The Fray

Part 1

0:00Did you see the Yeah, good movie. Yeah, exactly. I think that kind of turned us into really I like the S&M stuff. Yeah, that's cool with the symphony. Would you ever do that do a show with the symphony? Have you been out? We've done stuff like with the quartet before okay cool Oh, yeah for a man Wilbur Yeah, that's cool. Yeah, you're working on new material. Would he produce something new for you? I think that's I'm pretty cool to you working together I don't know together very much. Okay, I mean, you know, I think you're at that stage those a band where you can pretty much get anyone to produce the next record If you want

0:48Please Have you seen Grey's Anatomy? It's interesting you mentioned that cuz well obviously it was gonna come up right I Talked to Ben. I was telling you in troubadour probably about a year ago So before you know cable car was big but I mean not not the way things happened over the summer must have just been like one How old trip for you guys? Fast for us you're playing amphitheaters this summer Couple couple years and we've all gotten married and Joe had a second kid a lot of big changes and span it in the 20 months Yeah

1:37You know a couple of songs on the record are pretty old now like Vienna's what 2002 or something like that like 100 is pretty old too What's what's the deal with new material you guys working on stuff the records now for what two years now something like that? Almost a year and a half year and a half New material slow-coming It's it's just a totally different animal to try and find time to not only time mental time and actual You know physical time during the day to write new songs and practice them Especially when you're kind of you know like the tour run now is just kind of a hodgepodge rolling tour of a few random Random we like this country cities Random Vegas dates a London date go to Arizona and play a date and then come home

2:23It's like you know yeah when they wrapped yours I think wrapped yours like that it becomes a little difficult to not the strain on you guys too refreshed enough to write so but Theoretically after the summer start to write more intensively Perhaps Years the new years beginning right Interesting happened on this last break it was our first significant break into years The eternity of rest I went to see 300. I've been home for a week or so also real recently. Yeah, it was last And I came home and I looked at my guitar and I wanted to play it and I sat down and I started strumming it And I actually started writing which is totally rare these days because we're so so So

3:09Songs and I'm playing music and generally you know says it's it's like the challenge. That's weird I did the same thing no way me and grad man had a very intimate day Right there you go. I called Greg next time. I was like mr. Manager. Here's the formula get us off the road We'll write me through there you go. Any stuff coming up in the set list at all a couple yeah Who really knows if they'll end up on the album yeah, but for now I think they're There are moments for us to keep saying because there's there's still new for us and their moments for the audience to kind of Take a mental break and rest from the songs that they've heard They're still digging them though sold out shows everywhere right yeah, it's great You know as much as we think that man fans must just be sick. You know we still sell tickets

3:59It's a it's crazy. Yeah if I were fan I can't stand what we show Let's cuz you hear the songs every day day in day out right so But I bet you some of these people do too and yet they're still here so who goes to the probably already by the tickets now They bought him two months ago thinking they wouldn't be sick of us and now they are You guys doing any covers in the live shows I know you did Elmer Ruby for that script music thing which sounded really great I think I think tonight we might bust out a cover. Yeah CCR what's the home? There you go. Yeah, that'll sound good with you guys I like how you're doing with the grand piano. I saw it on stage I figured it just be you know this little box keyboards or whatever but

4:46No, I really think it has really possible. It's definitely digital keep it as real as it really People need to know that. No, this one's it's just a gigantic digital feel it just looks cool. Yeah, it has like sounds good though Yeah, sounds great nice Playing with Dave Matthews band a couple weeks. You make something open for the rolling stones I didn't know it until yesterday. It was scheduled that didn't happen. Oh, that's why I'm Make your heart. We're literally driving from Some city to some other city. I don't even remember where it was on the East Coast somewhere. Yeah, it's Atlantic City That's where we play and we were halfway there if not closer and We just got a call from our tour manager Who was Pat the venue already said enough well might as well turn the bus around cuz

5:35Mick Jagger got sick called off the show Yeah, well, I would be too man There must be heroes of yours are they looking for Their heroes Please music. We're gonna be in place somewhere. You're at least five times as old as my grandpa's here Yeah, yeah, I mean I'm a hero my grandpa's my hero. Okay, and they're my grandpa's here so they're they're my grandfather heroes Yes, but it's a story Yeah, cool you gonna play any of his songs everything about that you get shot. Yeah We could maybe cover one of his songs before he plays I don't know fast we get boot up the stage you get you get mom

6:26Who's playing bass right now if he goes there's Dan how long to do it with you? So no Jimmy left for you something right one one show one show wow Yeah Funny thing about the CCR cover is that he had never played it with us before last night Before the show. Yeah, I like even rehearsal sound check like we were at dinner. Well, we should probably play coverage And I'm like we didn't practice one with you. Did we no? Why would we do this one anyway? Oh, okay, so we threw him in the lion's den he worked it was awesome These were some people think the song dude dude Mentally you stick around for a while you think

7:15We're out of time what's the players yeah We're trying to finish a month. We're kind of like coming into the end of the record cycle So you can go back into the studio this fall But one you play bass or would you bring someone in in the studio? Yeah, we'll bring some more and most of the songs you write bass driven You know we get most of the song and bring somebody in and Cool even do a McCartney done some song just piano play the bass notes on that do something like that We both Ask everybody in five questions five quick questions just one word answers I plot our CDs CDs Latin or McCartney Yeah, alcohol or marijuana

8:02I'll call song you've written your most proud of yeah What's on Vienna? Oh, okay? Yes, cool, okay, and I had one word the fray I heard the vibrate Distracted maybe distracted yes vibration Can't find a off button. It's just gonna keep vibrating cool

Part 2

0:00Hey, it's Matt Schichter with MSN. We're here at the Opera House in Toronto. We're gonna go in there and talk to the fray. They have a new record out called Scars and Stories. It's out February 7th. It's phenomenal. We'll talk to them a little bit about how they may have spent some of their record companies money on traveling as well to make their record. We'll go inside the Opera House. We'll talk to the fray. Well, thanks guys. Thanks for what you're doing this. You're welcome. So, when did you have time to make this record? I just saw you at Edmonton like six months ago with you two. Actually, we were right in the middle of making the record. It took a break to tour with you two because that's what you do. Yes, one asked, of course. And, yeah, we spent about a month after that and finished it up last summer.

0:47Did they, did being on the road with them change anything sonically with the record? Did you see anything? And be like, oh, we got to do stuff like that. Yeah, there was a song called that turned me on. It was really fast. We were trying to be kind of, I don't know if we were trying to be Foo Fighters, but if we were, we were failing. So, we went back to the studio after we played it in the stadium. And just wasn't working. So, we slowed it down and made it a little more al green. Baby making music. And that's how it came out on the record. I'm hearing from a lot of reviews that this record doesn't have as much baby making music. So, talk about the difference in wanting to maybe change it up a little, to make it a little heavier this time. I don't think we made a conscious effort to make it heavier. We certainly worked with a rock producer. You know, Brendan O'Brien has done a lot of our favorite rock records. So, I think that affected it.

1:36Well, we just set out to hopefully make a better record, but I think it, by working with somebody different, having someone different than Mix, it just naturally kind of, there's different energy. And at times Brendan had a lot more confidence in us than we did. And that was really contagious. So, then we kind of just adopted a whole new confidence that translated into it, sounding heavier, more aggressive, whatever. But this time that was just done more confidently. How was the guitar working Dave? Joe? There was a lot of it, for sure. Which is great. Turn him up. Yeah, we turned him up. We used big amps. I bought big amps. That's great. Have you ever recorded on Marshall before? No, this was the first record with Marshall.

2:23Really? How come? Just because Brendan was like, what do we try? He was like, hey, go plug into that Marshall over there. Okay. And then I haven't turned back since. And then you bought one. And Joe, you played bass on some of it too? Yeah, some of them. We approached some of the songwriting a little bit differently. We'd get in a room and just kind of experiment on different instruments. Just a few of the songs I picked up bass, and I just kind of jammed it in the studio. I went to that world. So personally, I'd always written on guitar. For this record, I started writing on different instruments. Different synths or keyboards or organs. And then that would just bring out different melodies versus just your regular kind of guitar-based song. But then they turned into kind of guitar songs. So it was just, it's unique how it came together.

3:11What's also unique is that some of the songs were road tested. You had a chance to play what about six of them on the road before the record even got written. So you wrote half it in the studio. Half it got written beforehand. How did they mold sonically? Did you try and create songs that sounded like the ones that you'd already been playing? Well, actually Joe had an idea in the beginning to spend some of our budget on travel. And just spent some of Sony's money. Right. In different places besides Denver. So we went all over the place. Went to New York and New Orleans and out to Africa. So we wrote a lot of different locations and kind of went with that mentality to sort of collect images and inspiration. And I think that made its way into the songs and into the recording process. We'd come back with a bunch of different ideas and the guys would kind of sit down and listen to them.

3:57Like this, like this, don't like this and just start with one. So it was different for us. I liked it a lot. Who came up with the Ooh in heartbeat? The thing that hooks everybody every time they hear it? I had an initial Ooh. And then Joe didn't like the melody. So he made it higher. And that is the Ooh that you have come to know. Higher. So how's it singing live? Good. It's higher. It's higher. It is the first single. You didn't want it to be the single though. You want to run for your life. You want to lower song to be the first single. Well, there's always a great debate every record, at least every of our three records that we've put out. That you don't want to hit him too hard with some big huge rock song, but you also want to be kind of

4:44fray about it. So we really let the energy kind of lead it. And I'm really excited about run for your life. I think from a songwriting standpoint, from a lyrical standpoint, it's going to be awesome to put that out. We do something that's called Five Questions. Five Quick Questions. One more dancers. Road or Studio? Studio. Studio. Landon or McCartney? Landon. Landon. Song you've written your most proud of. Say what? That's two words. That is two words, but that doesn't matter. That's okay. That's a lot. Most important thing in a song, lyrics, melody or rhythm. Oh no. Lyrics.

5:30And in one word, the fray. Yep. Yeah.