“I sold it to the boyfriend of a girl I knew. 30 years later I said, ‘Do you still have it?’ He sold it back for the same price I sold it for – $225”: Xan McCurdy on Cake, dumping Joe Satriani, and buying the wrong guitar thanks to Keith Richards

MILWAUKEE, WISCONSIN - JUNE 27: Xan McCurdy of Cake performs onstage during day 5 at Summerfest 2025 at Henry Maier Festival Park on June 27, 2025 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. (Photo by Joshua Applegate/Getty Images).

Xan McCurdy joined Cake in 1998 in place of Greg Brown. It wasn’t an easy task, since Brown was an idiosyncratic player who’d helped make The Distance and a cover of Gloria Gaynor’s I Will Survive – both of which appeared on 1996’s Fashion Nugget – special and successful.

McCurdy thinks he was hired less for his skill and more for the hang.