José Ramón "Serra" Maganto was born in Madrid, Spain. He started playing drums at age 17, inspired by Matt Sorum. He received lessons from Pablo Escalona. Maganto recalls:

"I started to play drums at the age of 17. I learned playing covers of the "Black Album" of Metallica with a couple of friends. After two years I joined a gothic rock band named Contradiction. We recorded two demos and made a lot of shows al around Spain. Also we were suport band for "Christian Death" and "Clan of Ximox"."

In 2002, they changed the name Contradiction for Circus, as the result of opening their minds to new tendencies, such as Tool, Radiohead, Muse or Rammstein. In 2003 the band won the popular music contest Rock Villa de Madrid and they opened for Metallica in Madrid.



During the summer of 2003 José Ramón Maganto and the rest of the group went to Los angeles (USA) to record their fisrt record (in English), produced by William Faith (Faith & the Muse). Maganto continues:

"In 2004 we joined Locomotive Records and recorded the CD again, this time in Spanish. It was produced by Goyo Esteban (Mägo de Oz, Ankhara, ...) an mastered by George Marino (AC/DC, Led Zeppelin, Jeff Buckley, Slayer, Elvis, etc.)"