'Fair Fight, the feature length documentary debut from director and cinematographer Rod Blackhurst, offers a telling and intimate snapshot of the rock band The Fray as they struggle to create a follow up to their multi-platinum debut 'How To Save A Life'.Taking its name from a line in one of the act's newer songs, 'Fair Fight' opens with a stylized time-lapse sequence of a quiet stretch of road with blankets of luminous clouds cascading overhead while front-man Isaac Slade plucks out the sparse, arpeggiated intro to the band's new track 'Happiness.' As Slade muses in his husky baritone about the futility of chasing happiness, fittingly we find the members at the tail end of an exhaustive three-year tour supporting the blockbuster release that essentially swallowed their lives.
From the confines of the famed recording studio the Record Plant in Sausalito, California, to a hometown studio in Denver, Colorado, 'Fair Fight', shot entirely by Blackhurst, captures Slade and his band-mates, David Welsh, Joe King, and Ben Wysocki, during the outfit's most delicate, vulnerable moments as they attempt to recreate their initial success. Personal and creative relationships seemingly teeter on the brink of disaster and failure seems inevitable, or at least a temporary solution. As the band struggles to maintain an artistic and creative integrity the pressure is on to deliver.