Thelonious Monster

Led by vocalist and songwriter Bob Forrest, Thelonious Monster were a Los Angeles-based rock band whose style found a middle ground between the purposeful chaos of punk and the more traditional but equally insouciant attack of alternative rock with dashes of blues and funk folded in. The group's sound was built on a foundation of guitars – at one point, the band boasted four guitarists – whose boozy clamor was a fine match for the insightful, streetwise lyrical outlook of Forrest. Thelonious Monster's earliest work (1986's Baby, You're Bummin' My Life Out in a Supreme Fashion) was its most chaotic, and they hit a rough but committed groove on 1989's Stormy Weather, but they began to succumb to their well-documented excesses on their major-label debut, 1992's Beautiful Mess. An older, wiser, and sober Forrest would jumpstart the group in the 2000s for a pair of reunion efforts, 2004's California Clam Chowder and 2020's Oh That Monster. Thelonious Monster was formed in 1984 by Bob Forrest, whose leadership was a constant throughout their history. The group's initial lineup featured several figures from the early heyday of L.A. punk, most notably Dix Denney of the Weirdos and K.K. Barrett of the Screamers. Denney and Barrett both played guitar on the band's 1986 debut, Baby, You're Bummin' My Life Out in a Supreme Fashion, along with Bill Stobaugh and Chris Handsome; John Huck played bass, and Pete Weiss played drums. Forrest had a knack for making friends with notables on the L.A. underground scene, and the album's production team included three members of the Red Hot Chili Peppers (Flea, Anthony Kiedis, and Hillel Slovak), Norwood Fisher of Fishbone, and Peter Case of the Plimsouls. The band's lineup was streamlined for their sophomore LP, 1987's Next Saturday Afternoon, which reduced the guitar section to just Denney and Handsome; Flea returned as producer for one track, "Walk on Water." The group had already won a significant following on the West Coast, and their audience grew with their third album, 1989's Stormy Weather, which earned some of the best reviews of their career and included a memorable cover of Tracy Chapman's "For My Lover" and the college radio success "Sammy Hagar Weekend." Produced by John Doe of X, Stormy Weather's lineup featured Forrest on vocals, Denney, Handsome, and Mike Martt on guitars, Rob Graves on bass, and Weiss on drums, with guest spots from Keith Morris and Zander Schloss of the Circle Jerks, jazz percussionist Buck Clarke, and the band's faithful friend Flea. While Thelonious Monster had developed a reputation as a hard drinking band, and Forrest's use of hard drugs was becoming an issue, the positive press and growing cult following they'd acquired led to the band landing a major-label deal with Capitol Records. 1992's Beautiful Mess was recorded in Hollywood, Memphis, and Nashville with producers Joe Hardy, Pete Anderson, and Al Kooper, and the core quartet of Forrest, Denney, Handsome, and Weiss were joined by Dan Murphy and Dave Pirner of Soul Asylum, Michael Penn, Benmont Tench of Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, and Tom Waits, who dueted with Forrest on "Adios Lounge." Despite the bigger budget and polished production, Beautiful Mess was not the commercial breakthrough Capitol hoped for, and the band splintered. Forrest struck a deal with RCA for a solo album, but the label was unhappy with the results of the expensive project. They chose not to release it, and he sunk deep into addiction, dealing drugs to support his habit. After 24 stays in rehab, Forrest finally got clean and sober, and he pursued a new career as a drug and alcohol counselor. Forrest became one of the counselors on Dr. Drew Pinsky's reality TV series Celebrity Rehab, gaining him more fame than he had previously enjoyed as a musician. Forrest was still making music in his spare time -- he formed a band with multi-instrumentalist Josh Klinghoffer called the Bicycle Thief, releasing a 1999 album You Come and Go Like a Pop Song, and made his solo debut with 2006's Modern Folk and Blues Wednesday. In 2004, Forrest reconnected with Dix Denney, Pete Weiss, guitarist Jon Sidel, bassist Dallas Don Burnet, and keyboardist Greg Kurtsin to record a Thelonious Monster reunion album, California Clam Chowder, with each song paying homage to a different band (including one titled "The Thelonious Monster Song"). Filmmaker Keirda Bahruth premiered a documentary in 2011, Bob and the Monster, that offered a detailed look at Bob Forrest's life in music, his struggles with addiction, and his second act as a drug and alcohol counselor. The film won Best Documentary honors at the 2011 Gold Coast International Film Festival and the 2011 Chicago International Movies and Music Festival. Forrest reconvened Thelonious Monster to cut their sixth album, 2020's Oh That Monster, with Forrest, Denney, Handsome, and Weiss welcoming new bassist Martyn Lenoble. On March 12, 2023, Dix Denney died at the age of 65.
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