DECATUR – Four-time Grammy nominated band, The Fray, is coming to the Devon Lakeshore Ampthitheater as part of its 2025 tour The Fray is Back. Morning Edition host Kimberly Schofield spoke with The Fray’s guitarist, David Welsh, about the band’s success and comeback.
WELSH: The drummer, Ben and I have known each other since we were in fourth grade, and started playing together when we were in sixth grade, covering as many pop-punk songs of the day as we could in his basement. And so, yeah, I think it just became like that was a fun thing to do. When it came time to looking at colleges, I entertained the idea of Berklee College of Music out in Boston, but honestly, I don’t think I could hack it technically.
SCHOFIELD: That’s an intense school.
WELSH: Yeah, mad, mad props to everybody who can go there, and does go there, it’s legit. I couldn’t have, couldn’t have made it. So, yeah, I think kind of opted for a traditional college path at the University of Colorado. And concurrently, the band was starting to play a lot more, and we got signed basically halfway through my first year. And so now I’m the dad who tries to tell his 10-year-old that college is really important while having not gone to college.
SCHOFIELD: I understand. We have to take our own paths.
WELSH: We do.
SCHOFIELD: What was it like when you started having people reach out about your music being on series like The Vampire Diaries or Grey’s Anatomy? Did you ever think that your music would spread to more types of media?
WELSH: No, I mean, I think we were, we were very lucky. It was a time and place sort of thing. I think we grew up even in a time where, you know, if your idols were people like Eddie Vedder, or something, and Pearl Jam, selling out to the TV show was what you didn’t want to do. But even just the few years that we were starting to do it consistently and attempting to make a go of it, that whole attitude changed about it, and it started to be viewed as an opportunity that if you were given, which were few and far between, you couldn’t pass up. The requests started to come in here and there, and the Grey’s Anatomy thing was just something that felt more like a roller coaster than anything. It was a request that felt the same as all the others, and obviously, now, in hindsight, had an outsized influence.
SCHOFIELD: When you are on tour now for The Fray is Back…it has the EP. So is that tour going to be focused on those songs or are you going to bring back music that has been part of The Fray since the founding?
WELSH: Yes. Yes and yes. This spring is the extension, a bit, of the fall. We had an EP, that’s what it was called, but it was really a just, ‘hey, you know, we didn’t go away forever, here we are’ sort of tour. And right now it’s kind of in the process of morphing into a bit of a hybrid between what the anniversary tour later this summer will end up being and this sort of current, kind of pushing a little, of the EP. Also starting to dust off some of the old songs that we haven’t played in 15-20 years. That’s basically the show that people can see right now.
SCHOFIELD: Are there themes or styles that are similar in The Fray is Back…in this EP…that people will recognize if they listened when initial albums came out?
WELSH: Yeah, I think so. The three of us are still musically the same three people at our core that we were, although, I mean, there’s been plenty of time for us to grow and taste change and, you know, actually practice our instruments and get better and all that stuff. And I think from a songwriting perspective, you know, the themes are still rooted in personal experiences. So those change somewhat as far as the content, but it’s still, you know, write what we know and write what we see and experience.
SCHOFIELD: It is impactful. My cousin’s kid, when he was about six, I remember he would say, “Can I listen to the song ‘I found God on the corner of First and Amistad’?” That’s what he just called the song. And so it’s always amazing to me when not just the title of the songs by The Fray, but even just the lyrics and the lines are really impactful for people in whatever way. Even, you know, a six year old child who knows no better, this is what he wants to hear and this is what he knows. It’s amazing.
WELSH: Yeah, it is. No, my 10-year-old could probably recite every single lyric from the top 25 pop songs right now because he’s currently obsessed with pop music for whatever reason. Even songs I don’t think that he likes – I actually think he says he does not like them – he still knows every single lyric.
SCHOFIELD: Yeah, it’s hard to avoid.
WELSH: Yeah.
SCHOFIELD: Other than the songs that have, of course, been made famous by you all and then featured, is there a song or an album that you yourself feel maybe should get more recognition or was underappreciated at all by the masses?
WELSH: The best way I can answer that is our third album called Scars & Stories did have the song “Heartbeat” on it, which I mean, you know, it was a single. But I don’t know if it’s necessarily something I think that was underappreciated. I just personally think that it sounds really good. We worked with Brendan O’Brien. He was like a bucket list sort of producer, because, you know, all of us grew up listening to Pearl Jam and, you know, Red Hot Chili Peppers and all, all of these things that he was a part of and shaped in the early, mid, late 90s. And so when he signed on to do that, it was kind of like, oh, okay, yeah. Like, pinch me, this is awesome, yeah. And he’s just really talented. And so when it came time to mixing in and doing the thing…if need be, if we’re listening to something that we want to work out, dust off an old song or something, whenever I go back to that and try and remember what I did, I am still impressed with how it sounds.
SCHOFIELD: What are people who are coming to the show excited to see?
WELSH: Judging so far from our interactions with folks in meet and greets. And, you know, the random meeting outside of a bus or whatever. It seems like people that haven’t seen us in a long time, and it’s nostalgic. There are a lot of people that are seeing us for the first time, which is kind of still very bizarre, and, you know, exciting. You meet a lot of multigenerational people in meet and greets. A daughter saying she grew up listening to us in the car seat, sort of thing, and now she wants to come see us at 19. And it’s pretty wide-ranging. I think some people go to have a good time. I think some people go to put a period on something, I think, or close the loop, and we seem to get the reactions of all of that. I think we kind of are consciously trying to make sure that there is enough dynamic in the show right now to not have it not feel too one-dimensional, you know, not too much of a party, not too much of a downer.