Cake Turn Song Into Handmade Book
Cake have teamed up with the San Francisco publisher BANDmade Books to create Bound Away, the book version of a song from their most recent album Showroom of Compassion. The book, which has been in the works since June of last year, will pair lyrics by frontman John McCrea with illustrations by R. Stuhmiller.
Though BANDmade approached Cake with the notion of creating an edition of handmade books, the band took an active role in translating their music into a very different artistic format. “Bound Away,” a country-folk number, was selected for the project because the band felt that the old-timey aesthetics of the book design suited the sound of the song, which McCrea says has a “matte finish quality.”
Photos: Random Notes
All of the members of Cake have worked with BANDmade in the production of the books, personally manufacturing the paper from their own clothing and hand carving linoleum blocks for letterpress printing. The production of the book was as green as possible, with the paper being manufactured with wind power and binding made with handspun hemp and beeswax sourced from a local San Francisco beehive.
Only 1,000 copies of Bound Away have been made, but the book has been donated to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Library, and is likely to make it into a handful of other special collection libraries.