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March 14, 2025 12 mins

Everyone has heard a Train song. 

Their signature blend of rock and pop was a staple of the 2000’s - the band winning multiple Grammy Awards and selling more than 10 million albums worldwide. 

They’re most well-known for ‘Drops of Jupiter’ and the iconic ‘Hey, Soul Sister’. 

Train has recently celebrated their 30th anniversary, and are making their way down under to tour New Zealand and Australia. 

Frontman Pat Monahan told Jack Tame he’s very excited to be coming back to our shores. 

“I think it’s been too many years.” 

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Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
You're listening to the Saturday Morning with Jack Tam podcast
from News Talks at B.

Speaker 2 (00:17):
Now that she's back in the act, must be drops
Jupiter in her head?

Speaker 3 (00:30):
Tell me did you sell a cross?

Speaker 4 (00:34):
Did you make it through the milky way?

Speaker 3 (00:36):
See the lights are feeding?

Speaker 4 (00:39):
And then having his own raider, tell me did you
bump on shootings.

Speaker 2 (00:46):
On my Dona Prondens coming?

Speaker 3 (00:49):
Then you miss me while you're looking for yourself out.

Speaker 2 (00:54):
There, mord in a good morning if you're just turning
on the radio, Jack Tae with you through the midday,
That of course has drops of Jupiter by Train. I
Train just have a knack for writing incredibly catchy songs.
It's a kind of signature blend of rock and pop
and chart topping hits that you probably know every single

(01:14):
word too. And great news Trainer coming to New Zealand
later this year. Trained from and Pat Monahan has been
the man behind the mic since way back in nineteen
ninety three. And it's with us this morning, count of
good morning, how you, I'm very well, thank you. I
wanted to begin without getting too nostalgic and without making
you feel too old to to ask you to cast

(01:38):
your mind back a little bit. You have just celebrated
the thirtieth anniversary of Train, So are you able to
distill the magic? What is it about Train and writing
and performing music that has allowed you to endure?

Speaker 3 (01:55):
You know, I think it's it's my passion to be
competitive and also my open mindedness to really love new.

Speaker 4 (02:04):
Music all the time.

Speaker 3 (02:05):
And there was a time when we started to Train,
and I was very critical of other music because I
was so competitive. And it was also during a time
of like shelf space, where we were selling CDs and
if somebody was in that space, you didn't get that space.

Speaker 4 (02:24):
And so that was a different time.

Speaker 3 (02:26):
But now it's much more of a community of there's
so much to love, why not just love through it
and learn from it? And I think that that's what
I continue to do and it's helped me. Like I
listened to a lot of hip hop, and you know,
I can't I can't write those songs, but I can
definitely enjoy them. And there's always great new artists from

(02:46):
all over the world that I like to try to
connect with.

Speaker 2 (02:49):
How do you find new music?

Speaker 3 (02:54):
You know, back in the day, people would make playlists,
and now Spotify has a lot of playlists so they've
learned from old school techniques of how to get people engaged.
And so there are times where I'll find something like
there's a Montreal band that I love that I found

(03:14):
and then played it for my sixteen year old daughter
and she's like, oh, yeah, I know that band. And
sometimes it comes from my kids. I have a thirteen
year old son who's listening to you know, basically classic
heavy metal right now, and then my daughter's listened to
everything new. So I just keep having kids to turn
me on to new music. So maybe when i'm a

(03:36):
great grandfather, my grandchildren will teach me more.

Speaker 2 (03:40):
Do they ever shame you? Do they ever say, come on, dad,
what do you mean you don't know this band? Dot dot?

Speaker 4 (03:47):
No?

Speaker 2 (03:48):
It is.

Speaker 3 (03:49):
It's pretty funny, like they do love what I do,
but it wouldn't be their top list, you know, it's
not their go to music, but they definitely respect what
I've done.

Speaker 2 (04:01):
I remember when I was a teenager saying to my dad, oh,
you've got to listen to this band. You've got to
listen to this band, and he sort of never gave
me the time of day, and then about two years
later he came back to me and he said, I've
discovered this really good band who I think you might like,
the called cold Play, And I was like, well, I
was like, Dad, that's what I told you two years ago.
But he didn't, you know, he was never open minded

(04:23):
enough like you to supposed to.

Speaker 4 (04:26):
Be bringing him anything. I get it. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (04:29):
Well, I just got a text right when we started
this zoom that Drops of Jupiter has just hit one
billion streams.

Speaker 4 (04:38):
Wow.

Speaker 3 (04:38):
So those are also pretty fun little things that keep
me excited about staying musical.

Speaker 4 (04:45):
Congratulations, Yeah, it's a pretty cool thing.

Speaker 3 (04:47):
Let's say Soul Sister was a billion a few years ago,
and this is the second one for Train, and it's
pretty exciting.

Speaker 2 (04:57):
I actually checked Soul Sister's numbers right before dialing into you.
One billion, seven hundred and sixty one million, three hundred
and sixty thousand in three hundred and sixty six.

Speaker 4 (05:08):
Wow.

Speaker 3 (05:09):
You got You got to get busy when we get
off this doom so we can get to two billion.

Speaker 4 (05:13):
I guess.

Speaker 2 (05:15):
Okay, So who text you?

Speaker 4 (05:18):
My manager? He just texted me.

Speaker 2 (05:20):
Is there anything that happens to Spotify? You know, do
they stream ceiling or something?

Speaker 3 (05:26):
They send an embarrassingly large plaque that has a you know,
a pretend diamond in the in the middle of it,
and uh, I've never hung one, but you know, maybe
maybe there's a there's a place for it somewhere at
some point.

Speaker 2 (05:44):
So do you feel then that you no longer need
to be competitive? I mean those numbers are I don't.

Speaker 4 (05:50):
I will never feel that way.

Speaker 3 (05:52):
What is that I'm even you know competitive with workouts,
Like you know, I don't want to work out ever,
I never want to do it, but when I'm in it,
I want to try to do it the best I
can so I can get something out of it.

Speaker 4 (06:03):
And it's the same way with music.

Speaker 3 (06:05):
Like I've been working on a Broadway musical for five
years and I've learned a little bit of language about Broadways.
So when someone says that's incredible, that means rewrite that.
And I'm learning as I go that you can't quit.

Speaker 4 (06:24):
You have to just keep working through it.

Speaker 3 (06:26):
And that's not something that I want to learn, but
it's probably good for me.

Speaker 4 (06:31):
Yeah, that's that's interesting.

Speaker 2 (06:32):
So people don't give you honest feedback necessarily, or it's
kind of it's veiled.

Speaker 4 (06:37):
It's veiled.

Speaker 3 (06:38):
Yeah, they want you to be encouraged but then they
want you to rewrite it.

Speaker 4 (06:43):
Yeah. Right, you're so close but so far away.

Speaker 2 (06:47):
Yeah, okay, it's not they're not saying, oh that's that's unique,
or yeah that's interesting.

Speaker 3 (06:54):
Yeah, yeah, that's interesting.

Speaker 2 (06:57):
Yeah is it? Do you find yourself kind of humbled
when you're in that environment when you're writing and you're
getting that kind of feedback, given you could always say, hey,
you know what I've just I've just ticked over a
million streams for Drops of Jupiter. I'm almost a two
million for Hayesol System. Maybe I do actually know how

(07:17):
to write a song.

Speaker 3 (07:19):
You know, I don't really need humbled. I don't feel
like I've ever had a problem with humility. I come
from a small town in Pennsylvania that you know, there
was no room for that on the last of seven kids,
so none of us were able to be too sure
of ourselves. But I do need ten minutes, Like I

(07:40):
just saw on Instagram, if somebody really pisses you off,
take ten minutes.

Speaker 4 (07:45):
Before you respond. And that's what I'll do. I'll take
a walk and then I'll come back and get to work.

Speaker 2 (07:50):
Yeah that's very wise. So can you tell us about
the musical litt All and the Sure.

Speaker 4 (07:55):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (07:56):
It was a movie with Mark Groffalo called Begin Again.
John Carney wrote it the same writer as like Once
and Sing Town and so this is. They asked me
to write all the music for it. I think there's
one or two pieces of music from the movie that

(08:16):
will stay and everything else I've written with my two bandmates.

Speaker 2 (08:21):
How different is it writing writing for that, writing for
Broadway versus writing for train right?

Speaker 4 (08:26):
Incredibly different.

Speaker 3 (08:27):
It'd be like you saying, will you write a song
for me to sing to my significant other? But here's
what I want them to know, and then I write
the song.

Speaker 4 (08:40):
Based on that, which is much.

Speaker 3 (08:43):
It seems like it would be easier because it's a
direct assignment, but it's not.

Speaker 4 (08:47):
It's pretty difficult.

Speaker 2 (08:49):
So if you are competitive when it comes to music
and it comes to writing and streams and success, what's
Paton Monahan like at boll Game night.

Speaker 3 (09:00):
Well, I'd rather be playing golf than anything, so but
I but I you know, I do play.

Speaker 4 (09:09):
Golf in cards. Have you ever heard of cards? It's
real fun.

Speaker 3 (09:13):
It goes fast, You're playing nine holes and you should
check it out on the internet.

Speaker 4 (09:19):
It's a it's a fun little game.

Speaker 3 (09:20):
Okay, yeah, that sounds a glass of wine and we're
playing golf, either on the real course or at a
card table, then I'll be pretty happy.

Speaker 2 (09:30):
You're listening to Jack Tame on news talk ZB. I
am speaking to Pat Monahan, founder and lead singer of Train,
ahead of their New Zealand performances. Obviously, being competitive has
has paid off when it comes to music, because I
mean Training has a just ridiculous success over the last
few decades. All of the album's streams, singles, success awards,

(09:55):
et cetera. Do you know when you have an absolute
top tier hit? Do you know when you're writing you're
going through the process.

Speaker 3 (10:03):
Yeah, so I've never known everything I think will a
hit is awful and no one cares about it. And
then songs like Drops Jupiter that was very strange that
people responded to it, and then a Yuku Lele and
then a song about you know, fifty ways of say goodbye,
you know, like you're breaking up with your girlfriend, so

(10:24):
you tell your friend she died. Like all the weird
ones somehow make an impression on the world.

Speaker 2 (10:28):
It's that funny, so good for anyone who doesn't know
the story. Do you mind telling us. When you're writing
Hey Soul's Sister, how you you were kind of there
but not quite and then what pushed it over the
line and made it the earworm that it is.

Speaker 4 (10:42):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (10:42):
I wrote with a couple of guys from Norway in
New York City. We had already written a song that day.
I had already written a song with someone else called
if It's Love. And then I went down to another
studio in New York and we were writing Hey Soul's
Sister and on guitar, and it was fine, and all
the vocal parts were done. But then listening back to it,

(11:03):
it was like, I mean, it's it's fine. And then
one of the guys picked up a ukulelean just story
bring and I was like, whoa, I think maybe we
just got it. Yeah, ukulele can change the atmosphere within
a room pretty quick.

Speaker 2 (11:17):
Yeah, it's funny. I like, it's just it's like ninety
five percent of the ingredients are there and it just
takes one little thing to push it over the edge
and then they can be the little thing.

Speaker 4 (11:28):
Yeah, yeah, that's right now.

Speaker 2 (11:30):
I know you've been touring a fee a bit lately.
You've had a very been very busy of the last
twelve months or so throughout the UIs tell us about
the New Zealand show. I know so many people here
are just delighted that you're going to be back down under.

Speaker 3 (11:43):
Yeah, I'm very excited. I think it's been too many
years that we haven't been in Auckland. And my wife
and her family drank so much New Zealand Sauvignon blanc
that they said you better go and bring a bunch back,
and so like Kim Crawford and Cloudy Bay, and I
want to find out like some of the ones we
can't get here, but New Zealand save Blanc is always

(12:07):
very refreshing and I don't know if there's alcohol in it.
I've never never found that out, but I'm pretty sure
there is. And you know, the people of New Zealand
are just lovely. I have many friends that are Australian
and from New Zealand that I really cherish.

Speaker 2 (12:25):
Well, we're delighted that you're going to be here. We're
going to have all the dates on our website and
all the very best pat and make sure you carve
out a couple of days so perhaps you can make
it down to Marlborough and New Zealand and enjoy a
couple of bottles as there. I would love that fantastic training.
They're going to be in New Zealand, playing Auckland's Town
Hall on May twenty eighth. You can get your tickets
through Ticketmaster or of course, you can search for train

(12:48):
on the Auckland Live website for more.

Speaker 1 (12:51):
From Saturday Morning with Jack Tame, listen live to news
talks it'd be from nine am Saturday, or follow the
podcast on iHeartRadio
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