Isaac Slade (The Fray) life and biography

Isaac Edward Slade is the lead vocalist, main songwriter, pianist, and co-founder of Denver-based piano rock band The Fray.

Slade started singing when he was 2 years old, and began playing the piano at 11, after temporarily losing his voice. He wrote his first song when he was 16, and learned to play guitar when he was in high school.

Slade joined Ember, a band which consisted of Slade and his future The Fray band-mates Dave Welsh and Ben Wysocki. The band soon dissolved, and later, in the spring of 2002, Slade ran into former school-mate and vocalist/guitarist Joe King in a record store. The two began regular jam sessions, which led to writing songs. They later added Slade's younger brother, Caleb, on bass and Zach Johnson on drums. Johnson soon left to attend an art school in New York, while Caleb was fired. This caused a rift in Slade's relationship with his brother. A new found love and Isaac's first kiss at the ripe age of 21 helped inspired the future hit single, "Over My Head (Cable Car)".

Dave Welsh and Ben Wysocki re-joined Slade and King, to form The Fray. In the same year, the newly-formed band released Movement EP, and in 2003, they released Reason EP to some local critical acclaim, particularly by Denver's Westword alternative newsweekly. Despite these reviews, the band struggled to launch a single. Denver radio station KTCL rejected eight of their songs before the band decided to submit "Cable Car". The song found airplay on a KTCL radio show highlighting local bands, and the radio station received a large number of requests for it soon thereafter. The band changed the name of the song to "Over My Head (Cable Car)", and by the end of 2005, it had become KTCL's most played song of the year.

Apart from lead vocals and playing the piano, Slade wrote the lyrics to the album based primarily on his real-life experiences, most notably the first two singles, "Over My Head (Cable Car)" and "How to Save a Life" which were responsible for launching the band into the mainstream.

While the song did modestly internationally (it charted in the top 25 in several countries), it hit big in the band's native USA, charting in the top ten on the Billboard Hot 100 and helping the band gain national recognition.The second single and title track from the album, "How to Save a Life" was written by Slade based on an experience he had had while working as a mentor at a camp for troubled teens, called Shelterwood in Denver.

Following the success of How to Save a Life, the band released their second record, The Fray in 2009. The album was again written by Slade based on personal experiences, most notably the lead single "You Found Me". The song reached the number-one spot in Australia, and hit the top ten on the Hot 100 chart. "You Found Me" was one of 2009's most successful singles, and became the band's third song to sell over 2 million digital downloads in the United States, after "Over My Head (Cable Car)" and "How to Save a Life".

Slade performed on the 2010 remake of the 1985 charity single, "We Are the World". He joined 74 other artists to record the track for the victims of the 2010 Haiti earthquake.

Slade often uses falsetto in his vocals, and is recognizable by his strong American accent. While his vocals on How to Save a Life were quite simple and straightforward, he gave strong performances on the second album, adapting a slightly edgier and more aggressive style of singing, most notably on the songs "We Build Then We Break" and "Say When".

He stated in an interview: "We're not like real rocking rockers; we'd rather write about feeling and emotions." In another interview with respect to the lyrics on the second album, he stated, "We wanted to make the songs count. I'm happy with this record because the songs feel like they count. They really connect to us."

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