comes with one of five scratch-and-sniff cases. The possibilities are red rose, banana, leather, grass and grape. 

As with most of the band’s choices, whether lyrics or a speech during a live show, the scents were carefully thought out and meant to make a point, McCrea says. 

“A long, long time ago, you’d wait for the band to release the album, you were excited about the album, you opened the album, you sat down and played one side of it, looked at the liner notes and just consumed it slowly,” he says. 

“I don’t think the current relationship to music is as satisfying — it’s just having the (expletive) song as your ringtone. Do I sound a little bit bitter? I don’t mean to. I just think it’s really interesting.” 

His view on the future of music and life in general not withstanding, McCrea and his bandmates still believe some sort of difference can be made in the new year. At recent shows, they have given away young trees — avocado, palm, spruce and apple — to fans who promise to plant and care for them. 

McCrea considers himself an environmentalist, but admits it’s hard to live that lifestyle while driving across the country on a bus to play rock shows. 

“We’re not trying to be tree huggers,” he says, “but there’s certainly something that’s not bad about planting a tree.”

Follow editor Roman Gokhman at Twitter.com/RomiTheWriter.