Alt-rockers Cake will be going the distance environmentally for its sixth album, due for 2009 release.

The quintet, best revered for radio hits in 1996’s The Distance and 2001’s Short Skirt/Long Jacket, plan on recording a follow-up to 2004’s Pressure Chief at its own studio in Sacramento, Calif., utilizing 100 per cent solar electricity generated from a solar array on the studio’s roof.

“Everyone’s so energy conscious out this way and always nervous about turning on and off too many lights,” trumpet player Vince DiFiore tells Metro from his California home.

º“The solar panels allow us to get rid of some of the anxiety and know that we’re moving a step in the right direction. At all of our rehearsals, we’re probably only using about 10 per cent of the energy that we’re generating and what’s left over is going back into the city’s grid.”

Cake’s environmental awareness also extends to its live shows. Recent concerts generally find frontman John McCrea interacting with audiences through — of all things — tree giveaways.

By responding to McCrea’s environmental trivia questions, winning fans must plant a tree and upload photos of its growth to the band’s website, www.cakemusic.com.

“If nothing else, it certainly encourages other people to plant trees — that in itself is rewarding,” DiFiore says.

Despite shifts in personnel since forming in 1991, Cake has separated itself from the screaming sludge of grunge and post-grunge by incorporating funk, ska, pop, jazz, rap, and country into its simple arrangements that complement McCrea’s droll, Sinatra-esque vocal delivery and DiFiore’s trumpet solos.

Along with its own material, Cake often puts its own distinctive spin on choice cover songs — most notably its sparse, funky remake of disco classic I Will Survive.

Several other unique covers crop up on Cake’s latest disc, B-Sides And Rarities, including Black Sabbath’s War Pigs, and an old Sesame Street favourite in Mahna Mahna.

“We were going to put out a live album, but it felt too much like we were going to put out a greatest-hits record, which notoriously seemed to cap people’s careers,” says DiFiore, adding the band amicably parted from Columbia in 2007 and released the compilation on its own label, Upbeat Records.

“We decided to get all the tracks that hadn’t ­made it on to the original albums — mostly cover songs — and it all seemed to fit nicely.”