Charlie Colin, Founding Member of the Band Train, Dead at 58
Bassist Charlie Colin left the “Drops of Jupiter (Tell Me)” group in 2003
Musician Charlie Colin, a founding member of the band Train, has died. He was 58.
The group, fronted by Pat Monahan, remembered him on May 22 with a touching note. “When I met Charlie Colin, front left, I fell in love with him. He was THE sweetest guy and what a handsome chap,” began the statement.
“Let’s make a band, that’s the only reasonable thing to do. His unique bass playing and beautiful guitar work helped get folks to notice us in SF and beyond,” continued the band. “I’ll always have a warm place for him in my heart. I always tried to pull him closer but he had a vision of his own. You’re a legend, Charlie. Go charm the pants off those angels.”
TMZ reported the news of Colin’s death first, with his mother telling the outlet he was house-sitting for a friend in Brussels, Belgium, when he slipped and fell in the shower. His sister later confirmed the news to Variety.
His cause of death remains unclear.
Colin’s mother mentioned to the outlet that he’d moved to Brussels to teach a music master class at a conservatory and was also working on finishing music for a film.
Colin, who won two Grammy Awards as a member of Train, founded the “Drops of Jupiter (Tell Me)” band in the early 1990s in San Francisco with Monahan, Rob Hotchkiss, Jimmy Stafford, and Scott Underwood.
He mentioned on the ‘Power Players with Dan Clark’ podcast that while Monahan wrote most of Train’s lyrics, he “usually pulled the music, ideas, and basic content of the song out of the ether.”
“I usually give him a phrase or two of an idea, and then he would take it and work on it,” he said. “For about eight years, Pat and I were on fire. We were fantastic writing partners.”
Colin left the band in 2003, stating on the podcast that he “went out because my ego and my identity were all at stake and I was thinking about that too much.”
He’d previously told Berklee Today in 2002 that life on the road had “got a little out of hand” in the late 1990s, as Train was touring 11 months out of the year.
“I couldn’t keep a relationship together, and I put my stuff in storage because it didn’t make sense to keep my apartment,” he said. “At that point, you can kind of unravel. Now we have adequate time to recover from long tours.”
In a 2017 interview, Monahan reflected on Colin’s exit, noting he had essentially forced the rest of the band to choose between the two of them due to Colin’s substance abuse issues.
“Charlie is one incredible bass player, but he was in a lot of pain, and the way he was dealing with it was very painful for everyone else around him,” Monahan told NBC San Diego. “They weren’t happy about the choice. They were very clear that I put them in a very tough position.”
Colin attended Berklee College of Music in Boston and was also an accomplished artist, according to his Instagram.
