When Dan Monea sings, “I’ve been to church/ But I don’t pray/ and I ain’t gonna start today/ because praying ain’t no fun/ When you’re the devil’s son,” near the start of Hey Monea!’s new album Cheap Souvenirs, the piano-pounding front man isn’t being melodramatic. He means every single line. Because while Dan and his brother Nate–the Canton trio’s drummer, rounded out rhythmically by bassist Adam Orin–left the Jehovah’s Witnesses long ago, its rigid belief system is one of the reasons they pursued music so passionately in the first place.
