When Train rocketed up the charts in the late-’90s, band members found themselves faced with challenges and career obstacles they thought would have dissolved with success. But in the last few years Train has found new management and new focus, reclaiming its place in the pantheon of stars. With the release of a new album, California 37, lead singer Pat Monahan recently called FMQB to talk about the record, Train’s new ventures, and the joy of three guys rediscovering the friendship and passion that drove them to success in the first place.
By Jack Barton
Train
It wasn’t that long ago that the band Train was in danger of being derailed. After struggling to be noticed early on, Train had risen to great heights, selling millions of records, charting high at most radio formats and selling out shows around the world. But as the band’s fortunes grew, so did the members’ discontent. A band of friends had devolved to “just a band,” with vocalist Pat Monahan pursuing a solo career and the members reconvening out of business concerns, rather than artistic ones.
But all that changed a few years ago as Train moved to a new management company, recommitted itself to the music that had propelled it to success in the first place, rediscovered its roots in its home town of San Francisco, recorded Save Me, San Francisco – an album that returned Train to the top of the charts both at radio and retail – and as part of its rediscovery of San Francisco, expanded into the wine business and became involved in giving back to the city.
On the eve of the release of Train’s new album, California 37, and a tour that started with a visit to SXSW and a run of the small San Francisco halls that were so much a part of the band’s seminal days, Monahan called Pro.qb to talk about the new record, Train’s new ventures, and the joy of three guys rediscovering the friendship and passion that drove them to success in the first place.
I want to start going back one record, because a lot of people have referred to Save Me, San Francisco as Train’s “comeback.” So where were you coming back from, and how did that record have such a huge impact on your career?
You know, I think if this comeback word is appropriate, it’s appropriate for Pop radio, because we certainly hadn’t been on Pop radio for quite awhile, but the truth is we had a lot of regrouping to do. We had a lot of changes within the band and then the business side of it, and so we stripped it down after I made my solo record in 2007. We just came back to me, Jimmy (Stafford) and Scott(Underwood) and rebuilt everything around us. Luckily we were taken on by Crush Management. Jonathan Daniel came to see me because I was in the writing process, and I was writing with his friend Sam Hollander, and he suggested I go to talk to a few managers because he knew I was interested in finding someone new.
So I talked to a couple of people and then came back to Jonathan and talked to him about how those meetings were, and he was like, “They all sound great; or you could sign with me.” Long story short is that he really has changed everything for the band. He’s made us more confident. He’s helped me write better songs. Everything about the guy is pretty incredible.
So then let’s move up to this record, California 37, as both the title, and a very special launch youre doing in San Francisco, flow right out of the title of Save Me, San Francisco.
California 37 is actually a stretch of road that you use to get to wine country from Marin County. And from where I lived in North Bay, that’s how I got to everything; wine country or Marin or San Francisco. So that road meant a lot to us. We had broken down on that road with our van and trailer more than once, so because we have such a history on that road we wanted to call the record that. And then, of course, these songs are stories of those times.
In the launch, the idea of going in and playing six different venues in San Francisco in a week, it’s just something we thought about for a long time instead of playing different full records each night, like other bands are doing. So that was Crush’s idea to go to our roots and play in different places we’ve played before in San Francisco, and it’s a way cooler idea.
And you haven’t really been playing rooms that size in a long time. Are you looking forward to that?
Yeah, I’m really looking forward it. You know, there are downsides, too, I guess. The room volume doesn’t really change whether you’re on a big stage or a little stage, so it’s going to be as loud as hell in my face, but, you know, it’s old school man, it’s fun.
One big indicator of the bond between Train and its audience is the 400,000+ singles of “Drive By” that sold in just a couple of weeks. How did you develop that bond with your audience?
I feel like what we learned by being away is that our fans are probably the greatest fans to have, because they’re not interested in being the “cool kid.” They aren’t interested in the “image” of music, they just love music. When we realized what we had with them, it just took off for us. Then, the fact that this multi-media sensation has made it where you can actually get in touch with these people, it has made it so that many of them have become friends. It’s hard to call them fans, because I really adore them as people. I respect them as much as they respect us.
I want to move on to California 37. Musically, how would you describe the album?
It’s a cross between (like) this new version of Train and old Train. It’s funny, because when I started to talk about the record on Twitter and everything, I would say, “Hey, we’re definitely going back to that first record,” which people loved. Then we came out with “Drive By,” and all of our older fans are like, “This is not what you told us it was!”
But when we do the preorder there’s a song that you’ll get with the preorder – a song called “Feels Good At First, which is exactly what I was talking about. Lots of other songs are really going to be great for radio, but then there are the other more emotional songs that more reflect our first album.
How was it working with Butch Walker and Espionage during the process of making this album?
Well, you know, I write a lot with both Espionage and Butch. Butch is a friend of ours for many, many years. I knew him when he was in the Marvelous Three, flinging his guitar around his neck. He’s an incredible performer. And we kept touring and I just heard that he was becoming a big time producer. Then the Espionage thing happened in the beginning of the last record, and we wrote “Hey Soul Sister” together, so of course we had to get together again and see if we can write something. We would meet several times in the course of my time off the road, which was very sparse during the last couple of years, and I think we wrote some great songs.
Then I wrote some songs with Butch and Sam and everyone else in the band; we all wrote songs, and then Butch makes them sound even better, like a Rock band. Even the songs that he had nothing to do with writing sound like the band Train because Butch knows the band Train better than anybody out there.
There is also another very interesting part of your career that’s developed over the last couple of years. If you go toTrainline.com and you look at the merch page, there’s music and t-shirts, but also wine glasses, corkscrews and more. So how does a Rock & Roll band get into the wine business?
It’s another “Crush Management Train Adventure.” One of the things they’ve been able to help us with is embracing San Francisco.
Jonathan said, “You’re from maybe the greatest city in the country, and some think in the world, and you need to take San Francisco to your fans.” Well, how do we do that? It’s where the best wine comes from, so why don’t we have a wine; a real wine, not like a cheesy wine? So we got in contact with some people we knew up in wine country and started to bottle our own wine, and people really love it. It gets sold in some restaurant chains around the country, and it’s going so well.
We’re trying to do something positive with it, so we donate a portion of that money to Family House, which is a place in San Francisco that houses families with sick children that need hospitalization but can’t afford a place to stay. So the fact that we can do something for our community and also give people a taste of San Francisco is great.
Then I made a joke – it’s not a real joke I really wanted this – but I joked in an interview that I’d rather make a chocolate bar because I’m much more passionate about chocolate. So Ghirardelli in San Francisco contacted us and we have three chocolate bars coming out around the same time as the album.
Is this also a tie-in with Family House?
Yes. Everything, even these theater shows, a portion of all our proceeds will go to Family House. We just want to constantly help these children. They seem to be the ones that can’t help themselves, so that’s what we want to do. We don’t do it so that you find out about it and think we’re cool. It just seems like the right thing to do.
What’s the deal with Rachael Ray? I mean, not only did you play her SXSW event, but you’re also going to be band-in-residence on her TV show for a week.
Rachael Ray is the coolest woman alive. One thing that Rachael and I have in common is that we’re Howard Stern fans. So we did Rachael Ray’s show and then she and I talked about that a little bit, and then befriended one another, and she asked us to come back for a full week! We asked if we can wait until we put the new record out, she said of course, so now that the record’s coming out we asked if she was ready for us.
Before you go, I want to revisit your relationship with Crush Management, as you really seem to give them a lot of credit for where the band’s career is now.
I can’t say enough positive about them. My wife reminds me that I’m actually a part of this, because I always was talking about Crush Management as being responsible for everything. I think they just gave me a confidence to write better songs. We were about done, and I didn’t love being in this band and the guys didn’t love being in the band with me. Management made us realize how much more fun it is to be part of a team instead of just individuals, and we got that. The whole thing made a lot of sense to us and we started to respect one another. We started to have fun.
There’s so much that you forget when you come up and you get a little bit of success and then you start to need the success to survive, and then you start to not get along with the people in your band. I remember my booking agent said years ago, “You just haven’t found the right guy yet to guide you.” I never knew what that meant until Jonathan and I walked down the streets of New York City talking, and I was like, “Oh man, this guy is going to help me a lot!”
The Crush guys are really an incredible team of people that have really helped to make us understand what we had, instead of what we wish we had.
[eQB Content by Jack Barton]
