The Fray are again with a brand new EP, new sound and extra soul than ever earlier than [Interview]

The Fray started quietly in 2002, fashioned by Isaac Slade and Joe King in Denver’s burgeoning music scene. Their debut EP, Motion, served as an early marker of the band’s potential, drawing modest consideration past their native base. By late 2004, they’d signed with Epic Information and entered the studio to start work on what would grow to be their breakthrough.

The band’s debut album, Find out how to Save a Life, launched in 2005, swiftly expanded their attain. With singles just like the title monitor and “Over My Head (Cable Automotive),” The Fray moved from regional success to worldwide prominence. “Find out how to Save a Life” earned quadruple-platinum certification in america and reached the Prime 10 in six different English-speaking international locations. “Over My Head (Cable Automotive)” adopted with double-platinum standing in 2006, cementing the band’s place within the mainstream pop-rock panorama.

In July 2019, Slade introduced that the Grammy-nominated band can be taking a hiatus after finishing their five-album take care of Epic Information, citing a want to prioritize his psychological well being and discover new artistic paths. In March 2022, Slade confirmed his departure from the band over Instagram. 

On July 25, 2024, The Fray returned with “Time Effectively Wasted,” their first single in eight years, forward of a brand new EP titled The Fray Is Again, launched on September 27, 2024. The undertaking marks a brand new period for the band, that includes guitarist Joe King as full-time lead vocalist for the primary time—after beforehand contributing occasional lead vocals on earlier data.

Whereas the return of The Fray has been met with enthusiasm from longtime followers, it additionally raises questions concerning the band’s future sound—chief amongst them, how the absence of former frontman Isaac Slade would possibly form the group’s identification shifting ahead. To hint the trail towards what guitarist and now lead vocalist Joe King describes as a “rebirth,” I sat down with King, drummer Ben Wysocki, and guitarist Dave Welsh forward of their efficiency at San Diego’s Wonderfront Competition. What adopted was a candid dialog about artistic renewal, private development, and the way time away from the highlight helped every of them reconnect with their internal artist.

It’s actually nice to have the ability to communicate with you. I wished to know, how has your relationship to fame, your followers, and even one another modified because you’ve entered this new comeback period?

Wysocki: I feel it’s modified quite a bit. We’re slightly over 20 years into this complete factor and I feel the primary decade or so was such a blur, we by no means actually had an opportunity to catch as much as ourselves. We’re now popping out of a season of quite a lot of break day, which allowed us to comprehend why we began this within the first place, and at the very least for me, reconnect with what it felt like after I was a youngster wishing that I used to be in a band. So, it’s been necessary to have a while to replicate on that and possibly recalibrate to why this mattered within the first place. It was a sort of present. 

What do you envision for this comeback after 20 years of constructing music? Is there a brand new place or mindset you’d wish to step into creatively or musically? 

King: That’s a great query. I don’t know. I’ve a behavior of being a bit self-destructive as a author as a result of there have been occasions the place I’ve been, like, so hopeless and in my very own shadow of the previous and feeling like one of the best is behind me. It took me some time to get by way of that. Like Ben was saying, we’ve had quite a lot of time away to speak to folks and achieve perspective, which has recalibrated and reframed my mentality – it’s opened up a brand new artistic path that, as an alternative of pondering one of the best is behind us, I really imagine that one of the best work is now, and what you’re placing your self into is a very powerful work. And that’s what we’re doing. I feel we’re doing a very powerful work proper now as a band – in rebirth, find ourselves once more, and the chemistry that the three of us had is not like something we’ve ever had earlier than. There’s a lot extra for us to go. There’s locations we haven’t performed, international locations we haven’t been to, there’s followers that need to see us, and that’s an incredible feeling. 

I agree. I feel life expertise is so helpful as a author and an artist. There’s such a perception within the trade that you just do your finest work in your twenties, however that’s merely not true. I feel it’s extremely particular when you may develop up alongside your favourite artists. On the subject of change and reframing your mindset, what’s one thing you believed early in your profession that you just’ve fully modified your thoughts about?

Welsh: While you’re youthful, you’re sort of oscillating between consistently evaluating your self to what’s taking place round you and believing your personal hype. As you get slightly older, you discover that the center floor of that. The method turns into extra necessary than the work itself. Like many younger artists, there was quite a lot of concern to start with about what [the songs] are gonna imply, what’s gonna promote, all these items. However, if you happen to’re fortunate sufficient, that ultimately fades and then you definitely’re allowed to only be. 

Do you continue to really feel emotionally related to the songs you wrote 15-20 years in the past, or does it ever really feel such as you’re performing another person’s story? Does it really feel such as you’re reaching out to a previous life or a previous model of your self that you just may not acknowledge anymore?

Wysocki: I feel it’s a little bit of each truthfully. Our first album is 20 years outdated this 12 months, and that’s quite a lot of life between when these songs had been born and the place we at the moment are. So, in some methods, it does really feel like we play some outdated songs and we’re a Fray cowl band. However, that doesn’t take away from the chance to reconnect with these songs as adults. I might say the emotional connection is even deeper. The songs are like associates of ours that we’ve been bonding with and dwelling with for many of our lives. Additionally, the songs tackle a lifetime of their very own they usually did that fairly shortly. That’s one thing that none of us may’ve anticipated. So, now generally we get to expertise them like everyone else. 

I’m presently rewatching Gray’s Anatomy, which I first watched in center college over a decade in the past, and I by no means realized what number of of your songs seem within the present. How does it really feel to know that songs like “Find out how to Save a Life” have grow to be the soundtrack to so many necessary cultural touchstones in tv—and to a few of the most susceptible moments in folks’s actual lives? 

King: That’s the factor that’s so stunning about music. Songs can dwell with you and develop with you; they’ll deliver you again to a time or deliver you to a brand new place in life. You may hear issues in another way or choose up on a lyric that possibly went over your head. Again to your query about what I’ve modified my thoughts on—the trade is so constructed on numbers. Spotify is all about numbers; the month-to-month listeners are proper there. I perceive why Spotify needs to try this. Different DSPs don’t do this, and I respect that. 

It’s not concerning the charts, however I used to suppose it was. I’d be so frightened about how a tune was performing, however what you may’t measure is what it means in folks’s lives and what it’s helped them by way of. After we discuss to followers and listen to their tales, it’s only a humbling place to know that your music has helped anyone or been part of their most necessary day. So, yeah, if there’s one factor I’ve modified my thoughts about, it’s the stuff you may’t measure that issues.

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