Although larger amplifiers have been built since the 1960s, the four members of The Sequins, a Butler rock band, still seem to be haunted by a photo they took with what was called the largest amp in existence in 1967.

The photo captured high schoolers Drew Moniot, Marvin Ordy, Dan Metrick and Dave Lytle with the Magnatone Monster, which they used at a 1967 Fourth of July parade in Zelienople. In 2018, the photo appeared in a Vintage Guitar magazine, in an article some of the biggest guitar amps ever made. This year, Moniot again received a call from a friend who said he and his bandmates were pictured in the magazine, again with the Magnatone Monster.

Moniot, who sang and played guitar and keyboard in the Sequins, said the intermittent resurgence of the photo leads to renewed conversation among the band members, several of whom still live in Butler County, who then reminisce on their time rocking the region. Moniot said the story in February’s edition of the magazine again chronicled some of the most unique music equipment ever featured in Vintage Guitar.

“About a month ago a friend called me and said, ‘Did you know you guys are in Vintage Guitar magazine,'” Moniot said. “It turned out, they went and did a Top 10, recycling their favorite stories. I am amazed it is still getting kicked around and people are still interested.”

On Wednesday, Feb. 26, the Sequins reunited once again at Butler Brew Works to talk about the photo and the story behind it.

Metrick, who drummed for the Sequins, said the memories from his days in the band still stand out as some of the best times of his life.

“We just had so much fun, we didn’t know how good we had it,” Metrick said. “I don’t think we ever had a dream of being rock stars, we just wanted to get to the next level.”

The Sequins formed in the early 1960s, when its members were all high school age or younger. Moniot and Ordy were students of the same guitar teacher, and were neighbors, so it only made sense for them to get together and jam to rock songs. The two recruited Metrick to drum for the band — once his grandmother bought him a proper drum set — then Lytle joined on bass after seeing the band play.

“They played for our eighth grade Halloween dance,” Lytle said, “and they were in the corner of the gymnasium, and I was watching thinking, ‘Hey, these guys are pretty good.’ That was 1963 or 1964.”

As a rock group in the 1960s, the Sequins saw no shortage of gigs and opportunities to perform. Moniot said the popularity of touring rock bands at the time made it a good time to be in a band, because people wanted to hear rock music played live. The people who made up the bands also would become like local celebrities, he added.

“Back then people wouldn’t dream of having a party without a live band playing it,” Moniot said. “There was so much camaraderie, we were really good friends. We would hang out together.”

Metrick said Moniot may have been a marketing genius with the way he chose songs for the group to play. The band had a method of choosing which songs to cover at its shows.

“They had a book marker thing of the Top 50 of the week — we learned the top three, every week we practiced,” Metrick said. “Even if they were bubble gum songs, if the people liked it and it was hot, we played it. We stood out over a whole market.”

Lytle said that some of the popular bands at the time spawned imitators, whose stage antics were well-documented and helped gain them popularity. The one time the band played an original song was when they entered into a battle of the bands event.

“We were in a battle of the bands and you had to write a song about iced tea. We went down and made a song,” Lytle said. “There was another band there that had just seen The Who destroy their instruments, and they came out and destroyed their equipment.”

After a few years of playing out, the band got in touch with a music company in Harmony, Esty Music Company, which began giving the members equipment for them to try out. The Sequins would become like Guinea pigs for the company, however, being the ones who took the new equipment for test runs. There was a novelty of using new technology, which came with the caveat that the amps would sometimes break.

“Esty Music Company … they had us come down and audition, which we did, and they liked us and they were going to manufacture these amps,” Moniot said. “Because it was so new, they wanted someone to test this stuff, we would take the stuff out and play it, and sometimes it would blow the fuse up. We’d drive it back down, they would switch out the amps, they would troubleshoot it, and we were constantly working with them in developing their equipment.”

After playing amps from Esty for some time, Moniot said the group got an offer to play a Fourth of July parade where the company had the band’s equipment covered.

“They said they would put us on a flatbed truck,” Moniot said. “All the guy said was, ‘We’ve got you covered.’ I thought they had other amps like the ones we played they would put on the truck. We had no idea what was in the works.”

Moniot said he still remembers seeing the Magnatone Monster for the first time.

“We get there and they bring us around to their loading dock, they open the door and there is this flatbed truck with this 10-foot 1,000 watt amplifier,” Moniot said. “The entire band is playing it. They had like six 15-inch speakers, so it could handle bass. It was built to really, really pump out the sound.”

Moniot said Magnatone was ahead of its time, because the company made some of the first solid state amplifiers. For a band of high school students, using newly developed equipment was as exciting as getting to travel around the area playing gigs.

“Everything up to that point was tube amps,” Moniot said. “Everything they were doing was kind of experimenting and testing, we absolutely loved playing their equipment.”

Looking back, the equipment seems rudimentary by today’s standard. Ordy said the members would often share one amp, but they could output more than one signal.

“What was nice about those amps is you could just run another one right off of it,” Ordy said.

The Fourth of July parade was a memorable experience for the band even outside of using what was, at the time, claimed to be the world’s largest amplifier. Metrick laughed as he remembered slamming his drum kit to the music, because his kit was not being projected through microphones and speakers.

“I just had to play loud,” Metrick said. “The marching band got out of step behind us because we were too loud. That’s the one thing I could hear.”

Even though they don’t play music as a group anymore, Moniot said he still performs live music at area venues, and Metrick even recently sat in on drums with him. Moniot said that to his knowledge, there were only two Monster Magnatone amps ever made. Despite its scarcity, the Monster Magnatone still gets attention today, because of its use by singer-songwriter Neil Young.

“If you go online and search Monster Magnatone, Neil Young has a bunch of amplifiers he plays,” Moniot said. “Behind them stands this amp. No one is sure if he just takes it around as a prop or it it’s actually active and he’s playing through it.”