This article was originally published in The Denver Post on Sept. 29, 2006.
Denver usually measures its musical success stories by stacks of critical acclaim, but The Fray has upended that longstanding model.
The pop-rock quartet commands international attention these days with its ubiquitous single “Over My Head (Cable Car).” In four short years the band has become one of the most financially successful and visible acts our city has ever produced.
Think about it: The baby-faced quartet went from an affable group of church friends to one of the world’s most popular bands, all the while retaining its friendly demeanor and values. But the band has also refined its expectations in the face of the music industry grind.
“Nobody wants to hear the rock star whine, but the reality of it is sobering,” singer Isaac Slade said from a tour van in Germany last week. “A lot of bands don’t want to get out of Denver, but shoot man, as soon as we got out and as soon as we started touring we sort of envied bands like Opie Gone Bad. They make their money and they go home to their wives.”
Slade, who married in April, will see his wife soon. The Fray’s relentless touring ferries them back to Colorado on Saturday for a sold-out show at Red Rocks Amphitheatre. It should be a triumphant homecoming for an act that has weathered a number of storms in pursuit of success.
“There have definitely been people that we had to get past – the gatekeepers,” Slade said. “There was this guy that worked at the Gothic Theatre and I remember he was just doggin’ on all these bands while I was working there. It freaked me out that people might have all these opinions about us.”
Certainly, The Fray’s album “How to Save a Life” has received a few negative reviews, with terms like “generic soft rock” and “Coldplay-lite” lobbed at its piano-driven songs. But its stats are impressive. The ubiquitous single “Over My Head (Cable Car)” has enjoyed heavy use in TV shows like “Grey’s Anatomy,” “Scrubs” and “One Tree Hill.” It has ruled the Billboard, MTV and iTunes charts for months.
The album, which also just yielded an eponymous single, has sold about 600,000 copies to date. It was even No. 1 in Australia recently, a surreal fact not lost on the group.
“None of us expected all this to happen,” Slade said. “But it’s different for each guy in the band, which is probably why we’ve survived so long. It’s not just business, and it’s not just art.”
Formed in 2002 by Slade and former schoolmate Joe King, The Fray eventually picked up drummer Ben Wysocki and guitarist Dave Welsh from Slade’s former band. After signing their contract with Epic Records in 2004 (on stage at Boulder’s Fox Theatre, no less), the group began opening for Weezer and Ben Folds, acts that helped introduce them to wider audiences.
“It doesn’t all happen at once,” Slade said. “It’s been little teeny steps here and there. We’d be like, ‘Oh, we sold out the Fox. We sold out the Gothic!’ Little steps like that. But in hindsight the story’s crazy.”
One thing that has both formed and sustained the band is its Christian background. Those values are reflected in Wednesday’s announcement that the band would donate $35,000 to the VH1 Save the Music Foundation. The cash goes to instrumental music education programs in Denver public schools.
Slade and King were raised in straight-laced Christian environments. In a 2004 interview with The Denver Post, Slade even described his group as “sheltered little church kids.”
Being part of the industry machine hasn’t changed Slade’s feelings much.
“It has given us the international insight into the human character, but we’re pretty much still sheltered little church kids,” he said.
Still, he resists pressure from both sides to be more or less of what he is, a secular songwriter with underlying themes of redemption and hope. He has no agenda to push, he says.
“We’re really nervous to get too strongly affiliated with religion or Christianity, just as I’d be nervous to be affiliated with George Bush,” Slade said. “Our goal is not to convert the world, it’s to be musicians and do what we do. If people connect with us for a reason other than that, it usually means someone else on the opposite side is going to disconnect with us.”
Slade, who used to be in an overtly Christian band with current mates Welsh and Wysocki, had a realization while slinging coffee at Starbucks one day: By peppering his lyrics with religion, he would inherently limit the amount of people he could reach. So he began writing a new kind of song, or rather, a very old kind of song – the breakup ballad.
Since, he’s endured static from strict, conservative Christians for “wasting his talent” on a mainstream music career.
“They’re like, ‘You should go back to church,’ and I’m like, ‘Oh good, this is why we’re not a Christian band,”‘ Slade said. “It’s like it’s this radical political movement and they want us for their propaganda. I don’t want to connect to somebody because of that. I want to connect to people because they’re people.”
Staff writer John Wenzel can be reached at 303-954-1642 or jwenzel@denverpost.com.
