Big Head Todd and The Monsters and Toad The Wet Sprocket have announced plans for their 2019 Summer Tour. The co-headline run will include a stop in Huber Heights, OH at Rose Music Center on Wednesday, June 12th.
ABOUT BIG HEAD TODD AND THE MONSTERS
Big Head Todd and the Monsters are not that big on anniversaries, so there won’t be any big hoopla over the fact that the band is officially crossing the three-decade mark this year. Thirty years would seem like something to commemorate, especially with the same core lineup, an achievement few other name-brand bands can boast of. Yet right now they’re less about celebrating stability than volatility, in the form of their eleventh studio album, New World Arisin’, which makes good on its forward-facing title with what might be the brashest rock and roll of their career. The old world can’t rest on any laurels, and neither will they.
If there’s a dominant musical motif to New World Arisin’, it’s “straight-up rock-pop,” says Mohr. That contemporary approach might come as a slight surprise to hardcore fans that saw the Monsters take a seriously rootsy turn or two in the last 10 years. The band embarked on a side project, dubbed Big Head Blues Club, that saw them paying homage to Robert Johnson and bringing in venerable guest collaborators like Charlie Musselwhite and the late B.B. King. The heavy blues influence that dominated their alter-ego band carried over some into the last actual Big Head Todd and the Monsters album, 2014’s Black Beehive. That element isn’t altogether missing in New World Arisin’. But this time the blues take a definite back seat to the unapologetically mainstream instincts that had Big Head Todd going platinum in the mid-’90s with the album Sister Sweetly, which spawned the rock radio hits “Broken Hearted Savior,” “Bittersweet,” and “Circle.”
The history of the group actually stretches farther back from the 1987 point at which they took their name. The core members came together at such an early age that it’s hard to know exactly how many candles to put on their collective cake. They began playing original music in earnest in a nascent Colorado music scene that then consisted almost entirely of cover bands. A debut album, Another Mayberry, arrived in 1989, though it would be another four years before Sister Sweetly made them a national phenomenon. The only personnel change in these three decades has been the addition of a fourth member, putative “new guy” Jeremy Lawton, in 2004.
While they enjoy a robust fan base around the country, their success is outsized in Colorado, where they’re practically the unofficial state band. That’s evident in their ability to sell out Red Rocks, the most revered amphitheater in the nation, where they’ve headlined 19 times.
What’s clear is that Big Head Todd is one multi-headed rock monster, easily traversing the most accessible hooks and the heaviest grooves. It’s not surprising that they would appeal to any audience or sub-audience that values durability over flavors of the moment.
ABOUT TOAD THE WET SPROCKET
Celebrating 30 years as a band, Toad the Wet Sprocket is still making music and touring with the same spirit of unwavering independence that started it all over three decades ago. 2019 marks two important milestones for Toad. One is the 25th Anniversary of their Platinum albumDulcinea, originally released in 1994, which featured the hits “Fall Down” and “Somethings Always Wrong”. The second is the 30th Anniversary of the band’s very first album Bread & Circus, which was re-released commercially in 1989.
The band is thankful for the continued help and enthusiastic support of their fans, which helped spur the release of All You Want and also serves as inspiration for the band to tour and play live. They also continue to support their most recent releases, New Constellation (2013) and The Architect of Ruin EP (2015). Toad the Wet Sprocket share in the kind of musical chemistry that can only come from meeting in high school and writing, recording and touring on albums over the course time. After Bread & Circus, they followed with Pale in 1990, fear in ’91, Dulcinea in 1994, and Coil in 1997, as well as some compilations along the way. While most will still feel the comforting familiarity of the Billboard-charting hits, “Walk on the Ocean”, “All I Want”, “Something’s Always Wrong”, and “Fall Down”, fans will also be well familiar with tracks with lyrics that resonate for so many life milestones like “The Moment”, “I Will Not Take These Things for Granted” and so many more.
Tickets go on sale to the general public beginning at 11am on Friday, March 15th at Ticketmaster.com, RoseMusicCenter.com. Dates, times and artists subject to change without notice. All events rain or shine.
