Pat Monahan of Train

You know, I think train is a romantic comedy and I want people to feel like they've listened to a really cool movie and I think this is maybe my best lyric writing as a whole and that's important to me. Those uh those ways of saying things that are meaningful that have not been said that way before is very important to me and very difficult. How you doing? I'm doing pretty well actually. I uh I'm working way more than I want to. I thought the last couple of years would be easier that like I would take 2025 off because it's good to go away sometimes. Yeah, I agree. And then instead of taking 2025 off, we went to Australia New Zealand, Europe and did a summer run here in the States. So like maybe they'll take 26 off and they're like, great, well, let's start with the tour and so in a new record. And so uh but did you make the record and then you my record is really close to being done. So I'm in the middle. I'm not in the middle. It's a six years through writing for a musical. Ah and we finally got a theater in San Diego called the Old Globe. Uh huh. And so it's really close to being finished. I have maybe one song just a finagle. Are you allowed to say the name of the musical yet? Yeah, it's called Begin Again. Okay. So it starts on September 16th at the Old Globe. Okay. Having that behind me will be very, very good for me. That's a big undertaking. Well, I didn't realize how big it was. You know, you think, all right, I'm just going. It's like years of someone's life. It was years and I quit three times. I week two because you know, it's different than being in a band or being an artist where you're writing songs for characters that have to tell stories so they don't have to write dialogue. Yeah. And you know, how we repeat courses because people want to hear it again, never in Broadway. Mm-hmm. You have to change every lyric. You can't repeat a lyric because you need to tell more story. The dialogue. And I learned on Broadway that that's incredible means rewrite that shit. That's incredible. rewrite it. Just change all of it. Yeah, it's a little bit more of a committee. And that's that's hard for me. Yeah. And so then I wrote 80 songs for a new record. And then I finally hit flow. And then I just got the flow and wrote almost the whole record. Right. You're like, I wrote 80 songs to get to 15. That's right. And then I banged out 15. So only one of the songs that I wrote out of those 80 will make this record. That's insane. What are you going to do with the other 79? If you heard him, you would tell me you should leave him right where they are. I don't know about that. You sound like me, man. I'll show you some of the worst songs you could ever want. Oh, buy a dollar piece. Sign off. Buy a medal. This is from the guy who's written some big ass songs. Oh, you know, I am from you on site unseen. They're not a dollar. OK, just so we can be clear, just so you can admit is not that bad. When you've written songs that are out of the atmosphere, it's hard. I think for you not to say you wouldn't write a song and just like it in it personally. But when you when you know what that song feels like when it's that big, you could say you have a list of songs you've written and you could say they're some of the biggest songs of the last couple decades. When you've had that kind of size and you know what that song feels like it's going to be a high bar for you to try and yeah, that's exactly right. And so you may dismiss some songs that other people it would be a single for some other people. I don't know like the problem is that I am very competitive with myself and the world of music. Right. Like I play golf. And so it's a very competitive thing for me. Like I'm trying to beat me. Right. Yeah. Yeah. I'm not very good at wanting to beat you. OK, I'm saying this unless I have a teammate and you have a teammate, then I can root a from us. Right. But I always want to be rooting for a teammate. Right. And if we're playing against each other, I don't want to compete with you. But if we're music in music world, I'm really competing against you and me, but mostly me. Yeah, it's different now because I can also root for you as I try to win. But early days, it was shelf space. You could also respect a good shot. Of course. Well, you're like, damn, man. You love that. Yeah. Like listening to Jay Cole and go, like, wow, I wish I could do that guy. Yeah. And, uh, but there's so many of those. But in the world that I started in, it was shelf space. And for the Google dolls to succeed, I needed to beat them to get a space on the rack. Right. And it's not like that anymore. Right. Those guys are friends of mine. I root for them. And I never rooted against them. But it was literally a shelf space environment. And now it's not now that we all can live. It was a scarce opportunity back then because there was only so many incaps. Your record got to be on exactly. And you were physically going into those stores because it was the only way you could see your music out in the world. Whereas now you could look on a playlist or you could look on, you know, it's like you're saying, it's I totally understand that experience. It's really fun for me to be swiping on TikTok that I'm terrible at. And just see all this high school college kids tell me. And you said, and it's like, yeah, tell me shit. Let's go. Yeah. And, uh, it's so cool that a new generation of people. But I, I always tell my friends like they learned my music in a car seat. Yeah. And then they all decided that it was ingrained in their being. And so they continue. Yeah. It's so deep in people's psyche. For exactly what you're saying, whether they were in a car seat or they were driving the car, it's in the fabric of life for a certain period of time that across as a couple generations. And it becomes like it's interesting, right? When you say TikTok, that song, it represents something more. It doesn't matter if they were the person driving the car or the person in the car seat or someone who's never heard it before. And they're seeing people, but they know it calls to something like you can feel when people are sharing it. It calls to a feeling and a memory or a, it's interesting when a song becomes that memory is everything. Yeah. It's experiencing life and music being a part of it. Like being an actor seems like the hardest life in the world other than being a dancer. Yeah. Yeah. And being a musician, I'm so grateful that I get to be a part of people's lives because no one ever tells their story about prom or losing their virginity into watching Scarface. You know what I mean? They're like, I was listening to this was on in the background. This song, I was looking at this beautiful moment. Yeah. That's the beauty and the gift. One time I sang, I was probably 30 and I sang with Al Green. Oh wow. And at the time when I went into rehearsals, he had some, you know, they were older at the time. There was an older gentleman who is his background singer. So this little white kid walks in the room and everybody's like, huh? And then I sang and they were all like, all right. And this gentleman came up to me. You might have been 75 at the time. And he goes, congratulations for respecting your gift. And I was like, never forget that moment. That's cool. It's cool when like an older person gives you a little, a little nugget. And you have to be at the right time to hear it because you hear things when you're young and you, and they come back to you later on in life and you're like, I remember when my granddad used to say that. And now it's played out. And he was right the whole time. And I just kind of, yeah, brush it off as I was talking about it's from because you're trying to make your own path. Yeah. You know, you don't need advice when you're younger, but you kind of need it. Yeah. When you write this new record, I think it's called Mad Dog in the fog, which is a bar in San Francisco that we, we would go perform for free. Yeah. And it was a part of our coming up. Are you from San Francisco? I'm from Erie, Pennsylvania. Oh wow. And then I moved to San Francisco to start train. Oh, you're from Pennsylvania. I'm from Maryland. I don't know. We're like cousins. Cousins. Maybe as cousin lives in Pennsylvania. If you've had a couple hours away. Yeah. You'd be, it's interesting how many artists are from Pennsylvania. Yeah. I mean, pink is from Pennsylvania. Pink, Taylor Swift. Oh yeah. All right. Where's Taylor? All the notes. All the notes. The list is long. Yeah. New Jersey and Pennsylvania sit next to each other. So some people are from like Cherry Hill. Like you're not from Pennsylvania, but you kind of from Philly, but they're definitely is Western Pennsylvania. And like it's basically Western Pennsylvania and Philadelphia. And so I'm more of a Pittsburgh guy. So I grew up a Steelers fan. Pittsburgh is one area and that's closer to Ohio. Yeah. I love Pittsburgh, man. It's a good place. Right. I'm more like from the Maryland to Pennsylvania. Which is like what places in Pennsylvania would I say like we'd used to go to I mean you could drive to Philly And it was like an hour and a couple two hours away. Yeah, Pennsylvania is is a is good Salted to the earth people. Yeah, it's a good place. What age were you when you left? I moved to LA first when I was 19. Oh, wow and then I moved back to Pennsylvania and had a child so I was 23 when I had my first child. That's young and then we went to San Francisco and So I had to raise a Little kid a little boy and I started a painting company because I learned how to paint houses Oh, I'm Francisco and bought a house and I would paint all day and then I would Come home shower and drive back over the Golden Gate Bridge to sing for free Yeah, just until somebody would show up and say that's pretty good. I'll give you 500 bucks And then and just kept going so you were like singing in bars and stuff everywhere that would have us for free That's why San Francisco was such a perfect place for us at the time because it was like the heart of the beginning of Like coffee house. Yeah, the coffee house scene was really important in San Francisco and We would go to three or four open mics at night and Till people started to follow us at the open mics and then we completed the band and there were five of us So we'd start to do free shows and parties and then we would Get booked it places like slims and mix tavern and whatever else and then one day we got to play the filmor and that was A life changer. Yeah, filmor probably still my favorite venue in the world. It's one of mine too It's it's a classic. It's a great place to see a show have a show Yep, it's a great on stage the history. Yeah, just walking around seeing the posters. Yeah San Francisco did a lot of things right when it came to music so You go back to Pennsylvania 19 or 20. I was like 22 22. Okay. See you were here You were in LA for three years or so. Mm-hmm. I'm trying to make it trying to just grind One of the magazines at the time Music weekly music weekly. Yeah, the other one that was big and just like checking the box. Hey dude I'm looking for a you know, right trying to make it. I'm your guy. Yeah, yeah, and it was always singing I was always singing so I started as a drummer, but girls seemed to like singers better. So I just figured that yeah Yeah, yeah, yeah, all right. That's kind of my same my thought process around I mean, I get this great Lionel Richie story whenever you're ready. Uh, okay. I want the Lionel Richie story Not yet. You don't want to get it. But I want it. I'm really interested in a guy who is willing to move back to Pennsylvania Start raising this kid Painting houses while singing in bars trying to make it not different from how I started Tell me how you did it. Same thing. It was it was we left home while probably Where'd you go from Maryland? So we went to Annapolis, okay, which you had a bar scene and there was a band at the time That was on the radio was the 90s. So there was a band at the time that was local that was on the radio They had a national like hit Jimmy's chicken check Okay, I don't know if you remember them and we heard they were performing and we were driving up there to open mic nights because the only place That had bars with open mic nights and how many of you just you and your brother me and my brother who's to guitar We had the band at the time, but we were in high school and the other guys were a year behind us So and their parents were more involved so they weren't allowed on school nights My dad had left earlier in my life and it was my us and our mom and She had her hands full. She couldn't barely get by and you had nothing to do with that and Well, I'll be honest with you. We did it. We didn't oh really. We were very good We didn't get in trouble. That's great. We worked jobs. We contributed to the bills and what a great relief for your mom It was I could say my mom would say the same thing like we were contributors We would pay bills and it was really hard like I was working from 14 I was telling my son this the other day I was like at 14. I was working probably 40 hours a week at a pizza place and going to school and trying to start to span Yeah, and I was serious about the band. It was number one. I was like there was never a moment where when I started I knew it right away. I was like this is it and I was dedicated. We were dedicated to it first But we had to work way to pay the bills and then we had to like every now like get another piece of equipment one at a time Was it so hard back then because then where do you go? There was like a tar shop 45 minutes away Unreliable transportation because we were buying like cars out of people's yards, you know what I mean? So it was like the 90s it was that was the buyback then still is probably for some people I'm not saying it isn't now, but like well then we had to get a job and then we would cut people's grass watch people's cars We do anything we could to make money to buy stuff and we'd have to help pay the rent pay the electric pay the Whatever so it was very hard time because we were always working and everything was like 50 bucks away Yeah, you know what I mean and I'm sure you could relate to that when it was like you were just 50 bucks shy of that Part for your car or the bill or the bit so when we left We was our we had we had just finished high school basically my dad would paint houses on the weekends when I was little Yeah, oh he always had two or three jobs and I used to paint houses with him and so when you said you painted it hit me because that's for whatever reason Painting houses is near and dear to my heart because I used to there was great joy in it And it was the only time I ever hung out with my daddy worked my whole life and then he left and so the only memories I have of him was when I got to go Work for him and he was a pretty joyful worker like if that was his element I think at home he seemed very I think him and my mom were not very good at Communicating and yeah conflict resolution, but most toolboxes were pretty empty. They were empty Yeah, they were they were literally real toolboxes not emotional ones manual labor and jobs like that can be very humbling When you're dealing with the different types of people and there's nothing better than when you're dealing with people who are like joyful and nice And so when I was on the job with my dad I saw all that home dealing with this dealing with that dealing with this and How he interacted with him and how he handled he was he was a humble guy He had his problems, but he was a very humble guy and very nice guy and It taught me how to deal with the different types of people You encounter and when you deal with it enough times and see it when you're young you realize that's not personal It's different types of people and then and it helps you what I think it provided for me for my real for my career Was the ability to work hard long hours with joy with humility and Gratitude that this is what I'm doing and I'm not breaking my back moving fucking shit and Painting houses and you know those long-ass 12 14-hour days sometimes and then a diligence in it In the process painting is a very diligent process. You have to be you have to be diligent And I think that like when I hear you say that I'm like, oh fuck I know you I already know you already I already know what what you'll do to achieve what you want And most people won't do that most people will not be uncomfortable for too long Therefore they won't get what they want right we have to have And I say this forever in listening because everybody wants something and will either tell ourselves We don't want it so we don't have to be uncomfortable in the process of getting it Yeah, or we'll tell ourselves we want it bad enough to go through the process and work hard enough and be Uncomfortable and be humbled in the process To get what we want and then you bring it back to this music shit every time you ever hit I can a week later Everyone acts like you'll never gonna have another you're never gonna run another good good song Yeah, like that was it. That's the mentality. That was it Yeah, now the clock's ticking. That's not true. We're we're we're a well of creative my I have a great manager who he's uh He's a guy who loves Coaches of great athletes and great teams and so he's become a great great coach. That's great It's like my manager whenever I start working on something. He's like remember never count Monahan out That's like just gives me a little bit of juice. Yeah Yeah, and uh, but when you're talking about humility my father he was uh He made suits and he was a haberdasher so he sold hats. Oh, that's cool and I remember being maybe in 10th grade and I had a day off of school and I came down and I just My dad yes, sir. I'm so sorry sir on the phone. Just getting his ass handed it to him and I was humiliated for him Mm-hmm and He hung up the phone and I was like I'm not asking And he said a suit was messed up And this guy was very upset about it And so I called him right away had apologized and told him I was gonna fix it because had I not He would have had more and more and more time To be more and more and more angry and make a big story Potentially never use me again And so apologizing Can make a great relationship Absolutely. It didn't sound like a great relationship, but it ended up being one because - She had, that takes courage. - Takes courage, most people right in. - One, make the call. - No, we run away. We run away from discomfort. - Yeah. - Like, I'm really uncomfortable now. I'm about to leave. - Yes. Kid, man. - Well, I feel like because it's my space, I can be like really, I can open up a little bit and share things 'cause I like to. - This is also, I mean, do you record in here? Like, this looks like you could do a lot of things in here. - There's tie through lines right there in the wall. If you wanted to track drums in here you could, you could set up a band and run it through and record live in here 'cause these are recording studios. So this room has like a multi-function. - Yeah. - We don't use it that way. - This seems like an expensive building. - It is now. Well, I guess by any standards, yes. It was an expensive building. But I'd say it's way more expensive now than when we bought it. 'Cause we've owned it for like 10 years. It's been a blessing. - Yeah, it's cool. I love it. I have a recording studio. And then when we started our company and we started doing all the stuff we're doing, we needed a place for everybody. And, you know, it didn't make sense to rent forever. So we found this building's been incredible. It's got good energy too. - Yeah. - Everybody's recorded here. - I mean, didn't good. - Thanks, man. Glad you like it. It's a special to us. It's like home. And then when we started the show we built this set and it's become like a fixture back here. We made a lot of memories in this room. Well, for me, the people listening need to hear the human, the human being who went through what they had to go through to get to where they wanted to get. 'Cause that's the inspirational side of life that we dismiss it sometimes. And everything's sold as like, this is how you do it. Quick, this. And it's not. It's like human beings have to struggle. They go, well, we want. We have to work hard. We have to sacrifice. We have to. - No memory human. But guys like us do. - Yeah. Yeah, maybe not every human. Maybe we're right about that. But I think everyone has their own challenges in their own way. - I think it's more fun to have challenges and to have to fight to get something. I was telling somebody earlier that a once was asking about this fella who seems to have a lot of money. And I asked, what's his story? - The rich guy. - I said, what's his story? And this guy goes, he earned it the old fashioned way. He inherited it. - Right. (laughing) - Yeah, as I get so funny. 'Cause I don't think that would be that fun for me. - It'd be a lot of fun for me to be the giver. - Yeah. - The guy who's passing it. - I was gonna tell you, one of the most humiliating things of my early days and working as hard as I did and having a young family was, I couldn't buy people dinner. - Right. - And every time somebody bought me dinner, I kept very close tabs on how they did it. - Right. - Do you want me to feel this? Or do you want me to feel grateful and just lucky that I got to be friends with you? And I learned some people want you to feel it. Like, I'll get it. - Right. - Right. - I buy a lot of dinners. - Yeah. - And I never want people to feel it. - I wanna sneak away and pay the check. - Yeah. - And just kinda, oh guys, it's good. - Yep, it's time to go. - Yeah. - I'm the same way, man. That's interesting. I would say I had the same experience where I felt like someone bought me dinner and I felt a little shame. - Yeah. - 'Cause it was also shameful to feel like I'd say, "God, I don't really want to eat there." And they'd be like, "No, come on, man." I'd be like, "I don't have the money, man. I'm sorry, I just got to be row with you." I can't afford it. And then they're like, "No, I got it." And then the whole time I'm eating, I feel like I'm a pride guy. And so it was a conflict for me. It's always been a conflict for me for anyone to pay for me. Because when you don't have a lot, it felt shameful for me. And my dad raised me that way when I was little. I used to say things in he was, like, "No, don't take any handouts." And that's not what buying dinner for someone is. It's not a handout unless you make it feel like a handout, which is exactly why what you're saying. Like that's what you're saying. There's an integrity. - I wish I would have been more confident in my younger self 'cause I would have asked a lot of questions for people. Like in conversations that seemed like they weren't friendly, I wish I would have had the tools to stop the conversation and say, "What is your intent?" - Right, like what do you want? Are you trying, do you want to hurt me or do you want an answer? Are you buying me dinner because you want me to be less than or are you just being generous? And man, generosity, the most beautiful thing in the world. - It is. - But wanting somebody to feel less than the ugliest. - I think it's just a lack of integrity or not. If you have integrity, you do what you mean. You mean what you say and you have intention. And so it's clear when you have integrity, it's clear. There's nothing passive about integrity. And the passiveness of that weirdness of people when they're not clear is, okay, so I have a thing where whenever anyone confuses me, I have learned that it's something, it's some form of dishonesty when I'm confused. - Like confused by behavior or words? - Words, they're being passive-aggressive. That can be confusing. - That's aggressive. - But it's dishonest. So it's just dishonest, whether they mean to be or not. 'Cause like what you're saying is like, I'm the same. It took me many years to be able to do what your dad did, which is like nip it in the bud, get right on it, dive right into it. If there's a problem, let's, okay, let's talk about it. Instead of like running away, skirting around it, you know, saying yes, but meaning no, you know. - The older you get, you also get much more confident about I'm okay if this is it. - Right. - I'm okay if this is our last interaction. - I can live with it. - I'm good with that. - Yeah. - But if you want more interaction, I'm gonna need this from you. - Yeah, we need to. - And you deserve something from me. - Right. - And it's like keeping your side of the street clean. - Well, plus your circle has to be very important at this point. - Yeah. - How old are you? - 47. - I'm 10 years older than you. - Okay, that's a nice. - 10 years more. - Fuck it. - Yeah. - Like I went to, I went to a gala. - 10 more years, fuck it. - I liked that. - It was a gala for my kids school. - They were having a fundraiser. - That was the kiss of the last year. - I have four. - Oh wow. - 33, 28 and then two little kids that are 17 and 14 that my wife and I still live with. But we went to a gala last year and I went out in the balk or in the drink area, you know, lobby. - The reception lobby area. - And I got a glass of wine and a friend of mine was like, hey Pat, meet these two guys that you've never met. And man, these two guys talked for five minutes about their children and didn't ask me one thing about my children and I went, nope. And I went back in the room 'cause it was like, I don't care bro, there was nothing you said that was interesting to me. - Right. - Curiosity, that's friendship. - Yeah, yeah. - If you're curious, you wanna know anything about me. We are instantly friends because I'm very curious about you. - Yeah. And that's, I learned from the best. I have, there is a 77 year old man that I try to have dinner with every time I'm in New York because he's the most curious man alive. And he's the most interesting guy in the world. - Very important in New York. - He doesn't talk to me about that shit ever. - Right. - He talks to me about me, what's going on with me and all the people that he admires. - Right. - That's beautiful. - Yeah. - The tough part of, for me, like the school thing with kids, I have teenagers too, like you. I got an 18 year old and a 16 year old. And we've been doing the school thing since obviously, we're trying to just be good parents, be engaged, show up. And like every now and then you get a punisher, where you're like, oh my God, you got me for a fucking hour. - The punisher. - You're gonna punish me, aren't you? - The punisher is a very music related term. - Yeah. - I mean, I mean, that guy here, he's a punisher. - He's a punisher. - That's right. Every parent can relate to that too, dude. Yeah, and see it, actually every human can relate to it, but like, there's nothing better than cool-ass parents who are all there. It's not like we all chose to hang out together. We're all here, though, and we're participating. We're not like, I don't think I'm better than you. I'm just here and I'm not pretending. I'm here, like I really want to be here to support my kid. And I'm not here to network. I'm not here to like, I'm just here to support my kid and your kid, by the way. I'm here to be a part of the community. And every now and then, there's just a punisher, man. They're just like- - How old are your kids? - 18 and 16. - And boy, girl. - My daughter's 18. Graduating this year from high school. My son is 16 and he's in 10th grade. - It's such a trip. The difference between boys and girls as groups and what they do to one another in high school. - It is. - And the things that these turtles do. - They're tough. - Oh, baby. - It's like mind games with boys. It's more straight forward. - Oh yeah. - I will punch you. - And girls are like, "I'm gonna make sure that the next four years are less miserable." - Yeah, exactly. They're like, "I'm gonna be your best friend and destroy your life." - Yes. - And that's why we need a female president. - Yeah, I am so much more advanced. - It's a very intelligent thing way these girls up. for it. It's high level. It's high level. I couldn't even hang. Like when I hear about something going on, my wife is like, just, you don't want this. Stay out. Go write a song. You're not going to help. I'm like, what do you want me to do? You want me to go? Yeah, that's the way I say. I will punch them. Exactly. Your wife is right on with that. Yeah, she is. Because women are very good at that. They're like, they're much better at talking to both sexes of children. I'm, I might will punch them and she's like, you're going to be fine. I would definitely not respond to that text that's pulling you into the vortex of awful. And I'd be like, give me the phone. You know, like, and that's the difference. Like my wife knows how to run my family and my life. Like I used to text people and she'd be like, new, new, no internet. Give me the phone. Never again. Take it away. You can look at pictures. She's turning the Wi-Fi off in your house. Yeah. You can go to Instagram and just swipe. Yeah. Don't heart. I turned off your comments. You're like, yeah, you need that. You need that. My wife is the same man. She steers me through the storms. How long have you guys been together? It'll be 20 years of marriage in July. Oh, I'm grads. Wait. No. Next July. Sorry. 19 this year. That's great. How about you? 20 years together this year in December. Cool. 11 years? You know, 16 years married. Nice. 11. Sorry. That's going to go over great. I believe that one is right. 11 years of marriage. She'll laugh. 16, honey. It's been great. I don't know what I would do with that. Yeah. The people who say marriage is hard. It's supposed to be hard work. It's like not to me, man. Yeah. It's supposed to be the easiest relationship in your life to me. The relationship isn't the hard part. I'm the hard part. I get it. Yeah. I got stuff. Yeah, I got that. It took me 10 years to believe that it was that it was last. Like, do you catch yourself knowing this about yourself that before you stir shit up in your house? Yes. That you feel you're about to do and you go back it off now. Yeah. Like 45, I turned that corner where I was like, it's like, I feel it. Come back. You can have to beat that shit down again. Yeah. I'll listen to you. I'll listen to you. You're cool, dude. I'll listen to you. I'm all right. Honestly, dude, I did not know a lot about you. And I'm like, in the first hour, almost an hour, I'm like, oh, fuck, I fuck with you. Yeah, I fuck with you big time. He learned from Martian Lynch, who's a buddy of mine. Oh, Martian. The first time I ever heard that was like 15 years ago. He was like, yeah, I fuck with that. And I was like, I don't know what that means. Someone tell me what Martian means. It means I like it. Yeah. I like him. Everybody likes me. He's the most authentic human I've ever met. He's very likable, but he's never not him. But that's what you feel. You feel like he'll say what he thinks always. And he does it with a smile. But this man, you talk about generosity. Yeah. What he does for other people. Big. He's got you can feel is he's got a big heart. Yeah. He's probably had to go through a lot. That's what I guess because people that I think have had struggle, I think become very generous people within success. They've become very generous people and not before success, I would say anytime you could be generous, you were probably. There's a good feeling with gender. Something feels great about paying for dinner or buying someone a gift or surprising someone or just you know, I've reached an age that the real generosity is giving someone your time. That's the money gift. Yeah, right about that. Somebody who wants your time. Yeah. And then you give it to him. Very important. Only thing you can't buy, make more of yeah. Once you give it, it's gone. I agree with that. I really feel like if you could live your life with that as the currency, you could actually make the right decisions. Sure. Time is money in love and life and everything else. Time is all of it. If someone held a clock up with a certain amount of years, months, days, hours and you saw it, like you would think differently when you're making decisions. And I think people sometimes we all get caught up in the money of it or the if we do this, they'll think this or the there's a lot of different currencies you could use. There's fame, there's money, there's power, there's this, there's that. And the only one that actually matters is time. Yep. And it's your kids. Yeah. So what's the most important thing that happened to you last year? And they won't say that's sweet ride. You bought me pops. Yeah, yeah. There'd be like it's when we went and visited grandma at whatever and it's a moment for them. It's a forever memory. And that's where we come back to memory and music because while you're on your way to visit grandma, which is an important moment for everybody, you probably have the car radio on and you're listening to that song came on some great stuff. That's right. And then it made that moment stick. That's what music does. Yeah. It's why they need it for the musical. They need it to stick. And music makes the word stick. It makes the memory stick. It memorializes the moment. Yeah, it's a great way to put it. Yeah. And you can keep it. You don't have to hold it. You don't have to put it on a shelf. You don't need pocket space for it. You can keep it. And if you feel it, it's pretty cool. The coolest talk about too. It's not a cool thing. Everybody I know wishes that they had music. Yeah. No matter how many millions or billions they have, they wish music was in them. Like it's in us. The way it is in yeah, in us. We're lucky. But sometimes having music in us is very difficult and destructive. It's distracting. It can make your head feel crazy. Just like man, get out. It can just give me five minutes. Yeah. Also like I listen to music every day. Obviously, I love music. I'm a fan of music. But it can ruin sometimes if you're too deep in your in your music thing, you can't just enjoy a song. You're like, because you're like competing at every moment. You're like, what are you doing? That song's so good. I hate them. Yeah. I love those moments though. Yeah. When you hear great instead of like, that's sex. Yeah. I wish I wrote that. Yeah. Man, I wish I wrote that. Yeah. I wish I would have read the way he said that. The way he said that. Yeah. With the new record, is there anything you feel like? Yeah, this is my my best shit right here. Yeah. There was a few of them. Cool. And that's the only reason I want to put an album out. Like who puts an album out? Why? And it's because train fans are my age. Some much younger, some older. But we grew up buying albums, which had stories to them and different. You know, I think train is a romantic comedy. And I want people to feel like they listened to a really cool movie. And I think this is maybe my best lyric writing as a whole. And that's important to me. Those those ways of saying things that are meaningful that have not been said that way before is very important to me and very difficult. I think my favorite lyric writer of all time is a guy named Johnny Mercer who wrote Moon River, Autumn Leaves, and a thousand beautiful songs from early days. And that's just important. And when I can hit it, I keep going. The flow. Yeah. I just went and saw my 14 year old son is obsessed with heavy metal. And we just went and saw black label society the other day. Oh, cool. And he's he's got cool cool taste. Oh, yeah. He's he's he's obsessed. He's metalhead. So we got to hang with Zach a little bit. Oh cool. And JD, the bass player. And what lovely people they are. And some of my son tours with me because he's such a great singer and becoming a terrific guitar player that we were on tour in Europe last summer. And he was like, Dad, can we go see Aussie? And I was like, hell no, dude. I'm going to be tired. I'm touring. Of course. I bought tickets right away. Yeah. So I took him to see Aussie's last show. Oh, man. And the whole thing was that was a life memory for both of us. We got to have that. And like, that's forever. There's no currency that could ever compare to that. And then when Aussie died 16 days later, I was working in my son sat with my wife outside for two straight days, listening to Aussie and like weeping. Because he's got such an emotional connection with people and yeah, and music that seeing Aussie, it felt like he knew him. Yeah. And then all of a sudden, he was gone. And he was like devastated. It's interesting how deeply it makes me think like, okay, yeah, you just you have an artist on your hands because when someone have a choice, when someone feels so deeply connected to someone and to music, that's a different kind of appreciation. That's an artist appreciation. This is a real story. Yeah. So my wife is from Seattle. So we live there. Okay. You live in Seattle? Yeah. Now. And it's snowed like a mother father the other day. And the snow is dumping and my wife says to my son, look at the snow. Go outside and play. So he goes outside with his amp and guitar. and starts playing guitar, and this is no, she was like, it's not really what it meant, but it was like, I'll go outside and play. Yeah, that's cool. That's funny. It was really funny. You got an artist on your hands. I'm telling you right now, my son's 16. He's a cool guy. He loves Allison Chains. No, so just so does my son Rob loves Allison Chains. And let me tell you, the new singer of Allison Chains is dope. I haven't seen it. I haven't seen it. They played it, the Aussie concert. Oh, wow, in Birmingham, and he is terrific. And Lane is hard to like everyone, anybody else up there. For me, one of the greatest singers, rock singers of all time, it's still hard to reconcile him passing away at such a young age for me. And it makes me, it's the thing I hate the most about our business is the mortality rate of these special artists when. Yeah, but it's more visible. There are other businesses that many people do disappear. But acting in music, you see so much of it that you're aware when they go. And you become attached to them. So it's really painful when as a fan, you wanted more, because you love their art so much. And we could have used a lot more. Every time I think of Allison Chains, I just think I was living in LA at the time when I first heard him. And I was just like, whoever wrote buried in my shit, I was like, that's my new guy. That's the line. He was incredible. Man in the box. What a fucking, what a great art. My favorite song of theirs is, I'm trying to think. I mean, Rooster. Rooster is great. One, but the acoustic one. And it's on the tip of my tongue. Not shell. Not shell. Yeah. Fucking so good. They're all great. It's pretty cool, though, that I see the young guys now coming back around to like the 90s, the early 2000s. Yeah. And it was a really good time for music and art. I think so. Yeah, you did. It's an interesting time right now. Like, you know, there are feels like it's alive again. Well, metal and rock is the huge resurgence right now. Maybe bigger than ever, to be honest. Bigger than ever. And TikTok is so interesting because if you're a child or a very young adult trying to make your way in music, you need a great 30 seconds. Like we needed a great three minutes. Yeah, you need 30 seconds. You got 30 seconds. You got 30 seconds, which is terrible, but also maybe easier. I don't really know. Like this is such a maybe easier. It is very difficult. Then the grind, like to be on TikTok and you need, you know, I got two phones. You need more than two phones. Yeah, just to keep up. Yeah, you do. What was that cast name? It was the two phone gate Kevin Gates. Yeah, that's my guy. I love that. I want to have him on the show. But what are you saying? He needs two more. Yeah, you got two needs to our phones. Hip hop is the greatest genre of music. It's the greatest. It's the greatest. They're interesting so smart. The modern rapper is a poet. And what people used to long many years ago, people would listen to poets. When it's done really well, it's like really good poetry. It's very clever. It's deep. It's at the same time. It's light. And there's something about it that I've always taken a page from or a note from in my own writing because I'm trying to as well. Right, I want to be clever. Like, there's something so sharp about a good poet. So years ago, I was on the golf course. I just turn on like hip hop radio or whatever. And I hear this is when I fall in love with Jay Cole. Have you ever heard a song that goes, I guess the neighbors think I'm sailing dope sailing. Oh, yeah, yeah, Jay Cole goes. It goes on like this for a minute and a half. I think he's one of the greatest thinkers. Sounded in dope, sailing dope and then the punchline. And mother fuck, I am. Jay Cole, that's my new guy. Like, I love Jay Cole. And mother fucker, I am. He's one of the greatest. He's, I mean, he's my greatest. Yeah, you like Jay Cole, you know, who's your top? Kendrick is incredible. I think Drake is just like so good. Yeah, I mean, to shame him and Kendrick had a beef. Well, then Jay started to like, butt in and he was like, I'm out on this. I was just trying to be helpful. I feel like, okay, let's talk about Drake and Kendrick. This will be really great. I'm not sure I know enough about either one of them. I know enough to know that two of the biggest and the best and they're bound to clash. That's kind of the sport. That's hip-hop and that was a big hip-hop. I've always appreciated the sport of the battle. And I will say this, I like that the Kendrick and Drake thing, it stayed in the art. You know, whenever it becomes a violent thing in real life, that's where I like, I check out. I can appreciate a rap battle because it's like kind of part of the sport of it and that the competitive nature of it is cool. Well, I thought that was really cool. But I don't think anyone could out-wrap Kendrick a more. I don't think so. I don't think so. There's, I mean, as soon as he starts, everybody else is like, I'm good. It would be very hard to out-hook Drake. He's the hook man, you know, and the pop man. He does these big pop songs and there's a level of elite talent to that, that I appreciate big time. Like, I don't know what I would choose because I like big songs. And big bucks. Yeah. And, uh, and, uh, uh, this one you'll look at your public system. They're going, I left that one out there. That was like a slow, that was not even a fast ball. That was like a slow ball right on the movie. 'Cause you give it all up. I like big, and then I was just right there. But, uh, don't we all come on, Pat, admit it. Um, I like petite, um, fatica. Uh, I like them just perfect. I like them just, I like all different. I like them just the way they are. Yeah, that's right. I like it. Like Billy Joel likes it. I just was that I just performed at a Billy Joel tribute. Oh, wow. Yeah, in New York. Anyway, I won't interrupt you anymore. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter, but I appreciate it. So your first kid, your son, how old is he now? 33. 33. Do you feel like he was on the ride with you the whole time? The process of like building a career and what I know it takes. And I think about what would it be the hardest thing to do is raise a kid and build a career at the time. It's interesting because like my kids were a little bit. I was touring until they were about six or seven and then I couldn't do it. I was really hard. They were out sometimes, but it was like, it was too difficult to like be together all the time. And then I stopped because I, it was too painful for me. I just couldn't and we've kind of come back to it now. We're touring more and like we haven't in a long time, like 10 years or so. I always think like you guys were there with me. You had to sacrifice too. Like when I was starting this company and starting that and touring and doing all the things, they don't know anything else. They're just like, no, dad, it's cool. But I always feel like I was gone a lot in the early first decade of their life. And like I always wonder like, yeah, I don't know. I feel like your first kid probably was on that ride with you. Well, you know, he, I was away a lot, a lot when I was no longer with his mother. He toured with us a little bit as like a photographer. Oh, wow. And he's a musician and he was a part of different phases. Like the very unsuccessful to the, I'm getting there to the, this song got big and I'm traveling the world. Where, like, I feel like he was, you were painting houses, like he was there. Like the early years of his life, he was like, yeah, watching his dad do whatever he had to do. Like that shit gets in it, sinks in. It's a, it's a very, and, and I will, I will say this as kindly as possible. Your partner in this is an incredibly important part. Of being a support. Right. So that your children see that you're out there working your ass off. Right. If your partner is home saying your dad's never home. This is bullshit. There's no context. Then your child goes, my dad was never home. That's the story. Right. Not my dad was never home. And he might be the hardest working person I'll ever meet. And my mom, like, said such great things, like the story was this big. It's the message they get you like fatherhood. Yeah. So it's like the best lesson you can learn in life. Yeah. Men that don't have children, I feel sad for them just because they're so much that you learn about yourself and you don't get a chance to do that without kids. But that's not a judgment. It's just a feeling of like until you try to guide a being through life and then you listen to yourself and you're like, I did all these things successfully, but I'm still a knucklehead. Do I want to tell my kid anything about anything or to let them, you know, so basically my parenting is just trying to be there. Yeah. Me too. You know, my dad would say, Hey, why don't you keep that precious advice and cut me a fucking check? Yeah. Yeah. And I'm like, I he was so funny and he said it so quickly in the right way. I was like, Yeah, that makes sense to me. How about you save your advice and cut me a check? That's pretty lucky. Smart. Let me use that one. Yeah. If you ever thought you were a man, whatever a man is, fatherhood will make a man out of you because there's a depth of feeling that you, well, I think what fatherhood, what fatherhood can do is it will categorize you, right? Like, you necessarily make you a man. Yeah. Cause you could run away from everybody's going to find out if you are now. Yeah. Yeah. That's true. That's a good way of putting it. I would have come up with that in about 10 years. Yeah. See? I'm 10 years of fuck you right there. Yeah. That's right. Or fuck it. Sorry. Yeah. How often do you get asked to play school of gallows and benefits? Well, once a year. Yes. We'll do some donation. We're in musician. Yeah. Your kids go to school. They're going to ask you to play every year. My daughter just ran for class president and barely lost. And she told the class, my dad's going to come and sing some songs. We're going to have pretty donuts once a month, like the whole pitch was a perfecting great. So now I don't have to do that because she's not the class president, which is sad because it's sad because she would have been an incredible class president. And you would have done it. You had to show it up. Oh, shit. Yeah. I'm going to go on every Friday. That's right. Yeah. It's me again. Yeah. Hey, guys. You ready? What's going on here today? Which one? Yeah. Oh, yeah. I'm going to, if there's anything else you want to talk about around the record and the tour, let's do that. But I want to hear the Lionel story. Well, the record is potentially going to be called Mad Dog in the fog, because it's a song called Mad Dog. I'm going to tell you this quick story about it. So I was super excited writing the song. And I have the same driver in New York as Billy Joel. And I've had dinners with Billy before I don't talk much of those dinners because I'm the least interesting guy here. I want to listen to everybody else. And so I was in the middle writing the song and Billy's documentary inspired me so much that the song sounds like a Billy Joel song. So I go to my driver, a boo. Is there a way you can get the song to Billy because I got to go through all the right channels. So he sends it to Billy's assistant. So like three weeks later, Billy sends me an email back from his assistant that says, I'm no longer, because I was like, would you like to help me finish this? He said, I'm no longer in the business of writing songs. I actually like my life now. And so then, supposedly, he writes me a second email. And my driver said, we wouldn't let him send it. And so I go to Billy's tribute and Billy is like, hey, call Pat up here. I want to apologize for my second email. And they go, we never send it, Billy. And he goes, well, then call Pat up here. So I can tell him what it's said. That's Billy's super funny and wonderful. So I go up and he goes, hey, I just wanted to tell you, you got to quit writing songs, man. It's going to fucking ruin your life. That was a guy who wrote 300 number one song and a Pennsylvania guy. So there's Billy's, he's in Long Island. Oh, Long Island. Yeah. What is your Pennsylvania? But anyway, Matt Dung and the fog would be probably the name of the album and it's a much more guitar rock, you know, classic rock, rolling stones, the type of vibe. Then we've had my friend, butch walker, is playing guitar in my band right now. Oh, that's cool. Till he gets bored. But butch is a close friend and wonderful musician and he's changed the vibe of what we're doing. Yeah. And I'm really in love with what we're doing. And then we'll tour with beer naked ladies and Matt Nathanson, July and August. And that tour is doing really well. And I hope that people will hear the album in June so we can play a few songs in July and August. And then my Lionel Richie story is this. So I met Lionel for the first time, it's two parts. I was having dinner with Martina McBride and I think it was in Vegas. And we were in the back of the restaurant and all of a sudden here comes Lionel with his assistant. I'm not sure if it's still as assistant, Kirk or something. Kirk carries his phone and Lionel, you know, it's like, yeah, just give Kirk your number and all that shit. So he came up and they see me in Martina and he comes up to me and he starts telling me how much he loves drive by. And then he did a couple interviews and he said, I love this new song by train. Yeah. So I'm like, I love Lionel Richie, like he's a boss. So I'm like, thank you so much and we hung out for a little bit parted ways. I would text dark or whatever and be like, hey, I'll be in LA if Lionel is like, no, Lionel does not want to do that. Like, so. Lionel does not want to do that. So years, years go by and I have a song called Play That Song, which is the melody of heart and soul. Yeah. And it's a private show and like a very expensive part of Los Angeles. Right. He's there along with sliced alone and all that shit. Right. It's the first time we ever perform Play That Song. So we play that song and it's like, play that song. So Lionel's hearing this melody and he just comes up to me after and he goes, you motherfucker. He was like, I should have thought of that shit years ago. Still competitive. Yeah. That's right. He's like, I should have done that. He hears his songs when he hears a song, he's checking the writing out. Yeah. That's how the man thinks he's just one of the all time great. He is. We just had him on the show. Oh, cool. It was cool. We like, we've never had a public conversation together. We have a lot of, it's a strange thing to like get that close to the Abilly Joel, Lionel Richie. I think at this point in my life, I'm just so happy. I get to be on the planet at the same time as so many of these people. Yeah, man. And like an infant is still very close to our age. Yeah. When you think of time and the expansion of it and how long we get to live. Like a baby and us on the same planet at the same time. That's right. Because that baby's going to be 57 real fast. Yeah. And that shit is over. Yeah. Well, I don't know what that means, but just figured I'd throw that out. I go back to the beginning of our conversation and I imagine a guy who's painting houses singing in bars and wants to make it. And I look around in a time where everything's fast and you can order everything and you can literally order fame. You can order songs. You can go on a website and get AI to make a track and then make a melody for you. And you can fast track your success if you're smart enough and clever enough and not saying that doesn't take some talent to figure that out. But there's something about a guy who's got a young child. He's painting houses and going and singing in bars that hits me and I feel it. And I go like, oh, now I'm going to hear every song different because there's a blood sweat and tears in that, that it took that you could have quit and you should have quit. That's what everything's telling you at the time. You should quit. Yep. Right. It's too fucking hard, man. Quit. People sang it to you. What are you doing with this thing? How's your, how's your little band, how those songs, how, how's it going and there's something about that that sticks on you and even when you have a hit and another hit and another hit, you have done yourself, out done yourself, out done yourself and everywhere you fucking go, you have stepped into a bear to very thin air where no one dares to sacrifice what it takes to get to there. And to this day, you're still like, you still have that in you where you're like, hey, Billy Joel, will you check this song out? That takes fucking like guts, man, to like put yourself out there and like do that again and again, but like that's, that's the stuff that, that's why you have achieved what you have. I bet you I haven't even fucking have some stats. I guarantee it. You got 20 million monthly Spotify listeners over 10 million albums, 30 million tracks, six billion global streams, diamond status, top 250 greatest songs. I haven't had a new diamond plaque in like almost two, give me a diamond plaque, baby. Give me one. I don't have one. Give me one. It's been like two weeks, but I'm just saying, I like you. You're like very straightforward, straight shooter, straight like you, you've lived life. I just, I think it's very important to not be full of shit. Yeah. Yes. And if you follow shit, everybody's pretty hip to it. Like in the music business, we have a saying that everybody knows everything. Yeah. We just do. It's too small. Yeah. I saw this really cool thing on Instagram yesterday. It was a guy who he was talking about family and friends that you grow up with. Yeah. And he said, I'm going to translate something for you. Don't forget where you came from. You've changed. You're different. What they're saying is don't grow. Right. Because we didn't. Right. And we need you to stay who you were. But it's like, damn, that's a pretty big translation. Don't grow. Yeah. And I'm like, I can't stop, man. Because Sia, who's managed by Jonathan Daniel, my manager, they went to the Grammys when you're and she did not win. Right. But Jonathan leans over and goes, she goes, man, I'm really sorry. And she goes, did you think that was going to fill the hole? Yeah. Like that's what we all live with. Yeah. There's no feeling this hole. Nah, man. No, maybe golf. I'll try. I'll keep swinging. And hopefully that builds a little bit of it. Yeah. It has to. Like Steph Curry's going to do the same thing. He's going to go from basketball, the greatest shooter of all time to a golf course. Because it's the only thing he can do to just ease his mind because of being an all-time elite athlete, he's just going to become, I mean, he's already a very good golfer, but he's going to become a very, very good golfer. Yeah. Because he doesn't have a choice. That's right. But it says a lot about the guy, like you, you're a good golfer. Well, that takes what? It takes work, dedication, and a hunger to succeed, which you can't quench that thirst. That's why golf kind of scratches that itch because it does satisfy that. It's the most frustrating, difficult game in the whole land. So is music. You know, no, it's different. Golf is a beautiful, insane high school girlfriend. Where you're like, what the fuck am I doing here? I know not to get her. She's incredible. Look, like that's what golf is. Why am I here? I'm not good enough to do this. I'm not good enough to be mad because then you hit that one shot and you're like, I'm amazing. I can stay a couple more minutes. I can do one more. One more. Well, thanks for coming. I really, really happy I got to meet you. Friends for life, man. You're a big baller, man. You're a big baller. Let's get out there and golf. Tell me, tell me when to do it. Thank you for listening to this episode of Artist Friendly. You can also watch the episodes on Spotify. 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