Doin' the locomotion with Train

Train has covered quite a lot of ground since it set out on a railway of reflective rock over a decade ago. With their latest album “Save Me, San Francisco,” the band is certainly a long ways from the sturdy roots rock of its self-titled debut in 1998; listeners strung along for some on-the-road realizations and encounters with not-of-this-world women (the “tragically confident, magically intuitive” anti-heroine of Meet Virginia, their first hit).

From the SoCal rock vibe of the aptly balmy Breakfast in Bed to the strum of a ukulele in the uplift-infectious Hey, Soul Sister (a salute to another not-of-this-world woman), “Save Me, San Francisco” is an indication that Train’s gone from Midwestern meanderings to seeing a lot of the world, arriving at a good place and an agreeable sound. But not without a few stops along the way, of course.

After lead singer Pat Monahan had written his mother’s death into the stars with the song Drops of Jupiter (Tell Me), personal travail had become the band’s galactic triumph. From the second album, Jupiter was Train’s most successful track, garnering a couple Grammys, its own VH1 tribute, and your lack of resistance to belting it out inside your car. It also seemed to send the band on a less creative route of trying to reproduce the song’s epic imagery and critical acclaim.

Two records later, not to mention several members’ disembarking from Train, Monahan, guitarist Jimmy Stafford and drummer Scott Underwood are finally traversing new territory. And not just aurally since they’ve taken the sounds of “San Francisco” across the globe, landing a gig here last June 18 at the Alabang Town Center. After reinstating the sentimental value of Dashboard Confessional at TriNoma last month, Ayala Malls has once again expanded our soundscape by way of its premium retail spaces. And for an international act like Train, well, there are more realizations to be had on the road, at least.

PAT MONAHAN: I was looking around (Alabang) and there seemed to be a lack of people. Is this the wealthy part (of the city)?

YOUNG STAR: You can consider this area the O.C. Cross the expressway and you’ll find a lot of hustle and bustle.

PAT: But I also saw some shanties nearby. And churches.

You guys formed the band in San Francisco. Didn’t the Filipinos there give you some background about the country?

PAT: Well we started the band there, yeah. Basically, we live on a bus. I actually live in Seattle now. And two guys that I see every time I’m there — one cuts my hair and the other, I buy clothes from. The one guy was like, ‘Yeah, my parents are from the Philippines…’ He actually lived here until he was about five years old and then moved to Seattle and I don’t think he’s visited here since.

Your last stop was Japan. On tour, how diverse are fans’ declarations of their personal journeys with your songs? They seem to beg that of listeners.

PAT: I’ll tell you the one that breaks my heart every time I think of it was a little girl who was about eight years old. Her father was dying and while he was in the hospital, they would listen to Drops of Jupiter all the time. And the day he died, the little girl said, ‘Daddy, don’t worry, I’ll be with you ‘cause I’m your drops of Jupiter so when you’re out there, you’ll be safe.’ I’m like… I still wanna cry every time I think about it.

That album was powerful. But the two records that followed, although critically lauded, didn’t have as much commercial success…

PAT: Until now. Which is even bigger than that, which is really weird for us.

Was the new album a way to get back to the same processes that made Drops of Jupiter epic?

SCOTT UNDERWOOD: We think that with the last two records, we were sort of chasing after the wrong ideas. I think after having such a big hit, we were trying to just write another big hit. And that’s really the wrong way to approach songwriting and putting a record together and, um, on this current record, we just threw that idea away. We were just miserable trying to do it that way and on this record, there was a lot more freedom and a lot more joy and passion in writing these songs and putting this album together. We just try to write really great songs and inadvertently came up with the biggest hit of our career.

You also don’t mind the commercial aspect of the music biz, Samsung and Cingular peddling stuff through your songs and all…

PAT: Well, when we started many years ago, there were no cell phones to try to market our song with. It was a time back then where when you had a song in a commercial, you weren’t cool. And then all of a sudden, people like Sting were on Jaguar commercials. Then you realize that without a different media exploitation, sometimes you never get the song on the radio. It’s very difficult for people to care about music and they have to see it and hear it in different references and visually kind of be part of culture.

Interesting that you mention references since you seem to make a conscious effort to put them in your songs.

PAT: I think when I write, I always think about, like, odd proper nouns that have to do with today’s pop culture. That, instead of using “he” or “she” or “them,” you can use something like “Winger” or “Mister Mister”… or soy latte instead of coffee. I just think that it’s more interesting.

Are you guys on Twitter by any chance?

PAT: Is that a new drug?

Now that you mention it, I had a friend who could sing well but not publicly. One time, she took ecstasy and finally sang but the only song she wanted to sing was Drops of Jupiter. How does that come across to you guys?

PAT (To Scott and Jimmy): You guys have both done X, so that’s probably good, right? That the song would be a soothing, loving thing, right?

SCOTT: Yeah, ‘cause it’s such a happy drug. So she was obviously celebrating that.

JIMMY STAFFORD: There are some bands like Dave Matthews — people smoke a lot of weed at those concerts and stuff. I never really thought of us like that but I smell a lot of weed at our shows sometimes.

SCOTT: I think that’s just our crew. (Everyone laughs)

They do what they gotta do on the road, I guess. And what do you guys do when you’re back home?

PAT: The most normal things as possible. You know, we hang with our families, we go to the grocery store and wash our clothes…

JIMMY: And you enjoy it, going to the grocery store. 

Okay, first aisle you hit when at the grocery store?

PAT: Naked mags, easy… (Everybody laughs)

SCOTT: Condoms…

You guys have been together for so long. How do you keep from being rock star train wrecks?

JIMMY: You know, we’re not kids anymore. We’re adult about things so, uh… we’ve never been like, real hardcore partiers. Maybe a little bit in the early days but I think we’ve kind of learned and grown from that and treat this as the business that it is and also learn how to enjoy ourselves doing this. Which is really the most important thing. I mean, we’re really fortunate to be able to do this but if you’re not enjoying it, then we’d rather be home at the grocery store.

PAT: Yeah, we have families at this point in our lives and if we’re going to be spending time away from our families, we take this really seriously.

Out of curiosity, what ever happened to Virginia? She’s like this mythic creature to fans…  

SCOTT: She’s an old grandmother at this point. She’s been divorced twice. (Everybody laughs)

PAT: Yeah, she actually was someone. We were friends with the Counting Crows guys and one of the dudes that was in our band had a girlfriend. And she showed up one day when we were playing softball with the Counting Crows guys. And this girl showed up in a black, long dress, high heels and she went out and played better than all of us. And so for that moment she was Virginia and she needed to have a song written about her.