If you want something done right, do it yourself. If you want to make an album the way you want, start your own record label. Which is exactly what Big Head Todd and the Monsters did when they were all at the ripe young age of 25.
Fourteen years later, three Colorado natives - Todd Park Mohr [guitar], Brian Nevin [drums and vocals] and Rob Squires [bass and vocals] - who make up the rock band BHTM, have got the record business down pat, but it wasn't always the case.
"We went around without knowing how it worked," says Squires, during a phone interview while he strolls along Bourbon Street in New Orleans where the guys are stopped on tour. "We made our own record and went around to stores asking them to take our albums. If they sold them, we got paid; if not, we wouldn't. We learned the business by doing it."
Mohr, Nevin and Squires, then in college at the University of Colorado at Boulder, launched Big Records in 1989, recording two albums independently before getting signed with a larger label, Giant Records, which recently went out of business.
Finally, after putting several albums out for Giant, the Big Head guys were ready to make music their way once again.
"Giant Records was kind of up in the air. There were a lot of changes going on and rumors about them going out of business. We weren't really seeing eye-to-eye with them anymore so we waited for them to go out of business and we were free again," Squires says.
Big Head Records had been put on the back burner and was about to be resurrected with the recent release of Riviera, BHTM's first album since their 1998 disappearance.
The time off between albums didn't look too promising for the trio, says Squires, who admits that the past four years have been the most discouraging for the band.
"They [Giant Records] kind of just sat on us and wouldn't let us work," Squires says about the four-year rut.
The guys were working on Riviera during the break, though, with the anticipation of the label's demise. They wanted to make sure they were ahead when it was time to start recording again.
But other aspects of their almost 15-year career haven't been so predictable. The guys would have never thought, while playing gigs in small bars outside of Denver where they grew up, that they would be where they are today.
In 1985, three college students landed a three-week gig at Castaways, a local country-western bar where they were hired to draw in a more diverse crowd. The guys didn't even make it past Week One; they were fired after their first few days on the job.
"We were hired to bring in other people, but just the normal clientele showed up. It was a bunch of drunk cowboys trying to listen to country music we weren't playing," Squires says, laughing.
The three members eventually took the bar owner to court for $250 after he refused to pay them for their sets.
"Back then, $250 was a lot of money to us. It was a good experience to learn how to [take someone to court]," Squires says. " If it were to happen today, we'd probably just laugh."
Not everyone was anti-Big Head in the Denver area, where the small local band was gaining major popularity.
"We just kept playing bars and frats, and more and more people came out. Then fans started asking for recorded music. It was a real natural progression," says Squires of their growth in the music industry. "Real grassroots."
BHTM's music fits into nearly every genre. B.B. King, Dave Matthews, Alanis Morissette, Ziggy Marley and Stone Temple Pilots have all taken the stage with BHTM.
"We play with different types of bands and we have different types of influences. It's good for us and good for our crowd, but it's pretty hard for major labels to figure out how to market and sell us. We're not just one thing," Squires says.
The three guys are back on the tour bus once again, heading across country after their four-year break, but they haven't forgotten where it all started.
"Colonel Mustard," as the members called it because of its ugly yellow color, was the band's first tour bus.
Years later, BHTM is doing things in a different fashion, right down to the fancy tour bus.
"It's a lot nicer way to go, for sure," says Squires of the rented luxury bus in which they spend hours on the road. "But we worked for it." Proving once again, that if you want something done right, you have to get out there and make it happen yourself.
Reach the reporter at erika.wurst@asu.edu.
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Big Head Todd and the Monsters at Club Rio, 430 N. Scottsdale Road, Tempe. 8:30 p.m. Tuesday. $21 advance; $22 at the door. 602-894-0533. |
