mondinband History

Paul Graves and Bob Werner have been friends since 1972 when they first started jamming together in high school. In the late 80s, drummer Cary Aye introduced Paul to John Mondin. Paul and John started doing occasional freelance gigs together. Around 1990, Paul and John asked Bob to join the new band that they were forming, The Chilltones.

After The Chilltones broke up, Bob, John, and Paul stayed in touch and tried to find clubs where they could keep a side project going to play together once a week. For a while they were able to do this at a bar in Granite City, Illinois called Eddie's. At another point they had a regular Saturday afternoon gig in Dellwood, Missouri that ended at 7:00 PM, allowing the band members to get to their other gigs with their other bands later in the evening. For those afternoon gigs the band was called the Dellwood Matinee Blues Band. Drummer Cary Aye played with the band throughout this post-Chilltones, pre-Eat A Peach period.

Around the beginning of 1998, John called Bob to let him know that he had heard that a restaurant in Alton, Illinois called Ralph's was looking for a piano player. Bob dropped down there, did a quick audition, and went to work for Ralph. Later that year, Ralph had an idea that he would like to do a weekly Sunday afternoon barbeque. He asked Bob if he could get some musician friends together to play on Sundays. Bob called John and Paul. It was around the fourth of July of 1998 that Bob, John, and Paul first performed on a Sunday at Ralph's. Marc Waters was the band's new drummer. Guitarist Paul Light would drop by and play some of the sets with the band.

The band didn't have a name. They would jokingly refer to themselves as The Ralph's Sunday Afternoon Barbeque Blues Band Extravaganza. After a while, Ralph wanted to advertise and told the band that they really did need a name so that he could include it in the advertisement.

The Story Of The Eat A Peach Name

Friend of the band Bob Moggio had put together a band that performed a lot of Rolling Stones material. They named themselves Sticky Fingers after the Rolling Stones album. John and Paul had joked that someday they ought to form a band that performed a lot of Allman Brothers material and call it Eat A Peach after the Allman Brothers album. If the band ever opened for Bob Moggio's band, the billing would read "Eat A Peach - Sticky Fingers".

With Ralph demanding that the band come up with a name, John and Paul decided that, since the band was performing a fair amount of Allman Brothers material, they might as well go ahead and call it Eat A Peach. It wasn't until months or years later that it was discovered that there was already another band called Eat A Peach from Richton Park, Illinois near Chicago.

People would get a bit confused when they would look for the Alton/Edwardsville-based Eat A Peach on the web and find the Richton Park-based Eat A Peach's web site. ("Gee, this doesn't look like the band I saw last night!")

There was a failed attempt to change the name of the band to Bebop Blues in November of 2005. Everyone hated the new name.

On March 30, 2006, the band received a friendly email from the Richton Park-based Eat A Peach that asked very nicely if they wouldn't mind changing their name. The Richton Park guys had been using the Eat A Peach name three years longer and had released two CDs under that name.

The band finally retired the Eat A Peach name on April 9, 2006.


The Sunday afternoon barbeque idea at Ralph's was soon abandoned, but the popularity of the band appearing there every Sunday continued to grow. Over time the gig moved later and later into the evening. After about six months of doing every Sunday evening at Ralph's, John had to leave the band. His regular full-time band at that time was The Rhythm Rockers, and they had their own weekly Sunday evening gig. Guitarist Jeff Bensman came in to replace John. Whenever John could make it, he still showed up for gigs and the band would perform five-piece using both guitarists. This worked out nicely for some of the double-lead guitar parts in the Allman Brothers material. Jeff remained as the band's regular guitarist for the remaining two and a half years of the three-year run at Ralph's. Also during that period, drummer Marc Waters quit and was replaced by Larry Vandiver. Marc was having to get up early for work on Monday mornings and couldn't handle the sleep deprivation any longer.

When Ralph's went out of business, the band immediately went to work at The Lighthouse, although those first days there were actually in the basement bar of The Lighthouse which at that time was being called The Tiki Room. The band performed three-piece with no drummer. Jeff's day job schedule had changed and John was no longer playing with The Rhythm Rockers, so John took back over as the band's regular guitarist. The three-piece version of the band, still calling themselves Eat A Peach, had more of an "unplugged" feel to it with John playing acoustic guitar.

After two or three months in The Tiki Room, the band moved upstairs at The Lighthouse. Larry had started his own side project band called Rum Boogie that was booking Sunday evenings, so John Coatney came in to take over the drummer spot with the band. The band played every Sunday at The Lighthouse for about a year and a half until they decided to move to Mike's Ten Pin which continues to be the band's Sunday night home.

Early in 2003 the band started playing every Wednesday in Edwardsville, Illinois at a bar called Cleo's where they found a whole new set of friends who came out to lend their support. During the summer of 2005, the band started alternating Wednesdays between Vanzo's in Edwardsville and Lil Corner Pub in Alton. By January of 2006, the band was playing every Wednesday at Vanzo's and continued to do so for the following year.

In February of 2006 the band made the transition from a Sunday-and-Wednesday-only side project to a full-time band available to perform any night of the week.

On April 9, 2006 the band changed their name from Eat A Peach to Mondin. A little later they were calling it Mondin Band, and later still they decided that they liked the name as one word, Mondinband.

In October of 2007, Bob Werner left the band and Curt Sharkey took over the keyboard spot. In July of 2009 Curt quit the band after learning that he had advanced liver cancer. Bob returned.

Curt died on July 25th, 2009.

The band very much appreciates the support they receive from both old and new friends. They especially appreciate the many people who go out of their way to share kind comments with band members about their performances. The band sends out a big THANK YOU to everyone who takes an interest in their music.