Joe King The Fray Interview - Co-Writing Their Hit Songs, EP

The Fray with Joe King — THE FRAY (Joe King, pictured right)

For about a decade (from 2005 to 2014), The Fray were one of the most popular and best-selling rock/pop bands in the U.S. The band had multi-platinum success, with several Top 10 albums and singles, and built a large and loyal following. They are known for their big hits “How to Save a Life,” “Over My Head (Cable Car)” and “You Found Me.”

Over much of the past 20 years, The Fray featured lead vocalist Isaac Slade, who co-wrote the band’s hit songs with guitarist/singer, Joe King. Then in 2022, Slade suddenly decided to retire from the band, which left the other members of The Fray at a crossroads. But since then there’s a happy ending, because King, Dave Welsh (guitarist) & Ben Wysocki (drummer) have carried on, and they’ve continued to make excellent music as The Fray.

Last year (2024), The Fray made a strong return, releasing the EP The Fray Is Back, which consisted of six new songs written by the band, with King as the lead singer. Impressively King is a strong, expressive vocalist, and the band’s sound seems intact even though Slade has left the group. The new EP includ such highlights as the single “Time Well Wasted,” “Don’t Look Down” and ‘Known You Always.”

Also in 2024, The Fray returned as a live act, launching their first concert tour since 2016. Now led by King as frontman, the remaining three members (plus added musicians for the tour) played shows that were enthusiastically received by their longtime fans. They played their earlier hits plus songs from the new EP.

Now in 2025, The Fray has released a new single, “My Heart’s a Crowded Room,” which is uptempo and full of emotion. Notably, the band is finishing the recording of a new studio album, which will be their first in a decade. The group plans to release their albun early in 2026.

In addition, The Fray will be launching a major new tour this month, called the How to Save a Life 20^th Anniversary tour. Beginning on July 25 in Dallas, TX, the band will visit 20 U.S. cities plus 14 international destinations. Impressively, many of the shows have already sold out.

We are pleased to do this new Q&A interview with Joe King of The Fray. He tells how he co-wrote the band’s classic hits, and how the band has forged on and been rejuvenated, releasing their EP, going on tour, and finishing their upcoming album.

Here’s the audio of The Fray’s new song, “My Heart’s A
Crowded Room.”

DK: I read that The Fray is from Denver, Colorado and that you went to school with Isaac Slade (former member of the band). How did you meet Isaac and then later form the band?

Joe King: Yeah we’re boys from the Denver metro area, in the suburbs. When I was in high school, I was dreaming of being in a band, and I had a band at that time. We would play shows as much as we could, like at our friends’ parties. And I knew Isaac as well. He was in a younger grade than I was, but I knew he was super-talented. He was in a different, competing band, and at that time it felt like we were rivals.

Then one day I went into a music shop to check out some instruments, and I ran into Isaac there. We struck up a conversation about songwriting, and we were like, “Let’s get together next week,” and then we did. And it was immediate chemistry and fire, and we started writing our little asses off at that point, all the time. Then we started the band and played shows around Denver as much as we could, while still focusing on trying to write.

DK: After you formed The Fray and started making records, your first hit was “Over My Head (Cable Car).” What inspired you and Isaac to write that song?

King: You know, music and writing can be so mysterious—you write something and you think it’s about one thing, and in time it changes. And when you look back on it, what you thought you were writing about is not necessarily the case. It takes on a new meaning, and some lyrics will take on a new meaning.

At the infancy of that song, it was about a specific scenario, like a break in a relationship. Now looking back on that song, I relate to it in a much different ways, because it feels like we were just writing about ourselves. We were writing about the fact that the music industry is so overwhelming, and pursuing your dream is overwhelming and it’s scary. There’s no mapping it out, and you just have to jump in and you don’t know where you’re going. So I think much of it at that time was writing about ourselves and writing about what was going on internally, instead of this scenario that we were going through at the time. Like I said, songs take on new meanings.

Here’s the video of The Fray’s song, “Time Well Wasted.”

DK: After that you had your second hit, “How to Save a Life,” which has such a unique title. What was the story behind writing that song?

King: You know, I was raised with kind of a black and white world, almost linear that it’s either this or this, you’re here or there. There wasn’t much room for gray. And I got to a point where I started wrestling with a lot of questions, wrestling with the things that maybe were given to me, knowledge that was given to me. And I started to question what was real for me and what was true for me. As I was changing and learning and experiencing the world in new ways…I mean we were in a small suburb of Denver, you’re only exposed to so much. And the more you get a chance to meet people from other walks of life or go to different places you’ve never seen, it can shake you up…it can shake your perspective. And that is unsettling in a lot of ways.

I think that song really birthed from all of those questions, that maybe I don’t know. And then it became freeing that I don’t know. It became this sense of allowing wonder and curiosity to lead you, that you can discover all that there is. So the song came from a place of questions, from questioning a lot of what was perceived, what I knew, what I thought. And it came out in a song form and basically in a form of a question.

DK: You had another hit with “You Found Me.” Can you talk about writing that song?

King: To start with, I would just sing melodies without words. I think sometimes when you want a song to be about a specific thing, the more you get into it or explore a sound that comes alive, the song starts to reveal itself in a different way. And you really want that, instead of trying to control what you think it is. So “You Found Me” also came from a place of questioning, and it presented itself in a way that was surprising to us.

I grew up as a pastor’s kid, and when you’re exposed to the church in that way, inevitably you see a lot. Maybe too much…you see behind the curtain a bit. And there’s so much beauty within religion, and so much truth in religion. I think the best part of speaking of religion or church are the people, and the most challenging part about church and religion are people. Because we have a tendency…we get messy, and that comes out. So the song came out of the mess—it came out of a mess of spirituality and religion. And I think saying it was something we needed to do. We’re just writing what’s real to us, what’s authentic. It doesn’t lend itself to being like a pop song, when you’re talking about God in that way. So I was a bit shocked that it’s resonated the way it has, and apparently there’s people out there that feel the same way.

Here’s the video of The Fray’s song, “Don’t Look Down.”

DK: Then in 2022, Isaac Slade left The Fray. Can you talk about your band’s journey since then, with you, Dave Welsh (guitarist) and Ben Wysocki (drummer), and with you as the lead singer?

King: I can certainly sit down and have a two-hour conversation here on this, but I’ll give you in short, what the journey has felt like or what it was. I didn’t see this coming. You don’t anticipate change…you don’t plan on your life upending. You don’t plan on someone else falling out of love with something that you love. And there was a period of total loss of the dream and dealing with the mourning of that.

We all process loss differently…I’m sure we’ve all seen it in different ways. Sometimes people don’t show it, and there’s no right or wrong way to process loss. But one thing for sure is that it’s a reckoning, and it’s not something that is easy to go through. But if you can just keep going…if you can find a way to get through, and to see some new light and see yourselves again, that’s what we inevitably did. We started to see ourselves clearly again. We started to see us as individuals, and with my other bandmates…the way we see each other and what had to change. So there was really an allowance of each other to expand, and to step into new places and jump in fully without knowing if you’re going to sink. We jumped in and had no idea what was going to happen. And it’s like the fans were right there jumping in with us, and then we all started swimming and then it became, you know…a total celebration. Now it feels like we’re just getting started again.

DK: Last year you released your new EP, The Fray Is Back. Can you talk about the making of this EP?

King: Like I said, our writing has always been about capturing what’s happening in the moment, in the moment of time. And that EP was capturing a moment of time for this band and us as individuals, that was trying to find yourself again, and trying to find who you are again. I’m grateful for that EP in so many ways, because it signifies that even if it’s hard, even if you have no idea what’s going to happen, that you can find a way to jump back in. You can find a way to see yourself in a new light again, without an attachment to what it needs to be or where it needs to go. But just purely out of a place of… we love this, why wouldn’t we do this? We’re the ones that inevitably will say we love this enough to put it out, and that’s what we loved. And what that EP did was help establish us as a touring act again. I found a new lens to experience and to see songs, and what a song can be for a live show. And playing those songs live last fall was such a dream. It really signified a new start for this band.

Here’s a video of The Fray performing live their hit, “How to
Save a Life.”

DK: This week you’re releasing a new song, “My Heart’s a Crowded Room,” which has a unique title. What inspired you and the band to write this song?

King: “My Heart’s a Crowded Room” is the first song that the three of us wrote from the start. And it took 20 years for the three of us to find this new chemistry and this new fire…this new dynamic where we can write a song together. That hadn’t happened until this song, and the beginning of this year is when we started to do that. We got in a room and we started playing together, and see what comes alive. That song came alive and it felt great. From there, we’ve been continuing to do that again as much as we can. So that one is special for us because it signifies this band and that the three of us are in a new phase where we’re writing together.

DK: I read that you’re in the process of making a full album. How’s the new album coming along?

King: Yeah it’s coming along. We started recording at the top of the year, just taking chunks of time when we get in to write and record. We’re at the point where it’s like, “Do you like the claps in that section? Do we want to take them out? Do you want to add this little triangle?” We’re at that point of doing the final 5%, being a little crafty, which is so much fun. So we’re almost there. The plan is to release the album at the top of next year.

DK: You’re about to launch your new How to Save a Life 20^th Anniversary tour. Can you talk about this new tour?

King: Yeah it will be great. I read a quote recently that the destination is the act and it’s not necessarily the where or the getting to. And we are in the act. We are in it and that is the destination. It just happens to have this number (20^th Anniversary) or these years attached to it that has brought it to this point. These songs are their own lives…stories are attached to these songs, for us and for our fans. And to share in that in a live experience is incredibly powerful and connecting, because it takes us all on this journey of a story that we’re all sharing in one night, one city where everyone has a different story, right? But yet music has connected all of us or for the night. And that exchange of energy and exchange of story is beyond words. It’s beyond borders and it’s beyond beliefs because songs have that beauty of their own way in life. So much of this tour is like a celebration of our story. And that we get to share in that story and how songs for us that maybe came from a place of difficulty or questioning now, bring hope and now bring joy and now bring celebration to us. So we’re through it and we’re here now and we’re who we are now. So the fact that we get to share in that with our fans is a dream.