Coinmonster to close out festival

August 13, 2015 at 12:05a.m.

Considering Pabstolutely 8 is named after a workingman’s beer, it’s fitting that New Castle, Pa., band Coinmonster will be returning for its second-straight appearance at the annual music festival.

Despite the fact the heavy-rock trio – David Galazia (drums), Rick Stoner (bass) and Jon Reider (guitar, vocals) – has been playing around the area for a quarter of a century, there are no delusions of grandeur from its members.

“We started off playing mostly the Youngstown area,” Reider said. “Then we decided to be just weekend warriors. We could never really go on a full-blown tour because our lifestyle couldn’t afford it with marriages and kids.”

“We made the right decision, but we still get to play music. We still have the same people who come and care about us. So it’s a win-win situation.”

Coinmonster, which also doubles as ’70s cover band The Triggers, has a Primus-meets-Rush vibe. Reider said the former comparison comes from the band’s musicality, while the latter is tied to the group’s penchant for serious and spacey lyrics.

Even though Coinmonster plays only a handful of gigs a year, Youngstown-area fans have been getting quite a treat of late. The threesome played a benefit last spring at Chipper’s Sports Bar. Now the band is back for Pabstolutely 8.

“We like playing the festival because it’s a nice central location, and a lot of our fans will be there,” Reider said. “Basically, I’ve known the owners of the Royal Oaks for decades. One of the guys used to be a bouncer at the Penguin Pub. I met him when we first got started in 1990.

“The Royal Oaks has been asking us to play Pabstolutely for a while, and so last year we finally played, and it was awesome. And when they asked us again, we jumped on it.”

As for the upcoming Pabstolutely 8 event at the Royal Oaks, Reider said Coinmonster will be dusting off old gems such as the Black Sabbath-sounding “Bobos” and the dynamic “Porcupine Effect.”

Reider said the group also plans on continuing its tradition of playing equally oddball and unexpected covers.

“We have a gigantic list of off-the-wall covers we’ve done over the years, anything from Frank Zappa to old soft-rock stuff like Hall & Oates and Little River Band. And a lot of Black Sabbath covers. We might have something special for Pabstolutely 8.”

At first, Reider said he wanted to keep the cover a secret, but moments later he eagerly disclosed it’ll perhaps be a Rush track. When asked if it was “Roll the Bones,” complete with the cringe-worthy rapping, the singer laughed and said, “No, but we have done some rap covers in the past. A long time ago we used to do a couple of Public Enemy songs for fun.”

He quickly added, “We moved on from that.”