Greg Brown, Founding Cake Member and ‘The Distance’ Songwriter, Dies After ‘Brief Illness’
- - Greg Brown, Founding Cake Member and ‘The Distance’ Songwriter, Dies After ‘Brief Illness’
Bailey RichardsFebruary 8, 2026 at 11:48 PM
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Greg Brown
The Band Cake/Instagram
Founding Cake member Greg Brown has died, the band announced on social media on Feb. 7
“It is with heavy hearts that we share the news of Greg Brown’s passing after a brief illness,” the band wrote
The guitarist and songwriter penned Cake's hit song "The Distance" before leaving the band in 1997
Greg Brown, founding guitarist of ’90s alternative rock band Cake and songwriter of their enduring hit “The Distance,” has died.
The band, known for their deadpan lyrics and jazzy rock sound, announced the guitarist and songwriter’s death on social media on Saturday, Feb. 7. No age was given, but the musician was in his mid-50s, according to a 2021 Billboard band retrospective, which listed his age at 51 at the time.
“It is with heavy hearts that we share the news of Greg Brown’s passing after a brief illness,” the rockers wrote on Instagram and Facebook alongside a black-and-white photo of the musician holding a guitar. The band did not specify an exact cause of death.
“Greg was an integral part of CAKE’s early sound and development,” the band’s statement continued. “His creative contributions were immense, and his presence—both musical and personal—will be deeply missed. Godspeed, Greg.”
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Known for hits like “Short Skirt/Long Jacket” and “Never There,” Cake was founded in Sacramento, Calif. in 1991, according to the rockers’ Spotify bio. Aside from Brown, the original lineup included vocalist John McCrea, trumpeter Vince DiFiore, drummer Frank French and bassist Sean McFessel, who was replaced shortly after the band’s founding by Gabe Nelson, per the artist bio.
Brown and McCrea, the only founding Cake member still in the group besides DiFiore, formed what Billboard described as the “creative core of Cake” in its early days. “When I was working with [McCrea], I really felt the forward momentum,” Brown recalled to the outlet in 2021. “I felt like, ‘Something very creative is happening here.’ ”
"A lot of times, it would sort of be filtered through Greg’s ear,” McCrea said of Cake’s early music. “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.”
The rockers later shot to fame with the release of their second album, 1996’s Fashion Nugget — with Victor Damiani on bass and Todd Roper on drums — thanks largely in part to the band’s biggest hit “The Distance,” which was penned by Brown.
Brown left the band in 1997 before the release of Cake’s third studio album, Prolonging the Magic, and formed another Sacramento band, Deathray, which was active through the late 2000s. He also went on to release solo material, and collaborated with Weezer’s Rivers Cuomo and Matt Sharp.
Reflecting on his departure from Cake while speaking with Billboard over two decades later, Brown said, “I might have told you one thing back when I was 27 years old, and I left hot headed and mad about what I considered to be irreconcilable personality problems or whatever.”
"As 51-year-old me, I see a much larger context of what was going on in my life,” the guitarist continued in the 2021 article. “Rather than get into all of it, I would just say there was a lot of turmoil at the time, and I felt like leaving Cake would be a decision that would be good for my health.”
The guitarist described his time in the group to Billboard as “mostly great” but “sometimes difficult.”
Brown added, “But I’m not going to talk about that. Mostly just a wonderful, creative kind of explosion of ideas, like a fountain that just never stopped flowing.”
He later reunited with the band for a song, “Bound Away,” on their last full-length collection of new music, 2011’s Showroom of Compassion, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.
In 2021, Cake alum Roper said that the founding guitarist’s chemistry with the group’s frontman endured despite his departure decades earlier. “Greg and John have — still, to this day — a very powerful chemistry together,” Roper told Billboard at the time. “I basked in the warmth that came off of that.”
Cake is currently touring, with upcoming dates scheduled for March.
on People
Source: “AOL Entertainment”
