Boulder, Colorado-born band Big Head Todd and the Monsters have done something very few rock ’n’ roll outfits have done: stay together for over 40 years with their original core lineup intact. The group, which struck platinum with the 1993 album Sister Sweetly and will revisit our region this month, still includes founding members singer and guitarist Todd Park Mohr, bassist Rob Squires, and drummer Brian Nevin; keyboardist Jeremy Lawton joined in 2004. The Monsters’ good-natured sound has made them welcome staples on the jam-band festival circuit, although their warm, melodic style is more concise and song-oriented than those of their contemporaries in that scene. Mohr answered the questions below by email. Big Head Todd and the Monsters will perform at the Paramount Hudson Valley Theater in Peekskill on November 21 at 8pm. Tickets are 56.50 – 71.50.
Peter Aaron: Congratulations on the group’s fourth decade. What are some thoughts and feelings that come up for you when you reflect on all that you’ve done as a band?
Todd Park Mohr: Forty years is a long time for any life, career, or creative venture. We all know we have lived charmed lives and fall into that unusual category of being able to do what we want and love—music—for a living. Our success has been very much person to person, as we have earned a living through playing live shows. We have played over 3,000 shows, literally, and I’m probably forgetting about 500 or so. I have also gotten, through the band’s belief in me, a great opportunity to write a lot of material. We are all proud of so much of it. That’s a lot to reflect on! The secret to pulling that off would be a good question. I would say it comes down to respect and a real ability between us to listen to and be influenced by each other. There has been some tough times, like every relationship. I think the common goal of turning in good shows and being a great band has kept us all motivated. We’ve had enough success to keep it interesting, but not too much success. We’ve had to, as my friend George Thorogood says, “scratch and fight [our] way to the middle.” For me it’s that long-term, steady work that has been the most rewarding element, and I think all of us feel that way.
There was a very active music scene in the Denver-Boulder area at the time that you formed there. It seems like there was a late-1980s/early 1990s “Colorado sound” that developed there; a sonically expansive style that’s reflective of the geography, draws on ’60s and ’70s classic rock, and has informed the jam bands and progressive bluegrass groups who’ve emerged from the state. Would you agree at all with that take? What was the scene like when you began, and who were some of the artists you were listening to and drawing inspiration from?
I would agree with your description. When we were starting out there wasn’t much of a music scene. Firefall and Tommy Bolin and a couple of other groups maybe, but they seemed way before our time. There were a lot of cover bands and a handful of very eclectic groups like Electric Third Rail and the Flatlanders. They were the Denver bands we liked. Obviously, the Samples came out of Boulder right about the same time we did. There were a handful of other more Grateful Dead-style groups that also were popular. We thought of ourselves more on the rock ’n’ roll side of things. I had an early love for blues and soul music. I have always wanted to be able to sing like Ray Charles. Albert King, Freddy King, B. B. King, Muddy Waters, Howlin Wolf all the way through Wilson Pickett and Aretha is pretty much where I mostly live. There is also an alternative element that was also influential. New wave, punk, and rockabilly were a part of what became our sound also. Springsteen and Dylan feature heavily as songwriting influences.
With such a long history and such a substantial discography (13 studio albums), how do you decide what to do in the set each night? Obviously, you play your big hits off Sister Sweetly, “Bittersweet,” “Broken Hearted Savior,” and “Circle,” but how do you decide what else gets in? For this tour are you featuring and of the blues material from the Robert Johnson and Willie Dixon tribute albums by your alter egos, the Big Head Todd Blues Club?
I write the set the day of the show, and the songs are all different with the exception of those hits you mentioned. We do play the hits. But our show is about two hours long so that is the fun part to work out, because, as you say, there are a lot of albums to choose from. Over the years we’ve learned what songs work best for this or that, but we also aim to turn people on to the whole catalog. Our show usually has 22 songs, chosen from a master list of about 240 songs!
As for your mention of the blues albums, we often have a “blues time” moment in our show featuring some kind of Robert Johnson or Willie Dixon song.
How about newer songs? It’s been two years since 2024’s Her Way Out, so will you be playing anything that’s yet to be recorded? Do you have plans to go back into the studio soon?
We have no studio plans right now. I guess in that sense we are slowing down a bit. I have been writing folk songs, or I guess you could call them folk-blues songs. I am really interested in the Pete Seeger vision of how the words and traditional forms meet to somehow face the world’s very serious problems. The blues makes you really rethink what a song is. It doesn’t belong to you; you didn’t invent it. But you use the form to tell your neighbor the news, and to wail and moan.
As you look forward to your 50th anniversary, what do you most hope that listeners get from your music? What is it about your shows that you think they would most enjoy?
I think people who like our band like the sound of a great live band formed of simple, classic elements: bass, drums, guitar, vocal, and maybe keyboard. There is no AI in any of it and our band does that basic, primitive-rock-band thing really well. I also think the songwriting is the star. The lyrics are the star. Our shows feature a wide range of styles and influences, from ballads, blues, and soul and with contemporary elements that are just us. If you make it in the door to one of our shows, we think you’ll be hooked.
This article appears in November 2026.
