5 questions with Train

Before a sold-out show at the Sherman Theater last Friday, Train stopped by 98.5 KRZ’s Spotlight Lounge to perform a three-song set for lucky contest winners. Between good-natured joking around with fans and KRZ’s Jumpin’ Jeff Walker and Amanda, the multi-platinum band — whose frontman Patrick Monahan is from Erie, Pa. — played its hits “Drops of Jupiter,” “Calling All Angels” and its latest smash, “Hey, Soul Sister,” which sits at No. 6 on the Billboard Hot 100.

After their acoustic set and a meet-and-greet with fans, Monahan, guitarist Jimmy Stafford and drummer Scott Underwood fielded five questions from the Weekender.

WEEKENDER: Pat, what was it like singing “Long Cool Woman in a Black Dress” with The Hollies at the recent Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony?

PATRICK MONAHAN: Obviously, it’s an honor to sing for anyone at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, but ya know Graham (Nash) and Allan (Clarke) are such gracious, really appreciative guys. They were really excited to have been invited to that event themselves. So it was really cool to be with such humble guys that were such great artists.

WEEKENDER: Have you gotten any reaction from the guys in Mr. Mister for mentioning the band in “Hey, Soul Sister”?

JIMMY STAFFORD: No, nothing from Mr. Mister, however, I got a really nice e-mail from Pat Simmons from the Doobie Brothers — we have a song on the album (“Save Me, San Francisco”) called “I Got You” that borrows heavily from “Black Water” — and he wrote me a really sweet e-mail. But nothing from Mr. Mister. Nor do we get free soy latte from Starbucks.

SCOTT UNDERWOOD: Or fried chicken from Kentucky Fried Chicken. (Editor’s note: “Drops Of Jupiter” refers to soy latte and deep-fried chicken.)

WEEKENDER: What’s your favorite song to perform live?

UNDERWOOD: I love when we play “Breakfast In Bed,” and I think we all love playing it because the end has such a huge, like rock sort of psychedelic moment, which is unusual for us.

WEEKENDER: What’s your pre-show routine like?

UNDERWOOD: Jimmy has a cup of wine usually. Pat does about a thousand pushups and sit-ups and he does aromatherapy, and I do like warm-ups, rudiments, then we all tend to play “Abacab” by Genesis for some reason, really loud. It just happened one day, and it gets us really excited to go onstage.

WEEKENDER: How did you come up with your band name?

UNDERWOOD: Our original guitar player Rob (Hotchkiss) came up with the idea a long time ago. When he was thinking about it, he just though of trains being an American icon that he found kind of romantic.

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