You Can Keep the Highway — This Rochester Couple Will Take the Train

Peter LeClair and Carmen Paradise have traveled out west before. But a cross-country car trip has nothing on the train.

That's why the musical couple,  grads who married in 2008, has chosen the train as their mode of transportation — and inspiration — for a fall tour.

"We could go on and on about the advantages of touring by train as a musician through our eyes," LeClair and Paradise write in the introduction to their upcoming Train Tracks project. "Train travel is more energy-efficient than cars or planes, it feels safer to us, but most importantly it gives us a moment of 'still' to sit back and enjoy the journey, and isn't that what its all about anyway?"

LeClair and Paradise are best known as managers of in Rochester. They're married and have been playing music together for 15 years, known around town by their band name, The Marvins.

Tonight at 8, they'll play at Bean and Leaf in downtown Rochester. There's no cover for the show, where they'll perform music from their latest project, called "Waves of Strange," and talk a little about their next big thing.

The train

Last month, LeClair and Paradise set a goal: to raise $5,000 to travel out west by train and document the journey for a collection of new songs and videos they plan to call "Train Tracks." With 15 days still to go in their campaign on Kickstarter.com, they've already surpassed their fundraising goal.

The money raised will help fund the tour and also help them mix, master and press their "Waves of Strange" album. Anything above and beyond the $5,000 will go toward helping them produce a record, because, Paradise said, they're both "vinyl nerds."

The trip will start Oct. 3; they'll make stops in Chicago, Milwaukee, Denver, California and Portland, Oregon. It will last three weeks, which is plenty of time for them to film footage for a documentary of sorts on the journey. 

Paradise said she is overwhelmed by the community that has offered up support of their music and the tour.

"I feel gratitude from my overflowing heart of love. When we put this (fundraising) goal out there, it was so scary. It is overwhelmingly wonderful, and we'll do our best to make our fans proud."

The Marvins play everything from acoustic-driven folk music to unapologetic pop hooks. Their music has been described as road music — tunes that make you "want to rent a U-haul and move to greener pastures."

For more about The Marvins, visit themarvinsmusic.com 

To hear more about the Kickstarter project or the Train Tracks endeavor, watch the video embedded in this story (you may need to reload to view the video; if you're on a mobile browser, you'll need to switch to the desktop to see it). "You Can Keep Your Highway, I'm Gonna Take The Train" is an original that is The Marvins first official "Train Track."