Pat Monahan

Pat Monahan

Patrick Monahan, born February 28, 1969, is an American musician best known as the lead singer and sole constant member of Train. He was born and raised in Erie, Pennsylvania, the youngest of seven children in a family of Irish descent. His father, Jack Monahan, owned a clothing store and was also a musician, while his mother was Patricia Ann Timon Monahan. By the time Monahan was five, he had already become an uncle, a small detail that suggests the large, close family setting in which he grew up.

Monahan attended McDowell High School in Millcreek Township and later Edinboro University of Pennsylvania. His professional life in music began close to home. From 1988 to 1990, he sang lead vocals and played percussion with the Erie cover band Rogues Gallery, whose lineup included his brother Matt. After that band ended, Monahan left Erie in late 1993 and moved to California. There he met Rob Hotchkiss, and the two moved from the San Francisco coffeehouse circuit to the Los Angeles club scene before adding Jimmy Stafford, Charlie Colin, and Scott Underwood. With that lineup, Train was officially formed.

From 1994 to 2006, Monahan released four studio albums with Train. The band’s biggest early recognition came in 2002, when it earned two Grammy Awards, including one connected to “Drops of Jupiter (Tell Me),” a song written by Monahan and inspired by his late mother, who had died of cancer. That connection between personal loss and a widely heard song became one of the clearest examples of how his own life entered his music.

Monahan also built a long list of work outside Train. In 2001 he added vocals to Fuel’s “Shimmer,” appeared on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire and won $125,000 for Camp Ronald McDonald, and later performed on VH1’s Decades Rock Live! and Storytellers – The Doors: A Celebration. During Train’s three-year hiatus from 2006 to 2009, he released his first solo album, Last of Seven, on September 18, 2007, followed by national and acoustic tours. Its single “Her Eyes” reached the top 10 of Billboard’s Hot AC chart, and the album included a duet with Brandi Carlile and guest appearances by Richie Sambora and Graham Nash.

Train returned in 2009 with Save Me, San Francisco, and Monahan continued to appear across music, television, and public events. He performed “Hey, Soul Sister” and “Calling All Angels” on CSI: NY, voiced Driver Dan in Driver Dan’s Story Train, acted in Hawaii Five-0, appeared in Rocktopia on Broadway, and starred in and executive produced the Hallmark Channel film Christmas in Tahoe in 2021. He has sung the U.S. national anthem at major football, baseball, basketball, hockey, and auto racing events. For many listeners, Monahan’s words carry because they come from a life spent moving between family memory, live performance, collaboration, and songs built for a shared room.