Description

The origins of Train's widescreen, Americana-tinged rock lay in the coffeehouse acoustic duo that singer/songwriter Pat Monahan inaugurated with guitarist Rob Hotchkiss after the two left the L.A. band the Apostles. Eventually they expanded to a full band and released their first album themselves before it was picked up for wider distribution. Though initially a sleeper, it slowly produced a couple of hits, and the 2001 followup DROPS OF JUPITER broke Train through to full-fledged star status with its grandiloquent title track.

Biography

A Counting Crows-styled rock band formed in 1994 in San Francisco, California, USA, Train's self-titled debut eventually became a Billboard Heatseeker number 1 over a year after its major label release. Train was formed by Patrick Monahan (b. 1969, USA; vocals, percussion), Jimmy Stafford (b. 26 April 1964, USA; guitar), Rob Hotchkiss (b. 30 December 1960, USA; guitar), Charlie Colin (b. 22 November 1966, USA; bass) and Scott Underwood (b. 2 January 1971, USA; drums). Their origins can be traced to 1993 when Monahan left his native Pennsylvania to join Los Angeles band the Apostles, who featured Hotchkiss, Colin and Stafford. After that unit sundered, Hotchkiss and Monahan attempted to form a duo together, before expanding the band with former members of the Apostles and mutual friends.
The band self-released their debut album in 1996, but soon afterwards landed a joint deal with the Chicago independent label Aware and Columbia Records. After touring with the Barenaked Ladies and Blues Traveler a reworked version of Train's album was released in February 1998. Propelled by the success of singles "Free" and "Meet Virginia", the latter a tribute to independent-thinking women, the album became a slow-burn success, especially when Train promoted it while touring with Ben Folds Five during the end of 1999. The follow-up Drops Of Jupiter, another rather ordinary collection of modern rock songs, proved equally successful on the US charts. The band earned a Grammy Award for the title track which has become a staple of US rock radio. My Private Nation, recorded without the recently departed Hotchkiss, repeated the formula of its predecessors to lesser effect.
DISCOGRAPHY: Train (Aware/Columbia 1998)***, Drops Of Jupiter (Aware/Columbia 2001)***, My Private Nation (Aware/Columbia 2003)**, Alive At Last (Columbia 2004)***.
VIDEOGRAPHY: Midnight Moon (Sony 2001).

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