Greg Brown, the founding guitarist of Cake, has died.
The Californian band announced Brown’s death on Saturday (February 7), taking to social media to tell fans that he passed away after a “brief illness.”
“Greg was an integral part of CAKE’s early sound and development,” their statement read. “His creative contributions were immense, and his presence – both musical and personal – will be deeply missed. Godspeed, Greg.”
Brown founded the band in 1991 alongside singer John McCrea, trumpeter Vince DiFiore, drummer Frank French, and bassist Shon Meckfessel, and played on Cake’s 1994 debut ‘Motorcade of Generosity’ and its 1996 follow-up ‘Fashion Nugget’. On the latter album, Brown is credited for penning the band’s breakout hit in ‘The Distance’.
Speaking to Billboard in 2021 about their creative process, Brown said he “really felt the forward momentum” when working with McCrea.
“A lot of times, it would sort of be filtered through Greg’s ear,” McCrea added of their songs. “He would do things with his guitar that would sort of square things up rhythmically, in a way that I think was really, really, really smart.”
“Mostly,” Brown agreed, “[it was] just a wonderful, creative kind of explosion of ideas, like a fountain that just never stopped flowing.”
Tributes have poured out from fans paying homage to his sound, with one X user writing that “the world of alternative rock has lost (yet another) foundational architect”.
Shortly before the release of CAKE’s third album, Brown left the band to form deathray, releasing the project’s debut album in 2000. The project became his primary focus throughout the decade, though he also collaborated with Rivers Cuomo in the short-lived supergroup Homie and also worked on a Matt Sharp solo effort for a spell.
Brown later briefly reunited with Cake, lending a hand on the guitar on ‘Bound Away’ on their 2011’s ‘Showroom of Compassion’.
In the 14 years since that album was shared, Cake have shared a spattering of B-sides, a live album and a 2018 charity single ‘Sinking Ship’ in aid of humanitarian charity Doctors without Borders.
More recently, they shared ‘Hold You (Responsible)’ as part of ‘Songs For Sex’, a compilation album raising awareness of threats to reproductive rights in the US, with proceeds going towards the National Women’s Health Network.
