In a conversation with Atwood Magazine, The Fray open up about their journey as a band, brotherhood, and twenty years of their groundbreaking album, ‘How to Save a Life.’

“My Heart’s a Crowded Room” – The Fray

One of the coolest parts of music is that, if special enough, it grows with you and shapes you.

A song or album can sit with you for years or your whole life. How it affected you as a teenager could affect you in the same way a decade later. Sometimes, it can hit you in a totally different way and the message and how you perceive it changes. But that is what is so beautiful about it, it stays with you. It touches your soul and demands for it to be understood.

In 2005, The Fray released their debut album, How to Save a Life. The 45-minute record featured 12 tracks such as “Over My Head (Cable Car),” “Look After You” and the 5X Platinum title track. It paved the way for their career and quickly became the soundtrack to many beloved shows, movies and rainy-day car rides. With moving lyrics, a unique alt-rock sound and an overall feeling of warmth, The Fray connected with an entire generation in a way that felt intimate and different than any other musician. They knew how to capture the human experience and its emotions in a way that was comforting and made people feel seen and a lot less alone. Today, the album is certified 4X Platinum by the RIAA and as they come up on the album’s 20-year anniversary, the band reflects on what those early days meant to them and where they are now.

How to Save a Life - The Fray — The Fray’s seminal album, ‘How to Save a Life,’ turns 20 this year.

“If it wasn’t for what this band meant to other people, there would be no soul to this whole thing,” Ben Wysocki, drummer of The Fray, says. “It would just be us serving our own ambitions, which would dry up pretty quick.”

To honor the iconic record, The Fray – today comprised of Wysocki, Joe King, and Dave Welsh – are hitting the road for the “How to Save a Life: The 20th Anniversary Tour.” Starting on July 25 in Dallas, TX the global tour will give fans a chance to relive the music that they came to love in the early 2000s. But the tour will also feature new music the band is releasing. “It was important to us, this year specifically, to be releasing new music alongside retrospective look back to the past, and for those two sides of the coin to be the full picture, and how we represent ourselves now,” Wysocki says.

On July 18, the band released their latest single, “My Heart’s a Crowded Room.” Following 2024’s The Fray Is Back EP – which marked their first release in nearly a decade – the track marks a new era for the band, but The Fray remain true to their roots. Following a love story, the song has a hopeful upbeat and lyrics that highlight the emotional side the world has come to know the band for. Although new and different, it works in tandem with their older sound and gorgeously collides generations of music together.

“These old songs we haven’t played in 15 years represent us just as equally as this brand new one that we wrote 15 days ago,” Wysocki says.

But what has always remained important to The Fray is their fans. They continue to put them at the forefront of everything they do. Their mission started and has remained around making music for people to connect to. Wysocki explained how theirs specifically tends to take on a life of its own. As a band, they like to let the music do its thing. They view themselves more as the messengers.

“The extreme example being the song, ‘How to Save a Life,’” he said. “After a while, that’s not about us. That became not about us, very quick. We were just the ones that were supposed to bring that to other people. It’s more about them, their story and their connection to that song and its story. We try to stay out of the way and deliver it the best we can and let it do the rest.”

The Fray has grown with and stuck by their fans. As they continue to pull on the heartstrings of many, they embody nostalgia and are a prime example of what music can mean to an individual. Below, they discuss the impact of their first album, where they are at now and the vital role their fans have played throughout the past two decades.

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:: stream/purchase My Heart’s a Crowded Room here ::

:: connect with The Fray here ::

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“How to Save a Life” (Live From Summerfest) – The Fray

The Fray "My Heart's a Crowded Room" © Robby Klein — The Fray “My Heart’s a Crowded Room” © Robby Klein

A CONVERSATION WITH THE FRAY

Atwood Magazine: You're hitting the road very shortly here for the 20^th anniversary of How to Save a Life. What does this milestone and tour mean to you?

Ben Wysocki: It’s amazing. It means the world. It’s honestly kind of surreal. Celebrating any kind of milestone that involves the passing of time, it’s crazy. We all feel like we’ve gotten so much older, but at the same time, it feels like it’s been no time at all. At the 20-year mark, we’re all looking back, reminiscing and sharing some memories of where we were 20 years ago as it pertains to our first album. It’s so cliche, but it really does feel like it’s been no time at all. So, it’s surreal. We feel super honored. The biggest feeling within the band right now is just gratitude for the fact that 20 years later we can still show up into town, get onstage and people are wanting to hear these songs and wanting to celebrate that nostalgia and what that represents in their lives. So, we’re honored.

For fans that have been with you from the beginning, what are you most excited for them to see or experience on tour? What can they expect when coming to one of the shows?

Ben Wysocki: For this tour specifically, in an effort to celebrate that first album, we’re digging out a lot of the album tracks that we haven’t played in a long time. That album, being as popular as it is, there’s maybe five songs that we have played a lot over the last 20 years, but the rest of it has been put on a shelf. Over the last couple months, we’ve been refamiliarizing ourselves with the rest of the songs and we’re really excited to play those older songs that haven’t seen the light of day for a while. The primary focus of the show is to celebrate and give some time to those songs and then contrast that with some brand-new songs that are only a few months old. These old songs we haven’t played in 15 years represent us just as equally as this brand new one that we wrote 15 days ago, so it’ll be a pretty high contrast show.

Is there a song in particular you are excited to play that you haven't played in a long time? Or are you excited to dive into all of them?

Ben Wysocki: There’s one song in particular that I think in rehearsals this last week we were all a little surprised by, and that’s the song called “Dead Wrong.” It’s definitely an album track. It was never a single and kind of a song that some people forgot about. But as we were listening to the first album and talking about what songs to play from it, as we were rehearsing that one, it surprised us all. We feel like now, as musicians who have matured and improved over the last 20 years, we’re playing that song better than we ever have. It’s taking on a new life in the context of this year and where the band is now. So that was a pleasant surprise.

While talking about the 20^th anniversary, where have you seen the band grow the most within its time and how have you stayed true to yourselves throughout these years?

Ben Wysocki: It’s interesting. Our perspective on the band, it’s easier to view it as something that’s outside of us. Even though we make it up, it’s like the band is a different, whole other thing that we experience, interact with and are accountable for. There’s been a lot of individual growth for sure as band members. A lot of life that has passed. Even relationally, the brotherhood between the members, a lot of that has grown and changed. But I think the biggest thing is just seeing how The Fray with a capital “F,” this thing, this other entity that we interact with, has evolved and stayed true and important for the fans. Through all of it, that’s what’s grounded us. Changes in career highs and lows, changes in creative endeavors, changes even in personnel and lineup in the band, the one thing that’s stayed true, that’s grounded us to this whole thing, is the fans and the fan interaction. It sounds so cliche, but it really is true, if it wasn’t for what this band meant to other people, there would be no soul to this whole thing. It would just be us serving our own ambitions, which would dry up pretty quick.

Throughout the years, are there any fun memories with the band that stick out to you?

Ben Wysocki: There’s so many. We’ve had so many highs and lows. I’ve known Dave since we were in the fourth grade, and Joe since junior high. We have so much personal history, even before the band started. We’ve lived our whole lives together. For the last 20 years, that’s revolved around this band that’s morphed from being a dream. Our goals were originally to sell a certain amount of records or get on TV, and now it more so feels like it’s taken on a life of its own and we are just trying to catch up to it. But so many memories, too many to count. This is super random, but I’m going to throw him under the bus and share this one story. One time, we were flying internationally. Joe had some medication for, I don’t know what, and some sleep aid medication as well because we were on some super long flight. I think we were in Spain. He got them mixed up. He meant to take his medication in the morning and took his sleeping pill. So, we were trying to walk through the airport in Madrid and Joe was literally falling asleep. We had him on a luggage cart with all of our guitars and cymbals, trying to wheel him through the Madrid airport, which looked more rock and roll than it actually was. It was pretty hilarious, but we got a good laugh out of that. There’s been a whole lifetime of memories. It’s kind of hard to sum it up. We’re so grateful to be still in it.

What is it like to release new music such as “My Heart's a Crowded Room” while still reflecting and reminiscing on the old?

Ben Wysocki: It’s like I said earlier in the context of the show, that feels like the whole picture for us right now. When we were talking about this anniversary year, what felt important to us was not only looking back and reminiscing on the past, but to do that in the context of where we are today, that felt more interesting to us. Given the people that we are today, the band that we are now, what does the past look like through that lens? It was important to us, this year specifically, to be releasing new music alongside retrospective look back to the past, and for those two sides of the coin to be the full picture, and how we represent ourselves now. It’s so exciting. “My Heart’s a Crowded Room” is the first song we’re releasing from this new project we’re working on. But it also feels like it represents a whole new era for us. Last year, we released an EP of some songs that were the first bit of music that we had released in a long time, after some significant changes for the band, after significant time off. So, that felt like a warmup, like a preview. And once we did that, then we really started digging into some more new music and exploring different ways of collaborating.

That song, we were in LA working with this friend of ours, a producer named Jason Suwito, and it was one of the first times we had created something completely from scratch. Usually when we’re writing and demoing songs, there’s at least an idea that somebody will bring, or a little snippet of something. Having been professional musicians for so long, you’d think that we would know how to do that, but it was such a funny, awkward moment. We’re all sitting at our instruments like, “Okay, how do we start from scratch?” And we just started playing something and reacting to each other’s ideas. It was a very organic and fluid process. That song was birthed in an afternoon and the next day we sort of finished it up. It felt important to not overthink it and just like, “Okay, that feels true for who we are today after all these years, what’s led us here. That’s what’s coming out of us, and we have to trust it.” So, we’re super excited. It feels awesome to play live. It has so much youthful energy that is important to us right now.

And that's gotta be so rewarding, too. To have a different creative process and see how it all comes to fruition.

Ben Wysocki: Yeah, even the hook lyric, the title lyric, “My Heart’s A Crowded Room,” Joe, usually with lyrics, there will be some mumbling and stuff that doesn’t make sense at first. Then, there’ll be a process of finishing and filling in the blanks. But as we were playing through and jamming these musical ideas, he just sort of said those words and that line. So, then there was a process of trying to evaluate what that meant. He said it without really thinking about it. Then it’s like, “Wait, what does it mean?” There’s a lot of conversation around what that represents, what those words feel like, what that means, what the visuals are. So, it was fun to work backwards that way.

That's music, right? Trying to figure out the meaning and how it connects with everyone, too.

Ben Wysocki: Totally, yeah! It already existed. We just discovered it and had to decode it.

And something The Fray has always excelled at, in my personal opinion, is the stories you tell within your music and the way it connects with people. Is it hard to be vulnerable when creating music, knowing so many people listen to it? Or does it fuel the energy of wanting to get it out even more?

Ben Wysocki: I’d say both. No one ever wants to be vulnerable. That’s not a comfortable thing for anybody. You don’t wake up in the morning like, “Okay, I’m gonna bear my soul for everybody today.” But it’s, like you said, the fuel. It is necessary. The spirit of this band and the songs that we write, but more so that resonate with other people, are those songs that are nothing but true and honest. And so yeah, it is. It is hard. I’ve never been a primary lyricist for the band, but it’s allowed me to have this outside perspective of that process. And then for a certain while, I kind of referred to this earlier, but the songs take on a life of their own which helps. And if you’re able to stay out of the way, then you’ve birthed this thing and been the conduit for something to come into existence. After a while, you step back and let it do its thing and there’s a comfort in that. There’s a comfort in being separate from it. Otherwise, if you’re all wrapped up in it all the time, it can be pretty overwhelming. The extreme example being the song, “How to Save a Life.” After a while, that’s not about us. That became not about us, very quick. We were just the ones that were supposed to bring that to other people. It’s more about them, their story and their connection to that song and its story. We try to stay out of the way and deliver it the best we can and let it do the rest.

While it's fun to reflect on the past and the present, what is something you are looking forward to in the future with the band?

Ben Wysocki: I personally am really excited to keep discovering the new music and what The Fray sounds like now. There’s been so much life that’s happened for us as individuals and for the band and so many changes. As we dig into making new music, I’m excited to hear what the result of all that change and growth in life is. We don’t really know until we start. The sound of “Crowded Room” wasn’t really purposeful. It was just what was coming out. So, I’m excited to keep discovering what the band sounds like now. We’ll keep working on this record this year, between breaks on tour and such. We’ll be back in the studio in the fall. I’m excited to dig in, like being an archeologist, brush away some more sand and see what’s under there.

So exciting! Is there anything else that you would really like to share about this tour or music wise that maybe you've not been asked about?

Ben Wysocki: I think the only thing is just to reiterate that we feel so grateful for the fans that still make this really crazy and incredible job possible for us. We could have all the craziest plans and ambitions ourselves, but it takes people buying tickets and coming out and engaging. We feel so grateful. To whoever’s reading this, please know you’re appreciated, and we can’t wait to get out there, see the fans again and get on stage in front of everybody. We’re grateful

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