{"id":173079,"date":"2026-02-11T06:27:34","date_gmt":"2026-02-11T06:27:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/173079\/"},"modified":"2026-02-11T06:27:34","modified_gmt":"2026-02-11T06:27:34","slug":"founding-cake-guitarist-greg-brown-dead-after-brief-illness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/173079\/","title":{"rendered":"Founding Cake guitarist Greg Brown dead after brief illness"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Photograph<\/p>\n

Getty Images\/iStockphoto<\/p>\n

Greg Brown, founding member and original guitarist of Sacramento rock band Cake, has died after a brief illness, according to a social media post from the band.<\/p>\n

Cake, the alt-rock band formed in Sacramento in 1991, rose to national fame throughout the decade, particularly after the band\u2019s second album, Fashion Nugget, went platinum with Brown writing the lead single, \u201cThe Distance.\u201d Other founding members included singer John McCrea, trumpeter Vince DiFiore, drummer Frank French, and bassist Shon Meckfessel.<\/p>\n

\u201cGreg was an integral part of Cake\u2019s early sound and development,\u201d the band\u2019s statement, posted Saturday, read. \u201cHis creative contributions were immense, and his presence \u2014 both musical and personal \u2014 will be deeply missed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brown left Cake in 1997, forming the band Deathray and working on other projects before appearing with Cake again in 2011 as a guitarist on the song \u201cBound Away.\u201d<\/p>\n

Commenters on Reddit<\/a> remembered Brown as a \u201cSacramento legend.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOn a list of bands that speak to my soul, Cake is at the top,\u201d one user, evoterra, wrote.<\/p>\n

This story was originally published February 8, 2026 at 12:18 PM.<\/p>\n

Related Stories from Sacramento Bee<\/p>\n


\n \"Profile
\n <\/a><\/p>\n

Camryn Dadey<\/a><\/p>\n

The Sacramento Bee<\/p>\n

Camryn Dadey is The Sacramento Bee\u2019s Elk Grove and Rancho Cordova watchdog reporter. She is a 2022 graduate of Sacramento State.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Getty Images\/iStockphoto Greg Brown, founding member and original guitarist of Sacramento rock band Cake, has died after a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":173080,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[82774,82701,82776,121,123,122,82775],"class_list":["post-173079","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sacramento","tag-cake-sacramento","tag-greg-brown","tag-greg-brown-cake","tag-sacramento","tag-sacramento-headlines","tag-sacramento-news","tag-sacramento-rock"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173079","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=173079"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173079\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/173080"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=173079"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=173079"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=173079"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}