Who’s a Frayed of cable cars?

I was sitting in the john one Friday afternoon, deep in contemplation. I was pondering the reasons for man’s existence on this earthly plane. I was a hairsbreadth away from the answer when my phone rang and shattered my train of thought. It was time for my interview with Isaac Slade, lead singer of pop-rock band The Fray. A soft, friendly voice greeted me on the other line. He had just woken up, and was in Berlin. According to him, there are two stories about how they picked their band name. One is a fake, and it’s the one in most of their biographies. It goes like this: The band had a penchant for arguing a lot during their songwriting sessions, and people started making jokes about it. Those jokes ended up with the suggestion that they be called "The Fray," and the name stuck. What really happened was they played at the graduation party of Slade’s brother, and they didn’t have a name. "We put out a fishbowl and called out, ‘If anyone has any name suggestions, print it down on a piece of paper and submit them,’ and The Fray won," Slade admits. "We fight a lot, everyone has their two cents to put in, and someone said, ‘Wow, that’s what The Fray means! Let’s tell everyone that’s the reason behind our band name!’"

Their music is like a finely woven tapestry. Everyone in the band has a musical background: as children they all knew how to play the piano. During song composition, even drummer Ben Wysocki has a lot of melodies to contribute. Their most interesting songwriting session was the first recording of Over My Head (Cable Car). "We did Cable Car in about eight hours, we didn’t have a bridge, we didn’t have a second half, and we were about to get kicked out, since the owner was really pissed off, us bringing our own producer instead of hiring his producer for a really cheap price and all. He sat us down and said, ‘I’d like you to leave, please.’ We said, ‘We really want to record this song, we feel it’s going to be strong,’ and he said, ‘Nope!’

"He kicked us out. Our producer, a detective/cop sort of guy, talked him into letting us stay for another six hours. So we went into overdrive, finished the bridge real quick, and I was sitting there seriously scribbling down on a piece of paper. This was a song we would end up singing at least 5,000 times. It was very rushed." Slade never really imagined they would get so far. His biggest goal originally was to sell out the theater where he used to work; it could hold around 1,300 people if fully packed. "That was the most I imagined myself getting. I used to work with bands like Nickelback and others, some of them were really cool, some were total jerks. I made a little pact with myself, saying, ‘If I ever come back here and make it big, I’m going to ask the name of every single person who works here,’ and sure enough we were back there six months after we won Best New Band, and I was like, ‘Perfect! Okay! We’re done! That’s it!’ Then I wanted to work at Starbucks and graduate college. Then all of this stuff started happening, we got on Leno, went platinum, and all sorts of other crazy things that I never set out to do. We’re really hanging on for dear life right now," says Slade.

When asked whether he believed in destiny, he replied that he believes in a planner. "Somebody somewhere knows what’s going on, and we’re just putting the pieces together." Before he started The Fray, he, the drummer, and guitarist Dave Welsh were in a previous band together. They played Christian music. When I heard that, I was shocked. "We broke up because we sucked, no one was coming to our shows. No one liked our music. We didn’t like our music. Honestly, the songs were church- specific. It used Christian vocabulary. The lyrics were Christian ideas that a lot of normal people didn’t connect with. I didn’t connect with it at all. I was singing other people’s ideas. I remember the first song I wrote, it was soon after I broke up with my girlfriend, and I was like, I want to write a song. But I don’t want to write a song about her, it was a personal experience. I know what! I’ll sing about God," reveals Slade.

If he suddenly died, but had the chance to choose anyone on the entire face of the planet to replace him, he’d pick Ryan O’Neal, the singer for Sleeping At Last, because he has a "great voice" that’s "really genuine." Yet, he wouldn’t collaborate with him if he had the chance due to the fact that he respects O’Neal too much. However, he would gladly collaborate with Adam Duritz, the vocalist of Counting Crows. Slade says, "Adam is one of those rare songwriters who could be a novelist if he wanted to, and he has the voice to go along with it. He has these four-minute books that he puts into his albums. They have plot, they have character development, totally beyond belief." He’s slightly scared of riding in cable cars. "I grew up in Denver, went skiing a lot, and we have gondolas that we call cable cars. They’re really high up, like 30 meters off the ground. Up in the mountains, there was a cable car accident. It’s really sad. One of the cables broke, so there was a whole string of cable cars just bouncing up and down like a wave, some of them swung all the way down to the ground and started catapulting things into the air. People died. So ever since I was a little kid, I’ve been slightly scared of cable cars." In fact, part of the song Over My Head (Cable Car) came from a relatively strange dream. "I was coming out of the bathroom, and some guy was saying, ‘Eight seconds left in overtime,’ and I was like, ‘Weird, okay.’ Then I woke up. I think I dreamt of it because I don’t play sports at all."

If he had to be reborn in another time, he’d be 20 years old in 1920. "I’d love to play with Billy Holiday or Benny Goodman. Those guys were gone by the ‘40s, but they played awesome music. Also, prohibition didn’t kick in until the ‘30s, so I’d be safe for another 10 to 15 years." When asked about how he felt in the days before the release of their album, "How To Save A Life," Slade says they were really nervous. "We felt like something ominous was coming, like this storm cloud was bringing a hurricane six months from now. We had all just quit our jobs, we were starting to tour but nobody was coming up to see our shows, the worst show of our life had three girls down on the floor, three girls up in the balcony, and the drummer’s grandpa and grandma. We asked ourselves, ‘Why are we doing this?’ During the days before our album release, we felt like we were standing on this big concrete parking lot, and we had this rope tied to our feet, and it was tied to this huge rocket counting down, and we were like, ‘What’s that? Oh, no!’ And then the thing took off, and we were just holding on for dear life."

Isaac Slade is a family man, or at least he tries to be. "People always ask us, ‘What would be your dream holiday?’ We’re married, we’ve got kids, our dream holiday is to go home and spend time with our families. I love cooking with my wife. She’s an amazing cook. Whenever I’m home, that’s what I love doing. We hop on my motorcycle and pick up food ingredients from all around the city, then go back, try these crazy recipes, and eat it."

Isaac Slade was very friendly, and didn’t give off any stuck-up celebrity vibes. He seemed very comfortable with who he was. Deep down, I think he’s just an ordinary guy with an extraordinary gift. That combination of skill and humility is very rare indeed. I could learn a few things from this guy in humility. God knows I need it.