Chris "Moose" Mongeau (Lead Vocals)

 

Moose is the lead singer and front man for Moose and the High Tops. Is that

extraordinary? When you consider that he was headed for an NFL career, yes, it kind

of is!

 

Moose was an athlete in high school, playing football and hockey and running track.

He’s also a big guy; at his peak he was 6’ 4” and weighed 320 lbs!! Like many young 

athletes, the dream was to play in college and then be drafted by an NFL team, and

then on to wealth and glory. While he was in school, however, the NFL ruled that

athletes on a scholarship could opt to go into the draft in their junior year, but would

have to forfeit their scholarships in order to do so. Moose opted to try that anyway,

and unfortunately was not picked up for the majors. He did play in the NFL Europe

league, mostly in England, in the early 1990’s.

 

An unfortunate auto accident ended Moose’s football career, and he returned to the US, where his love of singing and Motown and Soul music got him singing in Karaoke contests. He won several and went on to judge several. Meanwhile he worked in the field he had studied, Behavioral Psychology, as a Neuro Pysch Behaviorist at a TBI rehabilitation facility.

 

He decided to take his love for music to the next level; first, he auditioned for and won the lead singer slot in Rick Knightly’s SOUL KINGS. Looking to head his own project, and utilizing friends who played instruments, Moose started a band called HARD TO HANDLE in 1999. The band had a changing roster of players, and Moose was looking to solidify the lineup.

 

A friend named Kevin Brosman was, at that time, looking to facilitate bands and musicians in finding each other for fun and profit, by hosting get-togethers at his home on week day nights. The two hit it off immediately; Moose saw Michael’s guitar playing and vocal abilities as a strong foil for his own performance, and Michael saw in Moose a great sounding voice, and a physical presence that was so different from the typical lead singer image that, he figured, it HAS to work! They started working together, but Michael was already involved with three other bands, so scheduling was a problem.

 

Eventually, however, Moose and the High Tops (originally the Uptown Rockers) started getting enough work that Michael bowed out of the other acts he was in, and the two have been leading Moose and the High Tops for a decade. Currently, the two have several projects going simultaneously: there is Moose and the High Tops; a vocal-and-guitar acoustic duo called Michael and Moose, which sometimes adds High Tops bassist Scott Cole; 7 Bridges Road, a Tribute to the Eagles; and a tribute to The Doors called Alive She Cried, featuring Moose, Michael, keyboardist Pete Brown and drummer Joey Sullivan.