It’s bizarre how bands end up being associated with certain things over the course of their careers. Take the Fray, the piano-driven Colorado band that gave us “Over My Head (Cable Car).” They’ve enjoyed a successful career that’s spanned 14 years and five albums, including a forthcoming greatest hits album, Through the Years, and a U.S. tour that brings them to the Orpheum Theater on Nov. 7
And the band’s two big cultural touchstones? Grey’s Anatomy and The Muppets.
The Fray had already begun to hit it big before their second single, “How to Save a Life,” played in the first season of Grey’s Anatomy, helping to take their sound global. Joe King, the guitarist-vocalist who founded the Fray with best pal/pianist/lead singer Isaac Slade and drummer Ben Wysocki when they were in church groups and school together, laughs when it’s mentioned that both his band and Grey’s Anatomy are still going strong.
“Which will go away first? That’s the bet, right?” he says. “There was a moment when the association was Grey’s Anatomy only. But if you ask if there’s an avenue for you to break worldwide, would you take it? Any artist would say yes.”
The evidence suggests King and company would have gotten pretty far without the soundtrack bump from Meredith Grey and “McDreamy.” The softer, piano-driven ballads that dominated their first disc (songs like “100” and “Look After You”) quickly gave way to a rougher, rock-oriented sound that paved the way for more recent hits like “Heartbeat” and “Love Don’t Lie.” And thus, a group that many critics initially dismissed as light and derivative has met a pope, played for multiple presidents and persevered to reach the no-fucks-given zone.
“I’m at a point in my career where I want to put out music I’m proud of,” says King. “I don’t care if goes number 10, number 2 or number 400. We’ve been on the charts before.”
Case in point: Through the Years, a 12-song effort that mostly mines the band’s earlier history and features a three-pack of new songs. King says “Singing Low,” the first single, could probably have fit in perfectly on the band’s 2005 major-level debut. But “Corners” and “Changing Tides” are a different story. “The other two are almost unrecognizable as Fray songs, except for the sound of our voices,” says King.
The band launched its tour in the Pacific Northwest, a place King calls “historically the most difficult for us to play” — apparently, the kids in Seattle and Portland tend to be less loud and demonstrative.
‘It can make you very insecure as an artist,” he says. “But this time, they were really into it. They looked so much cooler than we do.”
The band’s also discovered that they now have a multigenerational appeal. “I’ve had moms come up to me at shows with their 4-year-olds and say, “My daughter loves ‘Mah Na Mah Na,” King says, referring to the cover of the tune the band recorded in 2011 for The Muppets: The Green Album.
I mention that it’s a short step from “Mah Na Mah Na” to “Love Don’t Die,” King laughs. “They’re basically the same beat. And both recordings involved spirits.”
The Fray’s future’s a little blurrier than its present. King says he’s got 20-plus songs written and ready to record, but another studio album may not necessarily be the delivery system of choice.
“I’m just going to put songs online on a random Thursday,” he jokes. “The instant connection you can have is incredible.”
