The Fray to release a covers album

It's been about a year and half since the Fray's last release, the self-titled follow-up to its double platinum debut, How to Save a Life. In between touring and writing songs for its next album, Denver's favorite power-ballad purveyors have been working on a cover album. We caught up with...

By Jef Otte

June 14, 2010

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It's been about a year and half since the Fray's last release, the self-titled follow-up to its double platinum debut, How to Save a Life. In between touring and writing songs for its next album, Denver's favorite power-ballad purveyors have been working on a cover album. We caught up with Dave Welsh in the studio for a brief chat and got the scoop.

Westword (Jef Otte): Why a covers album?

Dave Welsh: We chose a covers album partly to provide a creative distraction for us in the middle of writing for the third record, and also to give our fans something new to chew on for a few months while they wait. It's been some time since they've heard from us.

WW: Can you tell us a few of the songs that'll be on it?

DW: At this point, we've got material from Annie Lennox, Bruce Springsteen, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, the Fugees and Bob Marley. We tried to make it a relatively contradictory list -- and it's proving to be a hell of a lot of fun.

WW: What kind of approach are you taking to it? Are you going to be pretty faithful to the originals, or will there be some drastic alterations?

DW: Most of the songs we've taken healthy liberties in rethinking. We figured this project was our chance to explore our own limitations, as well as reinterpret art.

WW: When's it coming out?

DW: Hopefully, it can be released sometime in late summer, early fall -- whenever the monkeys get things sorted out on Madison Avenue.

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