Former Train bassist Charlie Colin dead at 58 after falling in shower
Charlie Colin, a founding member of Train, has died. He was 58.
On Wednesday, TMZ reported that Colin passed away after he slipped and fell in the shower while house-sitting for a friend in Brussels, according to the musician’s mother.
He was found when his friends returned home from their trip, she said.
In Belgium, Colin was teaching a master class at a conservatory and was making a film, his mother told the outlet.
Train is best known for the hit songs “Drops of Jupiter” and “Hey, Soul Sister.”
Colin was a bass player who co-founded the San Francisco band in the ’90s alongside Pat Monahan, Rob Hotchkiss, Jimmy Stafford and Scott Underwood.
Their breakout album was 1998’s “Train.”
Originally from Newport Beach, California, Colin met Hotchkiss in seventh grade. Each attended Berklee College of Music before moving back West 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.
He continued, “On the one hand, I was more experienced and worldly than a lot of my friends, but on the other hand, I never had to go out there and figure it out the hard way, because I always had something that I was good enough at that led the way. All of a sudden, I was 40 and all this time had gone by. I looked in the mirror and I was like, ‘I’m like a 40-year-old child. I don’t know what it means to be a man that has to deal with life.'”
Colin left the band in 2003, after they won two Grammys in 2002.
He reportedly left due to substance abuse issues. Monahan said at the time: “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.” “We never took a break. We drove our tour bus into the parking lot of the recording studio for our second and third record. In Philadelphia, we made our one-and-a-half record … We just never stopped. It’s kind of one those things where you feel like this is too good to be true. Most bands have a lifespan of a few years.”
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.”
He added that he found a way to “appreciate” how different they were from Train.
“I played with all these different groups … If I … put myself into it, and find something within me to connect with the people I’m playing with and be of use, add value to it in any way I could, I don’t care what I’m playing. I swear. I don’t mind if I’m singing, playing guitar, piano, bass, whatever.”
After Colin’s exit from the group, he played with Slipknot and Puddle of Mudd. He also reunited with Hotchkiss in 2015 to form the band Painbirds. In 2017, Colin formed the band Side Deal with Stan Frazier (Sugar Ray) and Joel and Scott Owen (PawnShop Kings).
As of this year, Train consists of Monahan, Taylor Locke, Hector Maldonado, Jerry Becker and Matt Musty.
Colin’s final Instagram post was on Mother’s Day, paying tribute to his mom.
“My mom … Jackie O/ yet a tad prettier,” he captioned the photo. “A true artist. the loveliest most intelligent woman.”