Beaumont, Texas overachievers Train in Vain had an ear for radio-friendly choruses while planting their feet firmly in the cerebral, guitar-heavy tradition of bands like Soul Asylum, Sugar, and the Buck Pets. Steered by chief songwriters Stephen Hellweg and Richie Haynes, the group was a virtual hook refinery, spewing gallon-drums of raw, high-test melodies over four full-length albums, an eight-song EP, a seven-inch single, and a three-song cassette — most of which are now set to be reissued by Circuit Breaker Records.
Train in Vain had its origins in Beaumont's Lamar University, where Hellweg, Haynes, and drummer/multi-instrumentalist Scott Peebles founded the group, naming it after the well-known hidden track that caps off the Clash's London Calling. After self-releasing the classic records Psycho Railroad and The Johnny Pain Letters in the late '80s, the band came to the fore of the Houston scene in the mid-'90s, hooking up with local indie label Fuzzgun for 1994's Good Enough for You and 1997's Nothing Comes to Mind.
