Pat Monahan drives Train into 'Dancing With the Stars'
Pat Monahan
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It's a shame "The Love Boat" went off the air in 1986 because it was the perfect venue for entertainers at varying stages of relevancy: Ethel Merman, Sonny Bono, Toni Tennille, Cab Calloway, Mel Tillis … the list goes on and on.
The closest thing we have today is "Dancing With the Stars," airing Mondays and Tuesdays on ABC. In fact, if you squint really hard -- and suspend all disbelief and cognitive thought -- Tom Bergeron looks a lot like Captain Stubing.
Regardless, just like "The Love Boat" and its aforementioned musical guest stars, "Dancing With the Stars" is forcing an entirely new group of musicians to pop some Dramamine. Last season was all over the map with appearances by everyone from Hall & Oates to Adele. This season it's more of the same, as we've already been treated to what's left of the Beach Boys -- with "Full House" star John Stamos sitting in on bongos and guitar -- and country legend Reba McEntire.
But this week we get an "Aha!" moment when Train performs on the Tuesday, May 4, episode.
The San Francisco-based pop group was formed in 1994 by Pat Monahan, former lead singer of a Led Zeppelin cover band (that's not necessarily a dis on Monahan, rather just a wacky fact that makes us smile), guitarist Jimmy Stafford and drummer Scott Underwood.
If they had been on "DWTS" last year, their appearance would have seemed like a cry for help. After all, they hadn't had a hit since '03 and actually took a hiatus from touring and recording from '06 until last year. That's normally a sign that the magic is gone, and as soon as the money runs out they'll start touring the lesser-known American Indian casinos.
But even if that were the case, they wouldn't have had anything to be ashamed of. They rocketed out of the gate with 1998's smash hit, "Meet Virginia," off their self-titled and self-produced debut album, "Train," which went platinum. That song is still stuck in our heads 12 years later. "She loves babies and surprises, wears high heels when she exercises, ain't that beautiful? Meet Virginia … ." If they were the Baha Men ("Who Let the Dogs Out?"), that would have been enough to call it a career.
But it turns out that Train was just getting started. Their sophomore release, "Drops of Jupiter," went multiplatinum largely on the strength of its title track, "Drops of Jupiter (Tell Me)." It spent more than a year on Billboard's Hot 100 chart and netted the guys two Grammy Awards: one for best rock song and another for best arrangement.
They kept the mojo working for 2003's "My Private Nation," which produced the popular "Calling All Angels."
But as is so often the case, success breeds crap, and we could see the writing on the wall when several more of their singles only found audiences because they were used in feature films ("When I Look to the Sky" -- "Jersey Girl"), television shows ("Ordinary" -- "Heroes") or commercials ("Get To Me" -- Cingular). Hey, no one survived "Jersey Girl" unscathed.
Then right on cue, it happened. Their fourth studio album, "For Me, It's You," came out in 2006 to the sound of crickets chirping. Not a hit to be found. With the three-year hiatus following on that disappointment, it was anybody's guess as to when the Train/Spin Doctors Casino Tour would begin.
But last year Train surprised a lot of us. Monahan, Stafford and Underwood regrouped and with the help of producer Martin Terefe (KT Tunstall, Jason Mraz) created a new album that gets back to their organic, blues-infused roots. The resulting album "Save Me, San Francisco" has already birthed a Billboard Top 10 single and No. 1 single on iTunes with "Hey, Soul Sister." The song, along with the critically acclaimed album, has landed the guys back in the spotlight, with appearances on "The Tonight Show" and "Live With Regis & Kelly" and, of course, "DWTS."
But the coolest thing might be that they were invited to open for Bon Jovi at the inaugural concert of the soon-to-be-opened New Meadowlands Stadium on May 26.
Short of being Bon Jovi, that's about as good as it gets.
The closest thing we have today is "Dancing With the Stars," airing Mondays and Tuesdays on ABC. In fact, if you squint really hard -- and suspend all disbelief and cognitive thought -- Tom Bergeron looks a lot like Captain Stubing.
Regardless, just like "The Love Boat" and its aforementioned musical guest stars, "Dancing With the Stars" is forcing an entirely new group of musicians to pop some Dramamine. Last season was all over the map with appearances by everyone from Hall & Oates to Adele. This season it's more of the same, as we've already been treated to what's left of the Beach Boys -- with "Full House" star John Stamos sitting in on bongos and guitar -- and country legend Reba McEntire.
But this week we get an "Aha!" moment when Train performs on the Tuesday, May 4, episode.
The San Francisco-based pop group was formed in 1994 by Pat Monahan, former lead singer of a Led Zeppelin cover band (that's not necessarily a dis on Monahan, rather just a wacky fact that makes us smile), guitarist Jimmy Stafford and drummer Scott Underwood.
If they had been on "DWTS" last year, their appearance would have seemed like a cry for help. After all, they hadn't had a hit since '03 and actually took a hiatus from touring and recording from '06 until last year. That's normally a sign that the magic is gone, and as soon as the money runs out they'll start touring the lesser-known American Indian casinos.
But even if that were the case, they wouldn't have had anything to be ashamed of. They rocketed out of the gate with 1998's smash hit, "Meet Virginia," off their self-titled and self-produced debut album, "Train," which went platinum. That song is still stuck in our heads 12 years later. "She loves babies and surprises, wears high heels when she exercises, ain't that beautiful? Meet Virginia … ." If they were the Baha Men ("Who Let the Dogs Out?"), that would have been enough to call it a career.
But it turns out that Train was just getting started. Their sophomore release, "Drops of Jupiter," went multiplatinum largely on the strength of its title track, "Drops of Jupiter (Tell Me)." It spent more than a year on Billboard's Hot 100 chart and netted the guys two Grammy Awards: one for best rock song and another for best arrangement.
They kept the mojo working for 2003's "My Private Nation," which produced the popular "Calling All Angels."
But as is so often the case, success breeds crap, and we could see the writing on the wall when several more of their singles only found audiences because they were used in feature films ("When I Look to the Sky" -- "Jersey Girl"), television shows ("Ordinary" -- "Heroes") or commercials ("Get To Me" -- Cingular). Hey, no one survived "Jersey Girl" unscathed.
Then right on cue, it happened. Their fourth studio album, "For Me, It's You," came out in 2006 to the sound of crickets chirping. Not a hit to be found. With the three-year hiatus following on that disappointment, it was anybody's guess as to when the Train/Spin Doctors Casino Tour would begin.
But last year Train surprised a lot of us. Monahan, Stafford and Underwood regrouped and with the help of producer Martin Terefe (KT Tunstall, Jason Mraz) created a new album that gets back to their organic, blues-infused roots. The resulting album "Save Me, San Francisco" has already birthed a Billboard Top 10 single and No. 1 single on iTunes with "Hey, Soul Sister." The song, along with the critically acclaimed album, has landed the guys back in the spotlight, with appearances on "The Tonight Show" and "Live With Regis & Kelly" and, of course, "DWTS."
But the coolest thing might be that they were invited to open for Bon Jovi at the inaugural concert of the soon-to-be-opened New Meadowlands Stadium on May 26.
Short of being Bon Jovi, that's about as good as it gets.
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