Sometimes it’s not what you do, but what you don’t do that counts. So when it comes to the Colorado trio, Big Head Todd and the Monsters, not giving into industry temptations may have eliminated their chance for an early retirement, but it also secured them the utmost respect of their fans as well as their own conscience.
Drummer Brian Nevin is the first to confess that when he and guitarist/singer/songwriter Todd Park Mohr joined up with bassist Rob Squires back at Columbine High School in the early 80s, none of them ever envisioned actually making a lifelong career out of music. But as time passed and their craft began to receive well-garnered praises, it at least seemed to be a way to entertain themselves and the bar crowds throughout those college years. Like any fledgling rock band, the pressures to conform within industry standards hung over the band like an ominous shadow, so when the time was right, they borrowed some cash and started their own in-house operation. That decision certainly got the Big Head Todd ball rolling, but it takes a great deal of marketing, connections and money to keep that ball in motion.
By the mid 90s, BHTM was one of many college touring bands gaining popularity on the club circuit, and soon enough the bigwigs came calling. When Giant Records founder, Irving Azoff caught a show, he basically signed the band on the spot, becoming an immediate catalyst for their most successful era. In 1993, in conjunction with a slot on the HORDE tour, the band released Sister Sweetly, which eventually went platinum. Though it also started a tangled label web that would never quite uncoil. When Giant insisted on a video, the band said no. When they argued Todd needed to be a glamour boy, the band said no. And when they couldn’t agree on how to market the band to rock radio, it would be four years before a follow up (1997s Beautiful World) would be released, and another before a much anticipated live offering was ever available.
When Giant Records unexpectedly closed, BHTM was finally able to cut their contract ties, but they also lost that coveted financial support only a label can provide. So they went back to the drawing board, and brought their own label, BIG Records, out of retirement for the release of Riviera. Capitalizing on an indie-label hybrid model, they worked out a major label distribution through Warner Brothers which also brought with it the powerhouse’s team of promotion, publicity and marketing along with it. More or less a grassroots campaign with a serious irrigation system. It worked, but again, it wasn’t a perfect fit.
Now, comfortable with the winding path they have forged, the band is releasing their latest album, Crimes of Passion with the smaller, Sanctuary label. It’s a partnership that seems to fit the current state of the band and open enough to allow for their future aspirations. As Brian Nevin explains, “what’s most important to us is that we make decisions based on the lifestyle we want. That’s been our secret, and the fact that we all enjoy playing together. I mean, if the music’s not good, none of this matters. We’ve always had that attitude too. If it isn’t spiritually rewarding, then there are other things to do in life.”With Crimes of Passion out next month (February 10th), we got a chance to talk with Brian all about monsters…both those in the band and the ones devouring the industry.
With all the label issues you’ve been through, your timeline for releasing albums has always been rather sporadic. It’s been around a year and a half since the last record, so what were the goals going into this one? Or was it just a fresh start with the new label?
Basically, since Giant Records closed down, which was really the only break in our career – between the Giant release of the Beautiful World record and the [BIG Records release of the] Riviera record – we had to be patient for a few years while the record industry issues were settled. Since then we’ve had the freedom of making our own records, and we couldn’t be happier. Todd produced both the last record and this record, and I think what’s helped make this record a better record, is that now we’re kind of settling into a stage in our career where we can do what we do the best, and be the most productive. Whereas with the last record, it was a bit of a rush to get something out, because there was such a big gap between Beautiful World. So I kind of look at this record as the beginning of this next stage of our career, and now that we have ourselves settled in a situation where we are free to make the music we want, we have a lot of options to getting that music out to the public.
We were originally going to release this record strictly on BIG records, like our last record. We’re in the amiable position where we actually have a distribution deal with Warner Brothers as an independent, which is the reason we chose to release the last one on our own and that just happened as a result of the way Giant closed down. But [we thought], why not send it out there and get some feedback. And when Sanctuary approached us, they really offered us the perfect partnership.
That seems to be the way the industry is approaching bands built on the grassroots model. I think younger bands have a glamorous vision of keeping everything in-house, but in reality, that do-it-yourself route can be extremely costly and very demanding.
Well I agree with you in that it’s a lot more work than a lot of bands would think, and the result of the demise of many bands. Because, yeah, it sounds like you can run your own ship, but if you really want to cover the country, that’s a lot of space. And there’s a lot of things to do, so that’s the reason we decided to buddy with Sanctuary on this release. On the last record we learned that it’s a lot of work, and basically it was the three of us and our management running a record label; hiring out all the independent promoters, following up on all the marketing concepts and ideas, and searching around for money to do it. So there is something to be said for the structure of a record label. Obviously, with major labels, that’s the reason they’re able to do a lot more for a band. Of course there’s some politics involved with a label, but a staff and an already set system for getting the music out and marketed helps…instead of reinventing the wheel.
And every artist wrestles this…all the ones I’ve known, from the famous to the ones working the bars…“how do you find a relationship with the system, that gets you primarily the exposure?” I think most bands would want exposure over money, and generally if you get the exposure, money comes with that, ‘cause the label is more inclined to put it into the band. But how do you do that without compromising what you think is “cool,” to use a simple word. That’s always been the struggle.
You’ve always been a band that has teetered with major success. So at this point, are you comfortable with where you’re at? Or do you feel like a certain level of success has somehow eluded you all these years?
We are happy where we’re at. In some sense, we’ve had a level of success equivalent to the decisions we’ve made. We were in a position at one point where I think things could have really taken off for the band, and out of choice, and it’s not a little choice of “we don’t want to be this popular,” it’s a choice of “lifestyle is more important than this.” Primarily with someone like Todd, who is a lead guy, he’s a rather introspective, private person, and when things were moving along with the Sister Sweetly record…and things were taking off and the label was behind it and things were rolling, we as a band chose to pull the reigns back a bit, mainly because Todd was miserable. He’s not somebody who’s looking to be a celebrity and being tied into what’s expected, or at least what was expected with our record label. Where I do think the industry has dropped the ball, particularly Giant Records at the time, was they were a very celebrity oriented label, they saw things in a very traditional way of marketing a band and what’s important. And they were unable to grasp what is good about this band and make that work. Which many bands since then have had that situation. Like Weezer comes to mind.
You can take an artist who isn’t a glamour-boy, and isn’t interested in that, and still use that to your advantage. But at the time, we weren’t with a particular group that could see that. They followed the more mainstream industry ideals; change the artist to fit what’s going on in the industry, versus show the industry why they need to pay attention to this artist. And great artists, Nirvana is a great example, had people behind them that did that. Because there were plenty of people who heard Nirvana who said, “oh, too loud and obnoxious.” But somebody said, “I’m gonna show the world why this band is great.” And [for a band], that’s what you’re always searching for (laughs).
When Sister Sweetly came out, that was a dorm room staple. But ten years later it’s still considered a must-have record. What’s given it such enduring qualities?=
They’re great songs (laughs). Well, I think one thing that sets Todd apart is that he writes great songs. And the time was right for obviously a movement that we were a part of, which was the “college bands go big” thing. At that time, the hair band thing was done, the grunge thing was rock ‘n roll, but grunge was kind of based on angst, and that has a place in our culture, but I think it’s kind of limited. So there was a movement that came from all of us college bands that couldn’t get any attention, but traveled around the country playing colleges. And when that was embraced finally by radio, we were fortunate enough to be at a place where, rock radio in particular, really took hold of that record and played it a lot. And that’s one thing that helped us. Sister Sweetly was a record that rock radio, which at the time was still a legitimate format, or bigger format than it is now, was struggling with the fact that their option of music to play was grunge bands. Which for a lot of them was a little too angry. There were the Pearl Jam’s and the accessible grunge bands, but here came us with a record that was rock enough for them to play, but somewhere in the vein of a Rolling Stones or Eric Clapton, that sort of thing. A fan of that kind of music would enjoy. I mean, there were three singles off that, that were like in the top five played songs on rock radio for like two years. Unfortunately the rock radio format [has changed again] and now we’re sort of left to AAA.
That whole movement of college bands eventually drew mass attention with the formation of the HORDE tour, which consequently you were a part of the same year Sister Sweetly was released in ’93. Those original HORDE bands are all still relatively prevalent in rock today, by basically becoming pioneers of an entirely new sub-genre of rock. Did you have any sense of the jam explosion about to occur?
No, no we didn’t. Because I remember the early days playing club dates with the Spin Doctors, who were the first kind of that genre to become something. And then when the HORDE tours first started, we didn’t do the first, we did the second, which was the first to go across the country. And it was mainly Blues Traveler running the show, but just calling up all their buddies who were bands that played together in the clubs. Obviously it helped that Lollapalooza opened the doors to the concept of the traveling festival, so there was a novelty to it that helped bring people out. The concept that, “hey, for $30, you can see six bands.” And I think that helped a lot, but it was a great idea because none of us had thought we’d actually sell out those sheds. And then we could convince a promoter that maybe there’s something here. And as it was so successful, I think as much as anything, those HORDE tours helped our band and that movement.
For some reason, the HORDE tour kind of got tagged through the media as this kind of hippie event, and I understand it, there was kind of a jam orientation to bands like Widespread Panic and Phish and some of those other bands, but I recall there actually being a lot more song-oriented bands. I just think it was because there was a lot more earthy music and it was an easy tagline for the media.
At that time, I assume you could have gone the pop-rock, poster boy route, with Todd’s powerful stage presence and songwriting style.
Yeah, we’ve had the opportunities in the past to play into that, especially the Sister Sweetly time, and that was part of the choice of, “well, that’s not really who Todd is, so we’ll skip on the poster boy photo shoot.” And that could have been played up. I mean we talked in-depth about it. The funny thing is, what we love, we go back to the old blues guys, the rock bands, and we would have been a great 70s rock band. ‘Cause in those days, you were a poster boy by being “not” involved in the industry. And I think we were kind of disappointed that we didn’t have a record label that understood that. I think they kind of thought like, “hey, these guys aren’t playing the game, we’ll show them.” And that’s when we started thinking, “we’re with the wrong people here.”
You guys all met around twenty years ago. So after all this time and the roller coaster ride of BHTM, how do you remain friends, leave alone bandmates?
Are you kidding? (laughing) Think about it, we were three kids in college going to school…we never thought we’d be doing this professionally. We start writing songs and playing shows and we’re able to make a living doing that? I mean, ultimately, yeah, we’ve had issues and there is stress that’s tied in with this industry, but I’ll tell you what, I know guys going into the office everyday selling insurance, working a hell of a lot harder for a lot less. And it’s kind of like a gift that we’ve been able to be geared into a position where we can do something we love and make a living doing it. And can be the focus of our lives. We really feel blessed to be honest with you.
When things started getting big with the Sister Sweetly record, we had a conscious conversation about this. That, what’s most important to us is that we make decisions based on the lifestyle we want. And that means, the label wants to do a video for “Bittersweet” that’s gonna make this band huge, but Todd doesn’t want to do one, we don’t do it. It was more of a one-for-all mentality than a majority rules, and that’s how we’ve always been. We have a lot of respect for each other as people, and I have to credit Todd a lot, because he’s not an ego-based “lead guy.” In fact, if anything, I think he appreciates that Rob and I aren’t expecting that of him. And we will be happy to support the decisions that make us all comfortable. So that’s been our secret, and the fact that we all enjoy playing together. I mean, if the musics not good, none of this matters. We’ve always had that attitude too. If it isn’t spiritually rewarding, then there are other things to do in life, and we should be moving on.
So for 2004, in addition to the new album, you’re also planning to record a show for DVD release?
Yeah, we’re gonna film a couple shows we’re doing at the Fillmore in San Francisco for a live DVD. And we’re gonna be touring at least February and March, probably the whole summer. And we’ve been a three-piece for years, and we are a three-piece band, but we’re talking on this tour about taking out some friends and having maybe like a, Big Headd Todd and the Monsters: the large band. And that’s just fun for us, and it’s also a way we can present the material a little differently, which I think since we have such a great fanbase, who gratefully continue to come out every time we play, loves [getting a] different show. So we’re exicted about this year.
And then we’ll just see where it goes. Like I said, we just feel fortunate to be able to do what we do, and now we’re finally in a postion where we’ve learned what’s good for us and what’s not, and we can be more productive as creative people.
