Charlie Colin, who was the bassist and a founding member of the band Train, known for songs like “Drops of Jupiter” and “Meet Virginia” in the early 2000s, has passed away at the age of 58.
His sister Carolyn Stephens confirmed his death to The Associated Press on Wednesday. According to TMZ.com, Colin slipped and fell in the shower while house-sitting for a friend in Brussels.
Colin grew up in Southern California and later studied at Berklee College of Music in Boston. After college, he played with guitarist Jimmy Stafford and singer Rob Hotchkiss in a group called Apostles. After that band disbanded, Colin spent time in Singapore writing jingles.
Eventually, Colin, Hotchkiss, and Stafford moved to San Francisco, where they formed Train in the early 1990s with singer Pat Monahan. According to an interview in Berklee’s alumni magazine with Colin and Hotchkiss, Colin brought drummer Scott Underwood into the group to complete the lineup.
As one of the original members of the pop-rock band, Colin played on their first three albums: their self-titled debut in 1998, “Drops of Jupiter” in 2001, and “My Private Nation” in 2003. The latter two albums reached No. 6 on the Billboard 200 chart.
Charlie Colin (Via brett Joseph/Getty Images)
“Meet Virginia,” from Train’s first album, reached the Top 20 of the Billboard Hot 100, but it was their second album that solidified the band’s success.
The song “Drops of Jupiter (Tell Me),” which went eight-times platinum, featured Chuck Leavell, a pianist who had worked with the Rolling Stones, and Paul Buckmaster, who arranged strings for Leonard Cohen. The song, written about Monahan’s mother’s death, reached No. 5 on the Billboard chart and won two Grammy Awards, including Best Rock Song.
Colin left Train in 2003 due to issues with substance abuse.
“Charlie is an amazing bass player, but he was dealing with a lot of pain, and the way he handled it caused pain for everyone around him,” Monahan told NBC San Diego.
In 2015, he reunited with Hotchkiss to form a new band called Painbirds, along with Tom Luce. In 2017, he started another band, the Side Deal, with Stan Frazier from Sugar Ray and Joel and Scott Owen from the PawnShop Kings.
Train’s social media pages paid tribute to Colin on Wednesday.
