SCRANTON — After only forming around six months ago, members of alt-rock band The Maguas said they’ve already embarked on what they called a “wild ride.”
The five-piece band, based out of the suburbs of Scranton, only formally came together in May of this year. But the five friends who make up the band — Daulton Rissinger, Erik Miller, Luke Prusinski, Brandon Ossont and Matt Jenkins — have been playing together since their days at Valley View High School.
These days, though, the band’s members are a bit more far-flung, having moved around the Mid-Atlantic region for work and for school. But they said they still make it work.
“The best thing is technology,” said guitarist Rissinger, explaining that the band’s members are able to record and send each other their ideas, getting the framework of a song together before they’re able to be in the same place to record.
And, once they are together, they head into guitarist Jenkins’ basement. Jenkins said he has an at-home recording studio set up in his basement, and he is able to do all of the band’s recording and producing himself after teaching himself the ins-and-outs of music production over the past decade.
Jenkins’ production manages to maintain a sort of punk rock rawness without sacrificing any quality; there’s an intimacy to the sound, but also good sound quality, too.
Currently, the band only has two singles available, but they said they’ve used social media to bolster their success: their most recent single, “Bird Cage,” has nearly 60,000 plays on Spotify.
Ossont, the band’s drummer, explained this comes from a strategic use of the streaming platform.
“We’re trying to take a more mainstream approach with Spotify,” he said. “We’re trying to release one song at a time.”
Ossont explained that this technique follows a more single-focused strategy employed by pop and hip-hop artists in recent years, and Rissinger explained he feels it’s a strategy that rock bands need to follow if they want to stay relevant.
“Spotify playlists are essentially the radio,” he said. “Rock doesn’t realize that Spotify is where people get listens.”
By getting their songs into the playlists of prominent Spotify users, the band explained they’ve been able to build up steam that’s allowed them to have their songs on two local radio stations and booking shows in Philadelphia and possibly New York.
“I never expected us to be where we’re at now, six months ago,” Jenkins said. He added with a laugh, “This started with us playing in my backyard on the Fourth of July.”
This Friday, Dec. 21, The Maguas will be headlining a show at Stage West, located on North Main Avenue in Scranton.
Peppered into their two-hour set will be about an EP’s worth of original material, alongside a raucous mix of covers from your favorite punk and pop punk bands. The band is being supported by The Boastfuls, The Cryptids and Another Day Dawns. Tickets are $5.
“I think it’ll be a really great show,” Ossont said.
