Meet Jonas Maya and Sebastian White of Penny Fusion in Tempe

Today we’d like to introduce you to Jonas Maya and Sebastian White.

Thanks for sharing your story with us Jonas and Sebastian. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
We didn’t know it then, but when we first began recording little songs on my ancient MacBook, we were coming to the apex of a lot of other creative things we had been doing for 5 years before. Everything from short films to comedy skits, to stop-motion photography and animation. Penny Fusion was (and is) just one of the outlets we get our creative ideas out of.

You can scroll back on our SoundCloud page to see that the first recordings were being posted online around 2014, mainly covers of songs by AC/DC and Radiohead. 2016 saw the first attempts at writing our own lyrics and music, although at the time neither of us thought of them as anything more than a fun side project on boring afternoons after school. The songs began getting some traction, which kind of spurred the idea that “hey, this might be worth investing in!”

So, instead of making songs under random, made-up names every time, we came up with the idea for Penny Fusion. The goal went above just organizing our songs under one roof; we wanted Penny Fusion to be more of a collective for everything from design to film to music. In other words, to reflect ourselves and how we creatively operate.

Since 2017, we’ve been recording all sorts of different songs in a ton of genres for our friends to listen to. We self-generate all of our designs, videos, music, and basically everything else.

Has it been a smooth road?
We just dove into the art of recording without knowing a single thing about it. It’s a hell of a lot harder to write a solid song, translate it into high-quality audio recordings, then mix and produce it so it sounds good than the layman would give it credit for, music is one of those things that you can work your ass off at for years and years, dedicating every spare minute of your free time to perfecting, taking every note of every imperfection, and still just be known as “alright.” It’s incredibly frustrating, being unable to reproduce the sounds you hear in your head, and it’s a long journey until you can. It’s misstep after misstep, terrible song after terrible song, flinging mud at the wall over and over until something just sticks. For us, it was melodic, a somewhat-psych soft rock that stuck.

So let’s switch gears a bit and go into the Penny Fusion story. Tell us more about it.
We’re Penny Fusion! We could say “it’s a movement, man, to spread positivity in the world!” but how many times do you hear that from your local musicians? We don’t claim to be anything other than just two guys in a dorm room making fun, psychedelic beach rock.

I think we’re most proud of being self-sustained. It gives you almost unlimited freedom to go in any direction you want to, make anything and for anyone.

What sets us apart? We got an interview on this website! (Kidding) No, I think what’s unique about Penny Fusion is that we have a sound we haven’t really heard on this campus yet. Our buddy Rozotadi said that Tempe is about to become the new Seattle, the modern 1960’s-era San Francisco, in terms of creative output. I think he’s totally right, and we’re all set to hop on board for whatever may come.

So, what should we be on the lookout for, what’s next in store for you?
When people ask this, our go-to answer is usually something like “record new tracks” or something along the lines of that, but lately, we’ve been considering starting a live band to play shows. The live music scene here is incredible, and if you don’t have a band that can perform, then you’re out. We think Penny Fusion has amazing potential for some good live shows, so look out for that this year.

Contact Info:

• Website: PENNYFUSION.COM
• Email: jonasrmaya@gmail.com
• Instagram: pennyfusion
• Facebook: pennyfusion
• Twitter: penny_fusion

 

Image Credit:
Austin Villegas

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