InCircles: Punks That Rock

December 2003 was a difficult month for 11-year-old Jewlee Trudden, who was juggling two potential Christmas gifts: World of Warcraft, or a guitar.

One would inevitably make her queen of East Quogue Middle School’s gaming community. The other had the potential to completely change her life.

Her love of punk rock won out. And, later that month, she would own her first guitar—aptly, a First Act.

A stubborn adolescent—some would even say a diva—the young Ms. Trudden refused guitar lessons, teaching herself a few power chords instead. When she turned 14, the search began for some musical company. East Quogue Middle School was a small pool, but a mutual friend suggested she talk to then-13-year-old Eric Ponto.

“Somebody just told me that he played bass,” explained Ms. Trudden, curled up on a couch in denim cutoffs and mismatched socks last week in Monk Music Studios in East Hampton. “A few kids played guitar, but playing bass was kind of unheard of for 15-year-olds. So we started playing together. I guess when we were, like, 14, and we knew all the same songs by Green Day and The Offspring. We’ve been playing pretty steadily ever since.”

Mr. Ponto said he had picked up bass in sixth grade after a yearlong hiatus from music. “I played the trumpet in the fifth grade, and I was really good at that,” he recalled. “But I eventually knocked both my front teeth out and couldn’t play anymore. I did it twice on roller coasters in Hershey Park and Six Flags.”

“Yeah, but you probably looked like a bad ass,” Ms. Trudden laughed.

“I switched over to bass about a year later,” he continued. “I wanted to do something that didn’t involve my mouth.”

After the pair became closer friends, they recruited their friend Abby Campsey to be the drummer in their new band. Mr. Ponto came up with their name, InCircles, and they put on their debut concert inside Abby’s family barn in East Quogue as a fundraiser for East End Hospice. Their friends from East Quogue Middle School jumped and danced among goats and bales of hay, while the teenagers performed on a stage that their fathers had built just for the occasion.

Eight years later, InCircles has graduated from rustic beams and livestock to a modern recording studio with a Grammy Award-winning producer and manager, Cynthia Daniels, and a new drummer, Bronx native Oscar Silva, who joined almost three years ago.

Their long-distance relationship can make rehearsal and recording sessions tough—drummer Anthony Q fills in on occasion—but Ms. Trudden said she followed her intuition, even though Mr. Silva bought his drum kit the day of the audition.

“Over the course of six months, he just completely practiced and learned all of our material, like, even the ones that we hadn’t recorded yet, just from live videos,” she said. “And he ended up becoming just a really amazing drummer.”

Having an alternate drummer is useful, considering much of their songwriting occurs during rehearsal—including their newest five-track EP, “Stable 8,” which dropped April 23. Ms. Trudden writes the harmonies, melodies and the bulk of the lyrics on her own, with help from Mr. Ponto, and brings them to the group when she thinks they’re about ready.

“I’ll play what I have,” she explained. “And then Oscar and Eric will play along and kinda feel it out. And then, sometimes, we will decide to change something. You know, maybe one part will be double the time, or half the time, or something like that. Or we’ll mess with the arrangement.”

“In regular rehearsals, we can finish a song start to finish,” Mr. Ponto added. “The thing is, the songs always grow. So, the songs we play now are different, slightly, than when they first came out.”

The band’s songs are energetic and electric, and their onstage demeanor matches the material—lolling tongues, banging heads, swinging guitar arms, contagious energy. They draw inspiration from 1970s New York punk, plus newer bands like Blur and Gorillaz, just to name a few, though Ms. Trudden’s recent playlists have included the likes of Dirty Pharmaceuticals, Nicki Minaj and Drake—a far cry from their signature sound.

For Mr. Ponto, writing and playing genuine material is the best part about being in a band. “I get to exist as a creative individual,” he said. “There’s nothing better than watching something grow into something people adore, something people just can’t get enough. That’s the best part of being in a band, for me—that gratification.

“[I hope audiences leave] exhausted and sweaty—not necessarily with their own sweat,” he continued, “and that maybe their day wasn’t so bad. Maybe if they had a shitty day, it wasn’t so shitty after this.”

Last summer, the band played the main stage of the Skate and Surf Festival in New Jersey, a huge punk rock festival formerly known as Bamboozle. It was one of the only times over the last few years that Ms. Trudden felt pre-show butterflies.

“There were kids there wearing our shirts from New Jersey and I was, like, ‘What are you doing here?’” she said. “It was so loud because of the huge speakers. It was awesome, don’t get me wrong. It was just big and loud and scary.”

“And they loved every minute of it,” interrupted Ms. Daniels, as Mr. Ponto and Ms. Trudden smiled in agreement.

For more information on InCircles, visit incirclesmusic.bandcamp.com.