Frayday

Christmas came early this year for the Fray. Unless you've been holed up on your couch playing Guitar Hero II for the past week, you're undoubtedly aware that Denver's biggest musical export -- the pariah of many a vitriolic MySpace-blogging pundit and assorted message-board-posting player haters in the scene -- has been nominated for two Grammy awards.

When I talked to Joe King last Thursday night, the band was on a layover in Chicago, heading to a gig in Nashville. They'd gotten the news earlier that day, from frontman Isaac Slade, on a flight from London.

The Grammy nomination announcement had yet to be made when the bandmembers boarded their plane that morning. Just before takeoff, Slade covertly worked his BlackBerry and then, completely poker-faced, approached King and his bandmates -- guitarist David Welsh and drummer Ben Wysocki -- to break some disappointing news. "He was like, 'Well, we didn't get any nominations. Guess next year's the year,'" King recounted. "He was like, totally serious, you know? I totally believed him, because he's the guy who usually doesn't do stuff like that. I would do that, but he's not a jokester. So I didn't know what to say. I was crushed; my heart sank. And Dave was like, 'Are you serious? That sucks.' He probably played it out for like twenty or thirty seconds. And then he's like, 'Ah, just kidding. We got two nominations.' We all stood up and hit him and hugged each other and started cheering.

"The stewardess was getting mad at us because we were blocking the aisle, and she didn't know what was going on. It's the biggest honor that a musician can get, especially considering the company that we're in -- U2, Green Day, the Chili Peppers? And then the fact that we're nominated for two different songs?"

One of those songs, "Over My Head (Cable Car)," had garnered the act an invitation to perform on the Tonight Show With Jay Leno back in February. I'd flown out to Los Angeles to catch that performance, as well as a date the next night at the Troubador. At the time, the ubiquitous single from How to Save a Life, the Fray's major-label debut, was already a bona fide hit locally and making its way up the charts. I'd been covering the Fray since the fall of 2003, when the boys played an awkward set at the Climax Lounge in front of a sparse crowd of ringers obligated to cheer for them by bloodline. And as I sat in the Tonight Show audience, watching those same guys deliver a performance that would be seen by millions of viewers, part of me thought that things couldn't get any better.

The next morning, King and I sat down in his Hollywood hotel room and talked about a number of things, including the Grammys -- which, coincidentally, had also taken place the previous evening. Just a year before, King marveled, he'd been sitting by himself at home watching the Grammys. Now, twelve months later, he was in Tinseltown attending a post-awards party. "I remember thinking, 'Where am I going to be this time next year?'" he said. "We hadn't started recording yet; the next day we were going into pre-production for this record. I was just like, 'Where am I going to be next year?' Just wondering, you know. I didn't really have any expectations, but the thought was on my mind.

"And then last night, it struck me because somebody asked me, 'What were you doing last year?' I was like, 'Oh, my God, I was on my couch, wondering about this same night.' And then we're on Leno and later talking to Tony Bennett at a Grammy party. It's been a pretty wild year."

From King's lips to God's ears. That night at the Troubadour, I watched a standing-room-only crowd zealously sing along with every word from every song like a hometown audience, a sight that left the jaded industry types on hand slack-jawed. That scene became commonplace on the rest of that first headlining tour, most of which sold out well in advance. And things have gotten even wilder since then. Nine months later, the band has gone platinum (and will likely be double by the time the Grammys roll around) and become a household name, stringing up enough accomplishments to fill a Dex-sized dossier that continues to stupefy me.