![\"DENVER](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/gettyimages-112537763-698bb0b577f2b.jpg\"\/ "\\"Cake")
<\/p>\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\tGreg Brown, a founding guitarist in the Sacramento band Cake who wrote their biggest hit song \u201cThe Distance,\u201d has died.\u201cIt is with heavy hearts that we share the news of Greg Brown\u2019s passing after a brief illness,\u201d Cake said on its social media accounts on Saturday. \u201cGreg was an integral part of CAKE\u2019s early sound and development. His creative contributions were immense, and his presence\u2014both musical and personal\u2014will be deeply missed. Godspeed, Greg.\u201dThe post did not list Brown’s age or cause of death. Brown was a member of Cake for their first two major label albums, \u201cMotorcade of Generosity\u201d and \u201cFashion Nugget,\u201d on Capricorn Records. The band was a staple of the Sacramento music scene in the 1990s, with Brown\u2019s gritty, staccato-style guitar playing, Vince DiFore\u2019s trumpet melodies and John McCrae\u2019s baritone, half-spoken, deadpan vocal delivery setting the group apart from other rock bands of the era. Brown was credited with writing \u201cThe Distance.\u201d The song is used to kick off the California International Marathon for thousands of runners each year. Brown went on to join the band Deathray along with Cake\u2019s bassist, Victor Damiani, and singer Dana Gumbiner, of the Sacramento band Little Guilt Shrine. He also recorded music for side-projects involving members of the band Weezer. Cake is still performing with McCrae and DiFore remaining at the core of the group through various iterations. They\u2019re set to return to their hometown for three sold-out shows at Channel 24 on March 21-23. See more coverage of top California stories here | Download our app | Subscribe to our morning newsletter | Find us on YouTube here and subscribe to our channel\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\tSACRAMENTO, Calif. \u2014 \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
Greg Brown, a founding guitarist in the Sacramento band Cake who wrote their biggest hit song \u201cThe Distance,\u201d has died.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is with heavy hearts that we share the news of Greg Brown\u2019s passing after a brief illness,\u201d Cake said on its social media accounts on Saturday. \u201cGreg was an integral part of CAKE\u2019s early sound and development. His creative contributions were immense, and his presence\u2014both musical and personal\u2014will be deeply missed. Godspeed, Greg.\u201d<\/p>\n
The post did not list Brown’s age or cause of death. <\/p>\n
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Brown was a member of Cake for their first two major label albums, \u201cMotorcade of Generosity\u201d and \u201cFashion Nugget,\u201d on Capricorn Records. <\/p>\n
The band was a staple of the Sacramento music scene in the 1990s, with Brown\u2019s gritty, staccato-style guitar playing, Vince DiFore\u2019s trumpet melodies and John McCrae\u2019s baritone, half-spoken, deadpan vocal delivery setting the group apart from other rock bands of the era. <\/p>\n
Brown was credited with writing \u201cThe Distance.\u201d The song is used to kick off the California International Marathon for thousands of runners each year. <\/p>\n
\t\t<\/p>\n
Brown went on to join the band Deathray along with Cake\u2019s bassist, Victor Damiani, and singer Dana Gumbiner, of the Sacramento band Little Guilt Shrine. <\/p>\n
He also recorded music for side-projects involving members of the band Weezer. <\/p>\n
Cake is still performing with McCrae and DiFore remaining at the core of the group through various iterations. <\/p>\n
They\u2019re set to return to their hometown for three sold-out shows at Channel 24<\/a> on March 21-23. <\/p>\n See more coverage of top California stories here<\/a> | Download our app<\/a> | Subscribe to our morning newsletter<\/a> | Find us on YouTube here and subscribe to our channel<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Greg Brown, a founding guitarist in the Sacramento band Cake who wrote their biggest hit song \u201cThe Distance,\u201d…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":172860,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[9557,11416,30708,82703,3813,8815,339,82707,82704,82708,82701,7244,82706,2324,121,123,122,82702,3293,82705],"class_list":["post-172859","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sacramento","tag-age","tag-band","tag-cake","tag-cake-guitarist","tag-cause","tag-channel","tag-death","tag-die","tag-distance","tag-early-sound","tag-greg-brown","tag-group","tag-john-mccrae","tag-member","tag-sacramento","tag-sacramento-headlines","tag-sacramento-news","tag-the-distance","tag-thousand","tag-vince-difore"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172859","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=172859"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172859\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/172860"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=172859"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=172859"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=172859"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}