Train Ride

It was “Drops of Jupiter” that really broke the band wide open, spending 53 weeks on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and introducing soy lattes and Tae Bo into the rock lyric lexicon in the process. Singer Pat Monahan’s stellar songwriting and vocals created an instant classic and radio ate it up. Featuring a distinctive Chuck Leavell piano part, the song soars on record — but must be expertly delivered in a live setting.

That job falls into the skillful hands of Brandon Bush, who recently upgraded his ticket from sideman to full-fledged member before recording Train’s new album, For Me, It’s You. When the spotlight hits Bush as he plays the first chord of “Drops of Jupiter” each night, the roar of the crowd sends a chill up his spine.

“Getting to play the first chord of ‘Drops of Jupiter’ is a funny experience,” says Bush. “I didn’t expect it to be as significant for me as it is. When I hit that first chord, it’s intense! Everybody should get to do that. I should get to trade out that one moment every night.” The desire to share the attention and good feelings is part of Bush’s personality, and a big reason why he’s become a full-fledged member of the band. It’s also a factor in his emergence as an in-demand session player and producer in his hometown of Atlanta, Georgia. Before Train, Bush played with such notable acts as John Mayer, Shawn Mullins, Pete Droge, David Ryan Harris, and country superstars Sugarland, of which his brother is a member.

The Tennessee-born Bush grew up on a steady diet of ’80s alternative rock, citing the MTV show 120 Minutes for exposing him to groups such as OMD and the Psychedelic Furs, which inspired him to buy his first keyboard, a Yamaha DX7. “I would sit and mimic that stuff and try to recreate all the sounds,” says Bush, “even all that crazy Synclavier stuff — with my DX7! I don’t know what I was thinking.”

Bush grew up with a piano in the house but when he was old enough to take the bus, he got a job at a music store programming their synths. “I thought I was creating these incredible demos,” he says. “But really what they were showing people was, ‘Look, even a 13-year-old kid can do this!’ But it was a great opportunity to play with all the gear.”

In college at Washington University in St. Louis, Bush had a jam band he describes as “Black Sabbath meets Aretha Franklin,” and for which he acquired his first Hammond organ, Wurlitzer, Rhodes, and Clavinet. “I’m a Clavinet junkie,” he beams. “Ever since I saw Terry Adams [keyboardist with NRBQ] perform, it changed my whole approach to performing. I’ve spent as much time as possible since then banging on a Clavinet.”

After college, Bush moved to Atlanta and got friendly with the scene. His brother had a band on Atlantic Records called Billy Pilgrim and helped make some introductions, including setting up Bush’s first job as a studio manager. As bands and songwriters would come in to record, Bush rose to occasion as a session player, eventually uniting with a rhythm section to become the studio’s house band. He had a weekly gig at a local hang called Eddie’s Attic in Decatur, where a then-unknown Shawn Mullins saw him performing on drums and keyboards in one night. Mullins wanted to do a folk record with drum machine beats and hired Bush to play on it, including on a little song called “Lullaby.” When that record, Soul’s Core (Sony), blew up, it helped Bush get a lot more work as a session player.

“Of course it looked like I was somebody worthy of being hired in on this hit record,” says Bush, demurely, “instead of being just a local guy making a record that turned out to be a hit.” But that hit opened a lot of doors.

Back at Eddie’s Attic, Bush met John Mayer, who had recently moved to Atlanta to get into the scene, and who asked Bush to play on his phenomenally successful Room for Squares record. “Interestingly, John didn’t have any doubts about his ability to be successful,” says Bush. “Not because he was cocky or overconfident, but almost because he naively didn’t get that it was really difficult to do. So I’m in this community of all these great singer-songwriters, few of whom had larger success. I’d hear great songs every night and none of them get on the radio. And here’s this guy who also has great songs and — bam! And it’s thrilling to see it happen.”

Bush’s opportunity to board Train came after a fortuitous meeting with fellow keyboardist and über-producer Brendan O’Brien (Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Korn, Stone Temple Pilots, Rage Against the Machine, as well as Train). “I had met him when I was a sideman with David Ryan Harris, who was on Brendan’s label, Imprint 57,” says Bush. “But the first time he called me in to play was on a Pete Droge record. As I get into the studio (Southern Tracks) they’re wheeling the B-3 away from the piano. They had been tracking live and Brendan tried to play both the piano and the organ part. When it didn’t work out, he called me in — but only because he couldn’t physically handle playing both parts simultaneously! Most people don’t realize that he’s a great keyboard player in general, and a phenomenal B-3 player. I love how he plays.”

Besides being a great player, O’Brien is a highly sought-after producer who knows how to get the job done — fast. “Speed and efficiency is a big part of his process,” says Bush. “The fact that he can play everything must frustrate him terribly when he’s working with people. When we did For Me, It’s You, I literally had to sit in the control room the whole time to make sure I got in to play my parts. Not because he didn’t want me to, but because he works at such a fast pace that if you’re not in the room, it’s going down anyway. He’ll just do it himself. And he was very nice about giving me the opportunity to go in there and prove myself on the material. To give you an idea of the pace we worked at, we did a song a day, from start to finish.”

When O’Brian originally called Bush to come audition for Train, Bush was playing dates with Lost Highway songstress Tift Merritt and had settled into his Atlanta routine. So he wasn’t necessarily itching for a full-time gig. After the audition, he recalls, “Pat Monahan [Train’s lead singer] called to offer me the gig, and I think because I didn’t seem to be too excited, it made him really curious. I respected Train and I was happy about it, but I knew enough about what it was like to be a sideman that it was just another gig.” Bush toured with Train on the My Private Nation tour, during which bassist Johnny Colt (originally of the Black Crowes) came onboard. Along the way, things really clicked, personally and musically. The band offered Bush and Colt full-time positions before they began work on the current record. “It’s the kind of thing you never really expect as a sideman,” says Bush.

The new members were welcomed in and began to participate in the writing process right off the bat. Pat Monahan has high praise for Bush, saying, “Brandon is a super good guy and he’s easy to work with. He’s completely talented and nobody loves music more than he does. Not just in this band, but anybody I know. If we’re not working, he’s writing or he’s on his way to a gig with some buddies. He’s always creating and it pays off. He’s helped us a lot with the writing on this record.”

Indeed, Bush is responsible for the music on the first single, “Cab.” “It was a really early song,” says Bush. “I wrote it, and had given Pat a demo of the music. He wrote the words. So we had that song through the whole process.” Monahan adds, “Brandon is a great songwriter. He’s not a singer, but he thinks as a singer would. He writes melody and he writes music for melody: ‘Cab,’ ‘Give Myself To You,’ and ‘All I Hear.’ I think he wrote 50 percent of the songs, musically.”

Since this is the first chart-bound album that Bush has been a part of writing, he’s much more attentive to its success. “I didn’t expect it to affect me emotionally so much,” he says, “but I’m obsessed with how well the single and the record are going to do. These are things I’ve witnessed people go through, but I’ve always had this distance of being a sideman. You want them to do well, they’re your employers and you want your job to stick around. But now I’m suddenly emotionally invested in it, and it’s a little bit overwhelming.”

Bush has some insight into this success, having spent a good deal of time working with and observing Pat Monahan in action. “Pat is very musical, he can pick up anything and make music on it,” he says. “He’s very linear, he’s a one-note guy. When he sits at the piano, he plays me something that’s just one note at a time; if I play two notes, he goes, ‘No, that’s wrong.’ He thinks like a horn player. I think a lot of ‘Drops of Jupiter’ was him. He brought that melody in. ‘All I Ever Wanted’ was all out of his head, and he’s just trying to find a way to get it out.”

As the two have collaborated, they’ve found a natural flow. Says Bush about Monahan, “If something I write inspires him, he’ll run with it and make it his own. Then there’s stuff where I brought him a chord structure and he wrote a melody to it, and then we adapt it to his melody together. It’s great when we’re all together in a room to do that because he’s really quick. He’ll get a lyrical basis for the melody right away, and then he’ll go home and really write it. But there’ll be a lyric there that we can work from. With this record, we really tried to respect the melody. Let the melody lead it and get out of the way.”