Early life and career The
trio attended
Columbine High School together. Mohr went to
Colorado State University in
Fort Collins, Colorado and transferred to the
University of Colorado to join Nevin and Squires. The three had their first gig in 1986, at a college party at the University of Colorado. Soon after that they began touring bars and clubs in
Denver, Fort Collins, and
Boulder as Big Head Todd and the Monsters in 1987. The band soon built up a following throughout Colorado and the surrounding states. They toured extensively throughout the Mountain States and West Coast of the United States in their van, dubbed The Colonel, driving more than 400,000 miles. • Gas money for the Colonel in those early days occasionally came from regional fan pockets like Finnegan's in Hinsdale Illinois-Chicago's immediate Western suburbs- w/ artist yield+route optimization = incremental monetization opportunities) getting to Mohr and crew without adversely affecting anyone's ticket sales (ie no pissed promoters or venues) creating legendary private performances like Jay's backyard "Finnegan's"
1986-2005 In 1989, the band formed Big Records and released its first album
Another Mayberry that same year.
Midnight Radio was released the following year and featured artwork from
Chris Mars of
The Replacements. Their first live album
Big Head Todd and the Monsters Live was recorded at the
H.O.R.D.E. Festival in 1993. The group signed with
Giant Records in 1993 and recorded
Sister Sweetly with
Prince associate
David Z producing. The album went
platinum spawning three singles which made the rock charts, including "
Bittersweet," "
Broken Hearted Savior", and "
Circle." The song was used as Senator
Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign song in 2008 and the introduction of Clinton in her keynote address to the Democratic National Convention in 2008. A live rendition of "Blue Sky" was also performed acoustically on March 8, 2011, at
Johnson Space Center as the first live version of a wake-up call to Space Shuttle Discovery during the
STS-133 mission. "Blue Sky" was the song played for the live wake-up call because it received the most votes for a song contest for NASA in support of the July release of their eighth studio album,
All The Love You Need. In 2010, Big Head Todd and the Monsters returned to the studio to record
Rocksteady. It featured covers of
"Beast of Burden" as originally recorded by
The Rolling Stones and "Smokestack Lightning", written by
Howlin' Wolf. The band returned to the studio again in 2011 to record a new project under the name Big Head Blues Club. The album
100 Years of Robert Johnson celebrated the songs of the late
blues singer and musician
Robert Johnson. The Big Head Todd and the Monsters members were accompanied by
B. B. King,
Charlie Musselwhite,
Cedric Burnside,
David "Honeyboy" Edwards,
Hubert Sumlin,
Ruthie Foster, and Lightnin' Malcolm. Big Head Todd and the Monsters have also played shows under the name Big Head Blues Club and have invited some of the other musicians featured on the album to perform with them. They performed in the Denver Broncos
Super Bowl 50 Championship Parade and in Indianapolis at the Vogue on February 9, 2016, using the
Instagram hashtag #denver2indy to celebrate the dual event. On November 3, 2017, the band released its eleventh studio album,
New World Arisin. The band released the singles "Crush" on November 13, 2023, "Her Way Out" on January 8, 2024, and "Thunderbird" on March 29, 2024. ==Lineup==