By October, one of the Fray's new songs, "Cable Car," had tested well enough that KTCL added it to regular rotation -- a stunning feat for any new act, especially a local one. And in an unprecedented move, the station launched a listener-driven campaign to get the Fray signed. Ironically, by the time the station was giving the song regular spins, none of the bandmembers were in town to hear it. They'd been flown to New York by Epic for a private showcase. Hearing just one cut had been enough to interest Flynn. "The only song that I heard was 'Vienna,'" the A&R man remembers. "I was just really compelled by Isaac's voice and the lyrical content. It just sounded real to me. It was real music. It was timeless music. All I know is when I heard it, I got on an airplane and went there. I didn't care where it came from." In fact, he came to Denver twice to hear the Fray perform, and then the label brought the band to New York. After hearing a handful of songs, Epic execs were sold on the Fray. Just like that.

"It's like our A&R guy came up to us and said, ''Play something,'" says Slade. "And we're like, 'Dun-dun-dun,' and he's like, &'Cool. All right, I'll strap you in.' It's like I'm looking at this spaceship sitting on this tarmac, and we're all tied together, connected to this cable, and we can hear the countdown. And we're like, 'Oh, my God, this thing's going to pull away and our lives are going to disappear.'"

Although the band's success was undeniably sudden, the launch sequence was initiated years ago. "I've been on this track since I was eight," Slade explains. "I've seriously been thinking about it all my life. Lately people have been saying, 'You came out of left field.' Sure, in this incarnation we did. But since I was eight, my mom's been talking to me, saying things like, ';If you do this, you need to be careful that you're not full of yourself.' And my grandpa would tell me, 'You're nothing special. You're just a regular kid.' You know, keeping me normal."

That sense of normalcy plays a pivotal role in the Fray's appeal. With his faux-hawk, Slade looks more like Calvin, Hobbes's partner in crime, than a SoHo fashionista. And rather than coming off as insufferable hipsters, he and his bandmates -- Welsh, vocalist/guitarist Joe King and drummer Ben Wysocki -- seem like ordinary guys blessed with extraordinary talent.

Slade and King put the Fray together in the summer of 2002 from a couple of failed high school projects. Although both had attended Faith Christian Academy, they'd rarely spoken then. But a few years later, during a chance encounter at a local music store, they realized they were kindred spirits -- ideologically and musically. Each had been playing predominantly Christian music, at church and fronting his own band (Slade in Ember and King in Fancy's Showbox), and both felt artistically stifled within the confines of the Christian framework.

"I was a worship leader," King explains. "So naturally, I sang about God and kind of incorporated the whole worship experience into my songs. But I didn't feel like it connected to a broad range of people. I wanted to write about things I saw, about my relationships, about problems that I saw, instead of having to write about God. For so long, I had to think of a cool new way to sing about God, and I didn't feel real to that."

Although the two were no less devout in their faith at that point, they wanted to focus on creating compelling art as Christians -- as opposed to being "Christian artists." So they set about writing songs with less of a theological bent, enlisting Zach Johnson to play drums and put Slade's brother, Caleb, on bass. But as the Fray began to take shape, Slade had to ask Caleb to step down. "It was one of the hardest things I ever had to do," he confesses. Caleb was replaced by Dan Battenhouse, who'd been in a church band with King.

After scraping together enough cash, the Fray entered the studio to record its debut EP, fittingly titled Movement. The material was less pious than bandmembers' previous endeavors -- Fancy's songs "read like Bible verses," King says -- and touched more on interpersonal issues.