After 2006's 'For Me, It's You,' Train had run off the rails. Despite more than a decade of hits including 'Drops of Jupiter,' 'Calling All Angels' and 'Meet Virginia,' the band's three core members, Pat Monahan, Jimmy Stafford and Scott Underwood, were feeling burnt out and more than a little tired of one another. They parted ways with their future as a band very uncertain.
But after spending three years apart, the trio realized they weren't done with each other quite yet. They reconvened for 'Save Me, San Francisco,' recorded primarily in London with producer Martin Terefe (Jason Mraz, KT Tunstall), with a new, joyous attitude. Not only did they return, they rebounded stronger than ever with the carefree, upbeat 'Hey Soul Sister,' the group's biggest hit in its 15-year history. At a recent AOL Sessions taping, the band talked about its glorious second act, Justin Bieber and how men fall in love with women.
'Hey Soul Sister,' the first single from 'Save Me, San Francisco' was the most downloaded song of 2010 on iTunes, with more than 4.6 million downloads. Congratulations!
Pat Monahan: I think being the most downloaded song of the year is an enormous feat for anybody and it's such a great thing for us because we're veterans and we know the ins and outs and ups and downs of music. The real reward is that we actually wanted to make an album out of appreciation and love, which is a little bit different than some of the albums before ... Maybe we were aiming for radio [in the past] or aiming for success or trying to aim for that instead of really just aiming for the love of it, and I guess this is what happens when you actually hit the mark.
It was the only song by a rock band to land in the Top 10 of the Billboard 100 this year in any week. How did that happen?
PM: You know, when we started this pursuit for pop radio, the question was [if there's room] for guitar rock on radio anymore. And I think that's where the ukulele comes in because nobody was betting against the ukulele [laughs]. That's really what I can accredit it to, a little bit, is like the ukulele made everybody happy, so it was a different new sound with a different register.
The band took a three-year break between albums. What made you realize you wanted to get back together and you still had something to say as a band?
Scott Underwood: We needed to take that break, we all knew that for sure, there was no doubt. We took it and we didn't know if we were ever going to get back together, so we all did our own things and just sort of didn't talk much and whatever. I think after awhile, we realized how precious this is, how fortunate we are to have this band and to have the success we've had and to have each other and how essential the three of us are in working together. This chemistry works really well and we missed each other. We needed to take the break because we weren't getting along, and I think sort of all of those issues sort of faded and it was just time. It felt like the right time. It just kind of felt really good. Pat and Jimmy and I talked and we talked about making some really important changes, and once we sort of had that conversation it just felt really, really good to be back together.
What songs do fans tell you mean the most to them?
PM: "Drops of Jupiter" and "Calling All Angels" are usually the two songs that are that spirit-driven song that reminds me of my mother or it was when my daughter was born or my husband went away to Afghanistan and there's all the stories and occasionally you'll hear other songs being mentioned, but those are the two top ones. The one that kind of hits me today is a story we heard yesterday, that a woman had breast cancer and she had to lose both of her breasts and she named them because that's how she wanted to cope with the loss. One of them she named Virginia and she used the song "Meet Virginia" to heal and then she wrote a book about her dealing with her loss and I just think that's a really beautiful story because the idea of our music is you know, we're just trying to contribute to something positive, whatever it might be, and if we can be of service in any way that's the ultimate use for our lives I think.
It must be very humbling to hear the impact these songs have had on people.
SU: It's amazing because music has been that for us too all through our lives. I mean, music is the soundtrack of your life, whether it's for a good moment or a tough moment, and it's hard to imagine that we're doing that for other people...when people say that it's always like, "Really? Wow that's amazing!"
'Marry Me,' which you performed today, is so wistful. If you don't listen carefully, you don't realize it's about a girl that he's not even spoken to yet.
PM: That's exactly right, the fact that 'Marry Me' is more fantasy than it is "Hey, marry me." It's "What if I did this?" What if I took this chance in this love-at-first-sight moment and said, "Hey, I know you don't know me and I'm just getting a coffee, but I think that we're supposed to spend the rest of our lives together"? Wouldn't that be incredible? Just because I think that men – I don't know how women work, but men, the ones that I know, we tend to fall in love several times a day – with that woman who gave me that cup of coffee or "Did you see the producer of the show?" We just are like that, and it's just interesting to think that it's got to be a universal thing among men.
Pat Monahan: I think being the most downloaded song of the year is an enormous feat for anybody and it's such a great thing for us because we're veterans and we know the ins and outs and ups and downs of music. The real reward is that we actually wanted to make an album out of appreciation and love, which is a little bit different than some of the albums before ... Maybe we were aiming for radio [in the past] or aiming for success or trying to aim for that instead of really just aiming for the love of it, and I guess this is what happens when you actually hit the mark.
It was the only song by a rock band to land in the Top 10 of the Billboard 100 this year in any week. How did that happen?
PM: You know, when we started this pursuit for pop radio, the question was [if there's room] for guitar rock on radio anymore. And I think that's where the ukulele comes in because nobody was betting against the ukulele [laughs]. That's really what I can accredit it to, a little bit, is like the ukulele made everybody happy, so it was a different new sound with a different register.
The band took a three-year break between albums. What made you realize you wanted to get back together and you still had something to say as a band?
Scott Underwood: We needed to take that break, we all knew that for sure, there was no doubt. We took it and we didn't know if we were ever going to get back together, so we all did our own things and just sort of didn't talk much and whatever. I think after awhile, we realized how precious this is, how fortunate we are to have this band and to have the success we've had and to have each other and how essential the three of us are in working together. This chemistry works really well and we missed each other. We needed to take the break because we weren't getting along, and I think sort of all of those issues sort of faded and it was just time. It felt like the right time. It just kind of felt really good. Pat and Jimmy and I talked and we talked about making some really important changes, and once we sort of had that conversation it just felt really, really good to be back together.
What songs do fans tell you mean the most to them?
PM: "Drops of Jupiter" and "Calling All Angels" are usually the two songs that are that spirit-driven song that reminds me of my mother or it was when my daughter was born or my husband went away to Afghanistan and there's all the stories and occasionally you'll hear other songs being mentioned, but those are the two top ones. The one that kind of hits me today is a story we heard yesterday, that a woman had breast cancer and she had to lose both of her breasts and she named them because that's how she wanted to cope with the loss. One of them she named Virginia and she used the song "Meet Virginia" to heal and then she wrote a book about her dealing with her loss and I just think that's a really beautiful story because the idea of our music is you know, we're just trying to contribute to something positive, whatever it might be, and if we can be of service in any way that's the ultimate use for our lives I think.
It must be very humbling to hear the impact these songs have had on people.
SU: It's amazing because music has been that for us too all through our lives. I mean, music is the soundtrack of your life, whether it's for a good moment or a tough moment, and it's hard to imagine that we're doing that for other people...when people say that it's always like, "Really? Wow that's amazing!"
'Marry Me,' which you performed today, is so wistful. If you don't listen carefully, you don't realize it's about a girl that he's not even spoken to yet.
PM: That's exactly right, the fact that 'Marry Me' is more fantasy than it is "Hey, marry me." It's "What if I did this?" What if I took this chance in this love-at-first-sight moment and said, "Hey, I know you don't know me and I'm just getting a coffee, but I think that we're supposed to spend the rest of our lives together"? Wouldn't that be incredible? Just because I think that men – I don't know how women work, but men, the ones that I know, we tend to fall in love several times a day – with that woman who gave me that cup of coffee or "Did you see the producer of the show?" We just are like that, and it's just interesting to think that it's got to be a universal thing among men.
What about 'If It's Love?'
PM: 'If It's Love' is actually written for Train fans who have been here forever ... It's more like, "Hey, you know, we've had our ups and downs, and if we believe in each other and we have each other and we're two birds of a feather, then the rest is just whatever." We don't need all the rest of the hoopla, we don't need to be in the magazines and to have the awards and to have all the cred; we can just be with each other. We belong to one another.
What are your plans for 2011?
SU: We're probably gonna be finished next year with a new record, hopefully; that's the goal. Before we do that, we're gonna tour extensively again, we're going to Europe, the States, of course, and then in Australia we're gonna open for INXS for a while, and then South America. We're gonna tour with Shakira ... And then we've got to figure out how to squeeze in time to write, but we're talking about how important this next record is and we want to kind of approach it with the same attitude of just writing for the love of writing. This could be the tricky part where we could be like, "Oh, we have a big hit! Now let's write another big hit!" That's the trap; you don't want to go there: So, yeah, we should close the year with a good, smash-hit record that makes a ton of money and wins some Grammys; that's the goal
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