{"id":7647,"date":"2012-04-12T08:00:56","date_gmt":"2012-04-11T22:00:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/maytherockbewithyou.com\/mtrbwy\/?p=7647"},"modified":"2012-04-12T11:36:22","modified_gmt":"2012-04-12T01:36:22","slug":"scott-underwood-of-train","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maytherockbewithyou.com\/mtrbwy\/2012\/04\/scott-underwood-of-train\/","title":{"rendered":"Scott Underwood of Train"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\n<\/a>\u201cYou know, people want to hear a band be genuine and if they like what we\u2019re doing, that\u2019s great, if not, there\u2019s going to be a percentage of people who do, and we\u2019re a genuine band and that\u2019s kind of our attitude now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Train are most well-known for their amazingly friendly radio hits \u2018Drops of Jupiter\u2019 and of course the song that you couldn\u2019t go five minutes without hearing in 2010 and 2011 \u2018Hey Soul Sister\u2019, but Train are back with a new album entitled \u2018California 37\u2019 that is released tomorrow and judging by the impact of the first single \u2018Drive By\u2019 they\u2019re telling us they\u2019re here to stay.<\/p>\n

While waiting on hold for the call to speak to Train drummer Scott Underwood, \u2018Drive By\u2019 was playing on the line and you simply can\u2019t not like this song, it was a good sign for the call and when connected with Scott we spoke about the new album, touring (including some cool news for Aussie fans) and the almost rebirth of the band because of that one song\u2026<\/p>\n

People get ready, there\u2019s a Train coming\u2026<\/p>\n

Thanks for taking the time to talk to us Scott\u2026<\/strong>
\nAbsolutely, happy to do it.<\/p>\n

Now I haven\u2019t had a chance to hear the album yet, so here\u2019s your chance to give us your mini review.\u00a0 Can you sum up the album in five words for us?<\/strong>
\nIn five words?\u00a0 OK\u2026 Let\u2019s see\u2026 Eclectic, Old school, that\u2019s two words I guess ha ha make that one word. New school, deep, fun and danceable.<\/p>\n

But seriously, can you give us a bit more insight into the album and what we can expect this time around?<\/strong>
\nWe\u2019re really proud of it man, and I know I have to say this but I really mean it, this is easily our best record.\u00a0 Pat\u2019s in a new place lyrically, he has really reached a potential that is pretty impressive to me, where it just lyrically he\u2019s just so good at writing these kinda fun, he always writes these kinda quirky lyrics, but there\u2019s also a great depth to them often times if you listen to them.\u00a0 Musically we\u2019re just in a really, really good spot and the record has a lot of sort of contemporary, upbeat songs which we really wanted to do because we want to get people dancing at our live shows more than we have in the past.\u00a0 There\u2019s also some stuff that\u2019s just really like an acoustic guitar with Pat singing and me on a keyboard, there\u2019s another song with a ukulele on it that\u2019s really catchy and cool, it\u2019s just got a lot of stuff on it, it\u2019s really cool.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s the meaning behind the name of the album, in California 37?<\/strong>
\nCalifornia 37 is a road in Northern California where the band is from.\u00a0 Pat used to live up in Sonoma County, I was in Marin County and Jimmy was right in San Francisco, so it was like three locations north and south of each other, and California 37 is a road up there that used to connect us to each other as well as it\u2019s also the road you take to go up in to Napa Valley. We\u2019ve become big wine fans and we make our own wine and everything so Napa Valley\u2019s become a big part of our lives and it\u2019s also a road, we have a lot of stories on that road, like breaking down and hitch hiking and just a lot funny stuff so it just kind of felt appropriate.<\/p>\n

In the three years since \u2018Save Me San Francisco\u2019 what has inspired the songs for this new album?<\/strong>
\nIt\u2019s a continuation of our last record which is \u2018Save Me San Francisco\u2019 and he\u2019s been sticking with the San Francisco theme lyrically and telling stories about our lives there, and it\u2019s pretty cool in that way and that\u2019s why the record title is still a California title.\u00a0 We just wrote it over the past two years while on tour and it just kind of came together.\u00a0 We picked the eleven best songs that we were happiest with and tried to make sure that it\u2019s a really listenable album in its entirety, not two good songs and then a bunch of stuff you don\u2019t care about.\u00a0 The whole record from one to number eleven is important to us.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>I was listening to some snippets though and saw, \u2018This\u2019ll Be My Year\u2019\u2026 to me it almost sounds like it could be a sequel to \u2018We Didn\u2019t Start The Fire\u2019, was that almost intentional?<\/strong>
\nThat\u2019s funny, we just did a Rolling Stone interview and they said the same thing and I don\u2019t like if Pat liked that comparison too much but it\u2019s true ha ha you know, because it is sort of a chronological song.\u00a0 You know that\u2019s just a story where Pat took his life experiences, he talks about the birth of his daughter and his son, he talks about Train leaving San Francisco in a $1000 van and also kind of ties in what was happening in the world at that time and just kind of used that as a basis to write those lyrics.\u00a0 Musically and the way his vocal is sort of a throw back to that era of music too, we were kinda thinking like an older school pop rock song that maybe something Journey would do or The Cars or something like that.
\nIt\u2019s got a great chorus in it\u2026<\/strong>
\nYeah, it\u2019s a great chorus and actually Butch Walker the producer, who\u2019s a really cool musician and he has his own band and everything and we\u2019re good friends with him, he had a heavy hand in that as he said \u201cYou guys can rock and you never really write that way, you always write more pop and lighter, you should rock and this is how you do it\u201d so he kind of helped us ha ha.<\/p>\n

I was going to ask about Butch as we\u2019re big fans of his work, what is it that he brings to the table that works for Train?<\/strong>
\nWell even though he\u2019s a pretty badass rocker, he\u2019s a professional producer; he\u2019s produced every type of music you know.\u00a0 He knows not to turn us in to a different band.\u00a0 He actually was really great because we\u2019ve known his for years since he was in \u2018Marvelous 3\u2019 and we were a small band playing in Atlanta, so being in the studio with him there was a great mutual respect and it was like working with someone you really admire but someone you\u2019re a peer with.\u00a0 It was really the best studio experience we\u2019ve ever had, there was just tonnes of laughter and just a really great time and he\u2019s very even tempered and he\u2019s not heavy handed.\u00a0 Like he lets me play the drums and he likes the way I play the drums and he might be like \u201cDo that Scott Underwood thing\u201d he won\u2019t be like, play like Stewart Copeland or something like that, he\u2019s very cool in that way and I think he just brought the best out of us.\u00a0 The rock he added is you\u2019ll hear a bit of a different sound on the record there, just the production of the guitars and the drums and everything, it\u2019s a little more rock which gives a nice sort of edge to these pop songs you know.<\/p>\n

I have to ask, when can we expect to see you back in Australia?<\/strong>
\nWe plan on coming back there in June, we have the whole month blocked out for Australia and Asia, not sure exactly when but that\u2019s the plan.
\nNow I did hear a rumour that you\u2019ll be playing a special venue here in Sydney\u2026<\/strong>
\nYeah man, it\u2019s a very big deal, the Sydney Opera House, it\u2019s almost hard to believe, you know I\u2019m not going to believe it until we\u2019re actually on stage.\u00a0 I\u2019m a big fan of architecture and that\u2019s the first thing I had to see when we went to Australia way back when, and I go there every time we\u2019re there.
\nI\u2019ve had the opportunity to see you a number of times over the years down here and the shows are always something special.\u00a0 What could we expect to see at the Opera House shows, like I\u2019ve seen Pat do \u2018When I Look To The Sky\u2019 with no microphone, could we expect something like that?<\/strong>
\nYou know what?\u00a0 I\u2019ll suggest that because of the acoustics at the Opera House, it\u2019d be perfect for that, I don\u2019t know if he\u2019s even thought about that yet, that\u2019s a great idea.<\/p>\n

Touring wise, is there anywhere you\u2019re planning on heading to that you\u2019ve never been to before?<\/strong>
\nWell the last record brought us to many parts of the world that we\u2019ve never before been so we\u2019re going to continue that, that includes all of Asia, we really focus on South America a lot and those are the two kind of big important places we went to and Dubai was a cool place that we stopped at.\u00a0 Right now we\u2019re finding out that the song is Number 1 in Lebanon and it\u2019s also a big hit in India and stuff like that so we\u2019re all excited about going to those areas.<\/p>\n

How important to you was a song like \u2018Hey Soul Sister\u2019 which in essence was a rebirth for the band and I must admit the catchiest song of the last couple of years and the reaction it generated?<\/strong>
\nWell man, it was not expected at all.\u00a0 We really thought that we were making probably our last record, not by our means but we thought that Columbia records was like \u2018OK we\u2019re going to give you guys one more chance and here\u2019s your record and here\u2019s a small budget and nobody\u2019s probably going to listen to it, so it was nice knowing ya.\u2019 Then this song comes out and it really starts blowing up and nobody could believe it, in fact our record label that in the music business that we were the story of the year because of the shock of it.\u00a0 Everybody said Train is dead, I can\u2019t even explain it, but we\u2019ve learned important lessons through it and that is that we didn\u2019t write that song trying to write a super hit song, we just wrote that song that we liked and made that record with the attitude of \u2018let\u2019s just make a really great record and enjoy the process\u2019 and that record became actually our biggest selling record.\u00a0 We learned that when you\u2019re trying a hit song you\u2019re going to miss your mark because you\u2019re trying to just say like \u2018Hey what\u2019s Lady Gaga doing?\u00a0 Let\u2019s do that.\u2019 You know, people want to hear a band be genuine and if they like what we\u2019re doing, that\u2019s great, if not, there\u2019s going to be a percentage of people who do, and we\u2019re a genuine band and that\u2019s kind of our attitude now.\u00a0 If we\u2019re enjoying the process that\u2019s really good, we learned that from \u2018Soul Sister\u2019 but the fact that there\u2019s this much attention around the world for a band as old as ours at this point, we formed in \u201994, that\u2019s really unusual and we know how special it is.<\/p>\n

Lastly, what does the rest of 2012 have in store for Train?<\/strong>
\nYeah we\u2019ve just started the big promotional campaign, started in Toronto, we just spent a week in New York City and we\u2019re going to go out to San Francisco for the album release and then we\u2019ve got to pretty much go all over the world.\u00a0 Go down to you guys and Asia and Europe, South America, Middle East and then just try to really hit everything, then this Summer we\u2019re going to do the big US tour and then that\u2019ll take us to Fall, I don\u2019t know what we\u2019ll do then, we just tour our asses off, we\u2019re pretty exhausted.\u00a0 Then we\u2019ll take the holidays off, we\u2019re assuming this record\u2019s a couple of years, we\u2019re going to be working on that for a few years, so a lot of touring and releasing new singles and seeing what happens.<\/p>\n

Thanks for your time Scott, we\u2019ll see you in June.<\/strong>
\nThanks man, see you in Sydney.<\/p>\n

Essential Information<\/span><\/strong><\/strong><\/h2>\n

From:<\/strong> San Francisco, USA<\/p>\n

Band members: <\/strong>Pat Monahan \u2013 Vocals, Jimmy Stafford \u2013 Guitar, Scott Underwood – Drums<\/p>\n

Website:<\/strong> http:\/\/www.trainline.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Latest release:<\/strong> California 37 (April 13 \u2013 Columba Records \/ Sony Music Australia)<\/p>\n

Check out Train’s Australian tour dates here!<\/a><\/p>\n\n

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