Big Head Todd & the Monsters

Before any major label came calling, Todd Park Mohr, Brian Nevin and Rob Squires had spent years grinding out a living on the road. The trio, who first played together at a college party at the University of Colorado in 1986, worked the bars and clubs of Denver, Fort Collins and Boulder, then pushed across the Mountain States and the West Coast in a van nicknamed The Colonel, which clocked up more than 400,000 miles. By the time Sister Sweetly arrived, that gigging had built a sizeable live following, particularly across the United States.

Their 1993 major label debut, Sister Sweetly, was produced by David Z and went platinum in the United States, spawning the singles Bittersweet, Broken Hearted Savior and Circle. Strategem followed in 1994 and reached number 30 on the Billboard 200, though it sold less well than its predecessors. Beautiful World, produced by Jerry Harrison of Talking Heads, arrived in 1997 with John Lee Hooker joining them on Boom Boom. In 2005 they released Blue Sky exclusively on iTunes, a song written for the STS-114 Return to Flight mission. New World Arisin' followed in 2017.