TRAIN FRONTMAN TELLS STORY BEHIND 'HEY, SOUL SISTER'

Monday, August 23 2010 05:13

Train has had a lot of success with its hit song "Hey, Soul Sister," the lead single off of last year's Save Me San Francisco album. It's almost a comeback for the group, who had previously had hits with "Drops of Jupiter" and "Meet Virginia."

We recently caught up with Train frontman Pat Monahan and asked how the song came about: "I kind of wanted to write an INXS song. And so the idea was I want to write 'Need You Tonight'. So I kind of just started plugging a little riff -- bam, bam, bam, but then I was like, 'I don't really want to write that song, but something like it. So I just started to do whatever you do riffing with music and then was like 'Man, I know exactly what to do here. Just give me about 45 minutes.'"

Monahan told us how the lyrics were initially based on what the annual Burning Man event held in the Nevada desert: "I just wrote on my computer for a while what I saw as a group of beautiful women at Burning Man dancing around the fire. I've never been there before, but that's what I imagined it would be like. And so I wrote these words and sang it to these guys, and then one of the dudes pulled out a ukulele, and it all made sense."

Train just recorded a Christmas song. No word yet on which track, or where it will surface.

Train performs in Vienna, Virginia tonight (Monday, August 23rd).