17 JUNE 5-11, 2025 westword.com WESTWORD | CONTENTS | LETTERS | NIGHT+DAY | CULTURE | CAFE | MUSIC | FIND MORE MUSIC COVERAGE AT WESTWORD.COM/MUSIC Rock and Blues BIG HEAD TODD AND THE MONSTERS CELEBRATES FORTY YEARS ON COLORADO’S BEST STAGE. BY EMILY FERGUSON Back in 1993, Big Head Todd and the Mon- sters had its fi rst big paid gig. The band brought its super-charged blues rock to the Denver Zoo, where the members found life- long friends in Blues Traveler — whose front- man, John Popper, shared some portentous words that Todd Park Mohr never forgot. “When you’re young, you don’t know how long you’re going to be around; you don’t realize what you’re getting into,” Popper told the group’s titular vocalist and guitar- ist. “But people are always going to want to see you play, and I’m always going to want to see you play.” It’s rare to hold a friendship for forty years, much less a band, but Big Head Todd and the Monsters has beaten the odds. And while Denver has undergone massive changes since Mohr, drummer Brian Nevin and bassist Rob Squires formed the group in 1986 at Columbine High School, BHTM is much the same — as ener- getic and inexhaustible forty years in as when it released its breakout third album, Sister Sweetly, which went plat- inum, and built a widespread following touring its blues rock across the U.S. The band is celebrating its milestone fortieth anniversary at the landmark Red Rocks Amphitheatre on Saturday, June 7, and Sunday, June 8. Cheap Trick and Cracker will open the fi rst show, and the second will include openers Warren Haynes Band and Bill Murray and His Brothers. Yes, Bill Murray him- self will be performing at the legendary venue for the fi rst time with his newly minted classic-rock cover band. “He had a book called [Cinderella Story: My Life in Golf], and at the be- ginning of it he talks about how he goes on the green every morning and listens to my music,” Mohr says of Murray. “So I knew that he was a fan, and then about seventeen years ago or so, he was at a show in Charleston, so I went up and introduced myself, and we’ve been friends since then. Or well, sort of — I mean, Bill’s a wild card.” When it comes down to it, BHTM has been a wild card, too. The band’s members, a lineup that now includes keyboardist Jeremy Lawton, didn’t imagine the success they’d ultimately have, one that has allowed them to essentially hold an annual residency at Red Rocks since the ‘90s. Big Head Todd’s fi rst show at the venue was in 1991, as part of the Blues Rock Festi- val, which included the likes of Etta James, BB King and the Staple Singers. They were the sort of acts that Mohr grew up listening to, after raiding record stores and bringing a stack of vinyl home. “There was a record store called Off Beat Records off of Littleton Boulevard, and it was just a used record store, but there was a lady there who kind of guided me through the blues and R&B sections,” he recalls. “I’d ride my bike there and buy as many albums as I could. I started collecting the music that I loved based on her recom- mendations — and how the covers looked.” He notes that “Colorado doesn’t have the same” connection to “traditional blues music” as places like New Orleans. “So I’ve had a fortunate life insofar as I’ve been able to perform with all those blues musicians I love who are still living,” he says. “I had a nice journey from that record store.” Neither Mohr, Nevin nor Squires could have imagined performing with their heroes back when they were in high school. “I went to a couple different high schools — did Littleton High School, then Columbine High School for two years,” Mohr says. “I gradu- ated in 1984 and met Brian and Rob in ‘83; all of us are Columbine graduates.” The trio decided to start a band “pretty early on,” he continues. “I met Brian in jazz band — I played sax and he was a drum- mer — and he knew Rob already, so he had me over with their pre-existing group and we did a couple of high school talent shows and then started [Big Head Todd and the Monsters] in college,” at the University of Colorado Boulder. When the band fi rst got rolling in the mid-’80s, the members were simply knock- ing around the Front Range to fi nd a place that would let them play. “We knew all the other groups,” Mohr recalls. “There were a couple hair groups then...but there weren’t a lot of original groups when we started. Most of the bands were cover bands.” Big Head Todd and the Monsters, however, primarily played original tunes that continued the blues tradition. When it was starting out, the band, whose moniker stems from Mohr’s nickname, found the most luck in college towns. “Boulder was a really fun town in the ‘90s,” Mohr says. “There were just a lot of interesting musical things going on. It’s kind of a Grateful Dead-ish music community out there; there was the Samples, which started at the same time as us.” And it’s no secret that Deadheads love the blues, which infl uenced Jerry Garcia as much as folk, rock and bluegrass. The scene created fertile ground for such a new, singular band as Big Head Todd and the Monsters. “We played a place called JJ Mc- Cabe’s, which was our fi rst regular gig,” Mohr says of a now-defunct Boulder club. “We played there Wednesday or Thursday nights, and just fully got a crowd that would follow us around when we’d play Herman’s Hideaway in Denver or the Mercury Cafe.” They toured in a 1977 yellow Plym- outh van, seeking out college towns to play in, and gathered a following around the country, with a solid attraction in the South. But their biggest base has re- mained in Colorado, of course. The state’s landscape of golden plains and rugged moun- tains is almost a physical refl ection of the band’s freewheeling ethos, pushed forward by Mohr’s original melodies and lyricism. After independently releasing its fi rst two albums, Another Mayberry (1989) and Midnight Radio (1990), the band had already established a large fan base thanks to its live shows. BHTM joined the bill for the 1993 H.O.R.D.E. Festival tour, which was helmed by Blues Traveler, joining such bands as the Allman Brothers, Neil Young, Dave Mat- thews Band, Widespread Panic, Primus and more. A live album stemmed from the tour and, not long after, a record deal followed. “We did Simply Sweetly under Giant Re- cords, which was under the Warner Bros. umbrella. That was Irving Azoff’s label,” Mohr says. “He signed us, and that was that.” Simply Sweetly, which was produced by Prince’s associate David Z, was a major hit for the band, going platinum with three charting singles: “Bittersweet,” “Broken Hearted Savior” and “Circle.” As Big Head Todd maintained the blues legacy, the band got to play with some of the genre’s forebearers. That even included Johnny Lee Hooker, who joined BHTM to record a cover of his song “Boom Boom” for 1997’s Beautiful World, which was produced by Jerry Harrison of Talking Heads. “He showed up at the studio at about 9:30 in the morning,” Mohr recalls of Hooker, “stepping out of a black Cadillac, wafting smoke coming out the doors, with three biker chicks arm-in-arm. He’s dressed in a maroonish, orange-ish three-piece suit — im- maculately dressed. And he’s like, ‘Where’s the pot? Where’s the Miller Lite?’” Mohr chuckles at the memory. “He still was really fun and sat and played with us [as] we faked our way through ‘Boom Boom’ with him half a dozen times, but he kept looking at me going, ‘You bet,’” he says. “That was, like, the compliment of a lifetime.” More star-studded collaborations came when the band recorded the tribute album 100 Years of Robert Johnson, which was released in 2011 and featured such blues legends as B.B. King, Charlie Musselwhite, David “Honeyboy” Edwards, Hubert Sumlin, Ruthie Foster and the “two-man wrecking crew” of Cedric Burnside and Lightnin’ Malcolm. “I’ve had a really nice life in music,” Mohr says, ticking off more MUSIC continued on page 18 Big Head Todd and the Monsters is celebrating its fortieth anniversary this year. JENISE JENSEN Todd Park Mohr, Brian Nevin and Rob Squires met at Columbine High School. COURTESY OF BIG HEAD TODD AND THE MONSTERS
