Charlie Colin, Founding Bassist of ‘Drops of Jupiter’ Band Train, Dead at 58
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Charlie Colin, the founding bassist of the pop-rock group Train who featured on the band’s Grammy-winning hit “Drops of Jupiter,” has died at the age of 58.
Colin’s sister confirmed the bassist’s death to Variety, which reports that Colin slipped and fell in the shower while house-sitting for friends in Brussels, Belgium; he was found dead when his friends returned home five days ago.
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“When I met Charlie Colin, front left, I fell in love with him,” Train’s Pat Monahan wrote in a statement posted on social media Wednesday. “He was THE sweetest guy and what a handsome chap. Let’s make a band that’s the only reasonable thing to do. His unique bass playing a beautiful guitar work helped get folks to notice us in SF and beyond. 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.”
Train formed in earnest in the mid-Nineties when Colin, who studied at the Berklee School of Music, joined fellow alumni and guitarist Rob Hotchkiss, plus lead guitarist Jimmy Stafford, drummer Scott Underwood, and singer Pat Monahan in the new group; Colin, Hotchkiss, and Stafford previously performed together in the short-lived L.A.-based act, the Apostles.
After initially self-releasing their self-titled debut album in 1996, the band signed with Columbia Records, which re-released the LP in early 1998. Train boasted a pair of singles, “Free,” and the band’s breakout “Meet Virginia.”
Three years later, in 2001, Train released their album Drops of Jupiter, with the title track eventually becoming a Top Five hit on the Hot 100. The single would later win a pair of Grammys — for Best Rock Song and Best Instrumental Arrangement Accompanying Vocalist, and it was also nominated (but lost) Song of the Year and Record of the Year — while the album would attain double platinum status.
However, Colin would only feature on one more Train album, 2003’s My Private Nation, before substance abuse issues forced him out of the band. “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 said in 2017.
Colin would reunite with Hotchkiss (who also left Train in 2003) in the band Painbirds and played with the Side Deal with members of Sugar Ray and the PawnShop Kings, and most recently, the band Flamingo Twin, which wrote on social media Wednesday, “I’m crushed. Beyond crushed. [Colin] gave me a voice I never knew I had. I love this man and will miss him forever and ever and ever. And ever.”
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