Even if you don’t know The Fray by name, odds are pretty good you’ve heard them.
The Denver-based piano-centric rock quartet worked its way into the music spotlight by playing small gigs and gaining local admiration.
But it wasn’t until their song “How to Save a Life” was featured on virtually every program on television that they discovered the kind of success that made their 2005 album of the same name a double-platinum breakthrough. The Fray is a true multimedia success story, having used television exposure to gain ground in the online music world.
The now-multiplatinum band will play tonight and Saturday at the 5,000-capacity amphitheater at Marymoor Park in Redmond.
“How to Save a Life” is one of those poppy power ballads that sticks in your head immediately and was essentially designed to find a home in the background of a particularly poignant moment on a TV drama. It succeeded.
The band’s music was licensed in 2006 to at least one show on every major network, including NBC’s “Scrubs,” ABC’s “Grey’s Anatomy” and “What About Brian?,” CBS’s “NCIS,” CW’s “One Tree Hill and Fox’s “Bones.” It was also used in HBO’s summer promos.
All that exposure led to the band becoming one of the most downloaded and streamed groups on the Internet. The band’s first single, “Over My Head (Cable Car),” was streamed more than 1 million times in a single month on MySpace, where its has more than 300,000 “friends.” The Fray’s songs have been streamed more than 16 million times on MySpace and “Over My Head” eventually made it into the top 10 on the Billboard singles chart.
Adding to its impressive list of recognitions, which includes a pair of Grammy nominations, The Fray won all three “digital music” categories at the 2006 Billboard Music Awards. The group took home the awards for “Digital Album of the Year,” “Digital Album Artist of the Year” and “Digital Songs Artists of the Year.”
The band, which is often compared to Coldplay because that seems to be a required comparison for any current rock band that regularly uses a piano is still milking tracks from that 2005 debut. The singles “All at Once” and “Look After You” are keeping the band’s name around while fans await a follow-up album.
In addition to being compared to Coldplay, the band also draws references to Christian rock. Singer and pianist Isaac Slade has revealed the spiritual side of his music in interviews, but doesn’t want to be tagged with a label that implies more than he’d like.
“We don’t call ourselves a Christian band,” Slade told USA Today last year. “Because when you get into marketing, ‘Christian’ means that you have everything together and you’re always happy, and you want everybody to start going to your church.
“The common denominators in the music I’ve liked is the honesty of not having answers and the passion to find them. I think that’s what spiritual music has, whether it’s Christian or pop or new age. If we have an agenda, it’s to make art that is honest and represents what we believe in.”
Reporter Victor Balta: victor.a.balta@gmail.com.
James Dimmock photo
The Fray is singer and pianist Isaac Slade, guitarists Dave Welsh and Joe King and drummer Ben Wysocki.
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