The Fray
The Denver piano-rock band whose earnest, mid-tempo anthems were the sound of mid-2000s radio and every emotional TV montage of the era. "Over My Head" broke them; "How to Save a Life," supercharged by Grey's Anatomy, made them huge.
The Fray formed in Denver, Colorado in 2002, built around former schoolmates Isaac Slade (vocals and piano) and Joe King (guitar), who reconnected and started writing songs together. Their sound — mid-tempo, piano-driven pop-rock and power ballads, frequently compared to British acts like Coldplay and Keane — landed them a deal with Epic Records.
Their 2005 debut album How to Save a Life produced back-to-back hits: "Over My Head (Cable Car)" reached #8 on the Billboard Hot 100, and the title track "How to Save a Life" went to #3. The band's rise was turbocharged by television — "How to Save a Life" was featured on a Grey's Anatomy episode that aired March 19, 2006, and became central to the medical drama's marketing, cementing the song, and the band, as shorthand for mid-2000s emotional catharsis.
For a few years The Fray were everywhere earnest guitar-and-piano music was needed. They embodied a specific mid-2000s lane of radio-friendly, feelings-forward rock, and while their later albums never matched that debut's ubiquity, "How to Save a Life" and "Over My Head" remain fixtures of the era's playlists.
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