Local artist and Fresno State alum Agustin Roman Rivera is not only putting Fresno’s music scene on the map, but changing the landscape of local music.

Rivera, who goes by they/them pronouns, has been making music under the artist name roman around since 2022. Within two years, Rivera has found themself with a song feature on the Freeform show “Good Trouble,” with their song “Comes With Age.” The song was featured on the season five episode titled “I Am Doll Parts.”

This milestone represents a significant step early in Rivera’s career, but the road to success wasn’t always easy.

Early on in life, Rivera grew up with family troubles that they couldn’t fully process at a young age, finding themselves getting into trouble away from home. In hopes of keeping them out of trouble, their father put them in the nonprofit youth percussion group We Got The Beat, becoming Rivera’s introduction to music.

“I have no idea what person I’d be if I didn’t have music to cope with a lot of the things I went through as a kid,” Rivera said.

Rivera quickly found comfort playing the drums and joined the marching bands in middle school and high school, eventually touring the country as a part of the Drum Corps International, a highly selective international brass and percussion group. After their days in the corps, Rivera helped start a band called The National Debt, in which Rivera and their bandmates got a feel for performing through small backyard shows attended by classmates and fellow local musicians.

Though the experience gave Rivera a lot of insight into being a musician and a writer, they eventually decided that they had things they wanted to say for themself and left the band to pursue a solo career, eventually becoming roman around.

“I sat around in the Fresno State library and I submitted to maybe 40, 50 different [music] labels,” Rivera said.

After many submissions, Training Twelve Records decided to take a chance on them. The music spoke for itself, and almost immediately Rivera found themselves at the top of Spotify’s “Fresh Finds” playlist, as well as being featured on other highly-listened Spotify playlists.

All of this was taking place while Rivera was still in college, taking 24 units a semester and teaching drum lessons at Bentley’s Drum Shop.

Rivera still found time to bring music to their community with a packed schedule. They never considered themselves as an avid party-goer, but still found joy in throwing backyard shows at their bassist’s house. They constructed a stage out of wooden pallets and the early days of roman around shows flourished.

“I guess that was my ‘party scene,’ the playing and the throwing of shows,” Rivera said.

Rivera graduated magna cum laude in 2023 with a bachelor’s in music education and credits his supportive professors and school staff for their success.

With school done, Rivera had more time to focus on their artistry. “Comes with Age” found regular success on Spotify playlists and was quickly gaining recognition within the roman around discography. When it came to the featured deal for “Good Trouble,” however, it met a major roadblock.

The Writer’s Guild of America strike, which occurred last year, left Rivera in a difficult position. Having minimal information about this potential deal, they had to decide if they wanted to withdraw from their contract with Training Twelve, or trust the label and wait out the strike.

Rivera placed their faith in their label and on Jan. 2, the viewers of “Good Trouble” got to hear “Comes With Age.”

As roman around continues to find success, Rivera doesn’t want the success to end with them, but rather pay it forward. Their life-changing experience at We Got The Beat has come full circle, with them now being the director of the program.

“Roman’s a natural leader, so even back then he’d have these ideas and just spit them out,” said Brenda Myers, executive director of We Got The Beat.

Myers taught Rivera when they started the program as a child, and welcomed them back when they asked to help out with the program. Rivera saw firsthand how impactful it can be to have a structured activity outside of school, and the potential for discovering a new passion. They seek to offer that safe space to future generations of Fresno youth.

Even with their artistry, Rivera provides a space for others.

“Inclusive, talented and committed,” are the three words that Paris Evans, former Fresno State student and jazz artist, uses to describe Rivera.

Evans is one of many musicians who has been invited to Rivera’s jam sessions, where genres from punk to indie, and even jazz, all come together in one space. Evans looks fondly on one of these sessions at Rivera’s home, where musicians of varying genres all played different instruments in one room to make music.

“It felt really cool to just be welcomed into that space and make music with them,” Evans said.

Later this year, Rivera hopes to eventually release a second album as roman around, with Evans doing some saxophone work on some of the tracks.

Regardless of what happens next, Rivera will continue to nurture and grow the Fresno music scene and beyond.