Get Into The Fray

Affray is an English legal term for two or more people fighting in public whereas The Fray is a well-known American band that the public love. They're a big deal and they're in Beijing this week. We spoke to Ben Wysocki, the band's drummer, before they touched down to bring Peking's piano-rock crowd to tears.

You’ve been called the American Coldplay, how do you feel about that comparison?
It could be much worse, that’s for sure. You know its, uh, I think I really need a comparison or a frame of reference. There was a time when we were first starting out before we really got our heads around who we were and what kind of identity we had as a band. Whenever anybody would compare us to anyone else we would be like, “No, we’re our own band!” and we’d get upset about it. But it’s kind of like, like I said, there could be much worse people for them to compare us to. So we’re not complaining.

Your music has featured in several TV shows, what is your favourite use of one of your songs?
[Laugh] To be completely honest, I haven’t seen very many of the shows that our songs have been in, but I know that I don’t know if its just like something that has to do with our music or whatever but I think we tend to be so dramatic in order to write songs and whatnot that it lends itself pretty well for really dramatic shows, which is kind of funny. I think it would be a long shot if we ever got a song on the Simpsons or something like that. The good thing is all the shows that have reached out to us are really good people shows. The fact that I don’t watch them might not have anything to do with their quality. I have seen, like, a little clip or whatever of the moment that the song is in, and I must say that for as much attention as it gets, the Grey’s Anatomy spot when “How To Save A Life” was on there the first time was pretty good, for not really watching any of the show. I’ve only seen about 30 seconds of that show, and its really pretty good producing.

How do you save a life?
Oh man, I have no idea. [Laugh] You know that song is kind of written hypothetically, a little bit tongue-in-cheek, you know its kind of like… the song pretty much speaks to the fact that there isn’t really one way to do that and you don’t really know how and sometimes its not about the question or the answer as much as it is watching, you know watching alongside somebody in a journey, trying to figure everything out. In short, we have no idea how to do it; we were just writing a song about trying to help somebody out.

What’s the toughest crowd you’ve ever played to?
New York and LA seem to be pretty tough. At least they were when we were starting out because the only people who came out were business or label people who see shows for a living so they would stand in the back with their arms crossed and judge us silently. Since then, it’s kind of like; those towns and bigger cities are always tougher because there’s more going on in that city. They have concerts come all the time so you sort of have to prove yourself. It’s kind of fun for us because you have to work for that. There are some crowds in big music cities that will always be like that. For some reason in the States it’s different. When we get overseas or in almost any other country we don’t really run into that. In the States you kind of have to earn it when you are playing for a crowd of hipsters in New York or music people in Nashville. There’s always a different air to it. But we accept the challenge.

What song do you wish you had written?
The first one that comes to mind is really somewhat cliché because its been covered so many times, but Hallelujah by Leonard Cohen. It’s a really timeless song. I somehow think I would be pretty proud of that.

Have you ever covered Hallelujah?
No we haven’t, I don’t know if we ever will. I’m only one man, so I can’t speak for all of us. But if it were really up to me, I think I would leave that alone. It’s already been covered really well. And its been covered really poorly, so I’ll let that be…

Which song would you most like to cover?
We just now stumbled upon a song that I always thought would be really good for us to cover, we kind of just by accident started playing around with Wicked Games by Chris Isaak. It’s a song that we never really hear on the radio. Isaac would sing it really well. Dave [Welsh] got a new guitar last month and he was playing the guitar part during sound check and we just started jamming out. So I think when we come over there to Asia that might be something we work into the show but it didn’t really work out that way. We all have grand additions of songs, like, “That would be a great song to cover,” and it sounds horrible and actually a really rough, terrible idea. But I think this is shaping up to be kind of nice so we’ll see what happens.

What’s the most rock and roll thing you’ve ever done?
Oh boy, we don’t really have the reputation of being really one up and ruckus, but this one thing, I’m not really proud of it, but I did vomit in a rental car. It was because of a cigar that I inhaled and I wasn’t supposed to. It had very little to do with alcohol- but I’m not defending myself. Anyways, it seems like those are the kind of things that happen rarely in “Frayville” but it seems like those things happen to real rock bands all the time. Maybe that might be the most rock thing that I’ve ever done, you’ll have to talk to the other guys about their stories.

What would you be doing if you weren’t in a band?
If I weren’t in a band I’d probably be somewhere else wishing I that I was in a band. Or sitting around playing music in my basement. Music has always been my thing. My wife always jokes with me that I need to find a hobby so that when I’m not playing music I don’t go crazy. I think that if I was doing something completely different I might study to be an architect or something totally left field. But at this point it would be pretty hard for me to get away from music.

Who’d win a fight out of you guys, Coldplay and Keane?
Well Will Champion looks like a pretty big guy, as far as rumors go, he looks like he’d be a tough play. But I don’t know, Rich (Richard Hughes) can be pretty aggressive. We’re sort of like weenie American suburban kids so I don’t know. I might have to give that one to Coldplay because they have age and experience and they’ve probably had to fight other bands before. We would forfeit to them.

What’s the strangest inspiration you’ve ever had for a song?
A YouTube video of a belly dancer, which turned into a song somewhat about Claire – the beauty of a woman, simply put. Although that isn’t a very strange concept, it ended up being new territory for Fray lyrics. So at the time it was strange.

Do you have any scars? How did you get them?
I don’t have any really big awesome ones, but I have one small little scar on my forehead from when I was riding my bike and fell over the handlebars. But it’s pretty small and I’d have to point it out, you would have to look close and that would be embarrassing. That’s about it. But Joe has a really big one that is kind of cool from when he went rock climbing. That’s the one scar in the band that represents us.

Catch The Fray perform at Tango on Wednesday November 14. Tickets will set you back RMB 260 at the door, or RMB 200 in advance.

Photos: Butterfliesintheparadise & Zimbio.com