| | | |  | From the sleepy sprawl of America’s Mile-High City comes The Fray, a Denver-based foursome whose melodic pop-rock songs and soaring vocals resonate with sprawling tapestries and tales of hopefulness and heartache. Formed in 2002 by Isaac Slade (vocals,...
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| Interview | Access All Areas.net.au: Firstly, where did the name of the band ‘The Fray’ come from?
The Fray: Actually, we played our first gig at a high school graduation for my Brother, Caleb, and at that stage we didn’t have a name and so we put out a fish bowl and asked them for name suggestions and they all put names on to these pieces of paper and yeah The Fray wasn’t taken so we went from there.
Access All Areas.net.au: Your break came for The Fray from a local following and word of mouth, how did an unknown band spark so much interest for it?
The Fray: We kicked up a lot of dirt in LA, made as much of a scene as we could with the venues we did, we kept playing shows in our home town which worked well because we didn’t have much money to go outside our home town. We played a couple of times a month and then we started playing five or seven times a month, people started to get sick and tired of us because we kept playing shows all the time and then one of the papers called the Westward wrote a little piece on us then we sent our track ‘Over My Head’ to a local radio station and they played it that Sunday night at 9pm and it all started from there.
Access All Areas.net.au: Now as part of your lineup you guys have something most rock bands don’t have… a pianist, how does that work?
The Fray: It works well! It works well though we have a piano we bring round with us good to upgrade kinky keyboard got a lot of potential for complicated music parts . band always to tell me to simplify pretty much play my right hand.
Access All Areas.net.au: One thing you all have in common is in one way or another from an early age you all dabbled in Piano, why Piano?
The Fray: Its cool because everybody started out on a piano so the drummer and guitartist has comments on everyone’s instruments which makes writing songs more complicated but then more thought out because there’s a lot of different opinions.
Access All Areas.net.au: You release your debut album in Australia on July 22, can you tell us what we can expect from your album?
The Fray: We’re really happy with the songs… sometimes you get some really good songs and sometimes you’re lucky with one single but so far we’re getting a really good response to the whole album. People are singing our songs that have never been played on radio and you can’t get buying one song so people are really responding to that. It’s a huge honour because we’ve got 11 or 12 tracks and you don’t expect everyone to get in to the deeper tracks.
Access All Areas.net.au: Your first single ‘Over My Head’ is released July 1, what was that song written about?
The Fray: Actually my brother, Caleb, who we played at his graduation party for, his fiance called him ‘cable car’ which was his nickname and he and I got in to a pretty bad fight with him and we got in to one of those fights where you look at door and the temptation is there to call it quits but we were bothers and had to fight it out and we eventually found middle ground. A relationship was threatened there where there was the potential to lose that friend, it was a very rough time but we got through it.
Access All Areas.net.au: You’re coming to Australia in September to promote the new album, will that be the first time you’ve been to Australia or toured your music outside of America?
The Fray: Actually it will be the very first yeah! We tried to go to Canada one time but it snowed so we couldn’t get there then the second time I lost my voice so we cancelled. So yeah Australia will be the first!
Access All Areas.net.au: Can you tell us something about the Fray that people probably wouldn’t know about you?
The Fray: We’re all married! Dave, our guitartist, gives restaurant reviews on our website. We go out a lot to eat so he writes a lot of really great reviews and has all these reviews of American restaurants on the site but we really want to add international cuisine… they are very funny!
Access All Areas.net.au: Ironically, your album is titled ‘How to Save A Life’, having read some of the messages on your boards and myspace, a lot of comments are posted how your music has changed their lives and how it’s impacted on their life. How do you feel knowing that your music now plays a big part in the lives of your fans?
The Fray: It’s really humbling to go to places you’ve never been, even in America, and play these songs and people are singing these words, in cities we’ve never been in and people you’ve never met and them singing these songs that we sat in bedroom and wrote so I think going to Australia and people hearing your songs brings you right down. It feels so good that people are listeing to begin with and even if they don’t connect with the lyrics or connect emotionally I’m happy that people are hearing them, it makes leaving home and being gone all the time easier and for good reason.
Access All Areas.net.au: So what is next for the Frays?
The Fray: I just got married a month ago so that’s been what I’ve been thinking about for the last six months. I don’t know, we might go to Japan, we’ve never been there and then come back to US and tour with Bigger Rooms. I want to go to Africa! That’s the goal. But keep doing what we’re doing, go back in to the studio, actually we have just started working on the second album! |
| Biography | From the sleepy sprawl of America’s Mile-High City comes The Fray, a Denver-based foursome whose melodic pop-rock songs and soaring vocals resonate with sprawling tapestries and tales of hopefulness and heartache.
Formed in 2002 by Isaac Slade (vocals, piano) and Joe King (guitar, vocals), The Fray earned a loyal grassroots following through impressive area gigs and the support of local radio which led a listen-driven campaign to get the band a record contract. With strong word-of-mouth, the band won “Best New Band” honors from Denver’s Westword Magazine and garnered substantial airplay on two of Denver’s top rock stations – the demo version of “Over My Head (Cable Car)” became KTCL’s top 30 most played song of 2004 in just 4 months. The band signed to Epic Records in 2004 and will release their debut album “How To Save A Life” this September.
“Three years ago, I thought I wanted to start a real estate company,” laughs co-founder King. A serendipitous encounter with former schoolmate Slade at a local music store begat an impromptu jam session that begat an impromptu songwriting session that begat The Fray. It wasn’t your usual rock n’ roll lineup – vocals, guitar and piano – but it worked. The uplifting, melody-driven songs were catchy enough to attract two former bandmates of Slade’s – drummer Ben Wysocki and guitarist Dave Welsh. “Ben and I were basically a package deal at the time,” explains Welsh. “Ben joined first, but I think he felt lonely without me.”
It didn’t hurt that the boys were all consummate musicians. A pianist from an early age, King competed in the local recital circuit before dropping piano altogether and picking up the guitar in junior high. “The coolest guys in my eighth grade class all played guitar,” confides King. “I wanted to fit in.” Slade began singing when he was eight, but temporary voice problems led him to discover the piano at age 11. After regaining his vocal abilities a year later, he continued studying piano and learned guitar in high school. “I wrote my first song at 16,” explains Slade, “which is when I first picked up the guitar.” Wysocki began taking drum lessons in the sixth grade, but only after having endured piano lessons at his parents’ request. Welsh grew up in a musical household, and struggled with piano and saxophone before settling on guitar at age 12.
The lineup secure, all the band needed was a name. Jokes about the boys’ tendency to battle it out over song composition led to the suggestion of “The Fray,” and the name stuck. So did The Fray’s style – a sophisticated, emotional blend of tinkling pianos, acoustic and electric guitars, and gently insistent rhythms that serves as an ideal backdrop for Slade’s pitch-perfect, achingly beautiful vocals. The band’s first single, “Over My Head (Cable Car)”, echoes the poignant lyricism of Counting Crows and the melodic intensity of U2. The title track, “How To Save A Life”, is a heartbreaking meditation on salvation inspired by Slade’s experience as a mentor to a crack-addicted teen. Both songs employ an epic sweep, speeding up and slowing down so effortlessly that the listener can’t help but become emotionally involved by the time the crescendo hits.
Considering the quality of songwriting involved, the band’s rise to local prominence within the span of a year doesn’t seem so implausible. In January of 2004 The Fray were no-namers trying to find gigs. By December, they were getting radio pick-up and playing sold-out shows at 500-capacity venues. Since that time the band have toured the US with bands such as Weezer and Ben Folds Five. The band are heading down for their first trip to Australia in September, 2006. |
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