"It was a side project," singer and pianist David Bridie says. "Hence the ridiculous band title."

"When we made the first record," cellist Helen Mountfort says, "we were never really making a record. We just had all these really great songs and thought it would be a waste not to record them, so we whacked them down in the studio in an incredibly casual manner."

Because there was no expectation, "it was just nice," she says. "There was never any need for it to become successful."

The album was released by Warner Music, Bridie says, because Not Drowning, Waving were with Warner at the time. "And it did really well. It was one of those things that no one really cared about, and I think not caring about it worked in its favour."

That first album was eponymously titled My Friend the Chocolate Cake, and will be played in full by the band, alongside their second release, ARIA-award-winning Brood, at the Street Theatre this month.

"On every record there are songs that you don't end up playing that much for some reason," Bridie says, "and there is not necessarily a rhyme or reason. There is a couple of songs that we are playing this time that we haven't played since the records were released, basically because the first couple of times we played them, we mucked them up live, and I think we had the fear about them."

The band has traditionally been able to avoid trickier songs by playing something else in their repertoire, but they weren't afforded that luxury for this run of dates.

"When you say you are going to play an album, you've got to be completist about it. It was kind of like, `Well, we have to do it, and if it's sounding bad, you actually have to just keep working.' "

"It's actually incredibly fun," Mountfort says. "It's a lot more fun than I would have expected it to be. I've been really loving it. There are just so many great tracks off those albums that we haven't done for years, and it was immense fun doing them again."

Mountfort has especially been enjoying getting into the more moody numbers, a process that is making her rethink the band's current direction a little.

"I've enjoyed going back to the more mellow Cake, I have to say. It's kind of nice that the strings, we get a bigger guernsey," she says. "There is a lot more subtlety. Sometimes when you are playing, you just go for the songs that have more of a live, energetic feel. But we're doing all the subtle stuff, and I think audiences are loving it, and it's sort of made us have a little rethink about what Chocolate Cake is and what we want to do with it. It's been quite good for us. It's given us a slightly sideways jolt."

MY FRIEND THE CHOCOLATE CAKE

Where: The Street Theatre, Acton

When: 8pm, June 12

Tickets: $39/$35 available from thestreet.org.au or 6247 1223