Charlie Colin, one of the founding members of Train, has died at the age of 58. According to TMZ, Colin died on Wednesday after slipping and falling in the shower while house-sitting for a friend in Brussels, his mother said. He was found when his friends returned home from their trip.
Colin was in Belgium to teach a master class at a conservatory and was working on a film, his mother added. Train is best known for their hit songs "Drops of Jupiter" and "Hey, Soul Sister." Colin, a bass player, co-founded the San Francisco band in the '90s along with Pat Monahan, Rob Hotchkiss, Jimmy Stafford, and Scott Underwood.
Sudden and Unexpected Death
The band's breakout album was 1998's "Train." Originally from Newport Beach, California, Colin met Rob Hotchkiss in seventh grade. Both attended Berklee College of Music before returning to the West Coast and forming the band.
"In essence, I was trained since I was a child. We rebranded and in 1996, we got things going well. By the end of that decade, we had hits, the Grammys, stadiums and all that stuff," Colin said on Dan Clark's podcast in an April 2022 interview.
"On a good note, I was a worldly guy. I ended up being accomplished and successful. At the same time, because I was always in a band, with a schedule and somewhere to be, and most of the people around me were either buying a ticket to see us or are working for that organization or something, I didn't get a lot of people telling me the truth about myself. I didn't grow up in a lot of ways," Colin said.
Colin left Train in 2003, a year after the band won two Grammys in 2002.
Substance Abuse and Parting Ways
His departure was reportedly due to substance abuse issues. At the time, Pat Monahan stated, "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."
"There was a lot of things that led to me leaving, but it really escalated into it," Colin said last year in an interview with "Delphine's Circle."
He added in the interview with Clark, "When I left Train, I went out because my ego and my identity were all at stake and I was thinking about that too much. I went out and played with all these hard rock bands. I went on a tour with Slipknot. You can imagine the guys wearing masks and stuff. These are the hardest rock bands in the world."
After leaving Train, Charlie Colin played with Slipknot and Puddle of Mudd. In 2015, he reunited with Rob Hotchkiss to form the band Painbirds. In 2017, Colin formed Side Deal with Stan Frazier (Sugar Ray) and Joel and Scott Owen (PawnShop Kings).
As of this year, Train consists of Pat Monahan, Taylor Locke, Hector Maldonado, Jerry Becker, and Matt Musty.
Colin's final Instagram post was a tribute to his mother on Mother's Day. "My mom ... Jackie O/ yet a tad prettier," he captioned the photo. "A true artist. the loveliest most intelligent woman."
