Julian David Guillen and Shyann Rodriguez – Flordia’s Overlooked Extreme Metal Musicians

julian gabriel

Flordia is known for being one of the first places to have any death metal acts. Legends like Death, Obituary, Nocturnus, Morbid Angel and even some hidden gems like D.V.C all hail from there.

Now in current times, the scene has spawned a new gem known as Sapraemia. The band is young but already impressing both the new and old generations of Floridian metalheads. But this band alone isn’t enough to satisfy bassist/vocalist Julian David Guillen’s need for extremity. To cure this hunger Guillen decided to form a grindcore band called Munchausen, where he plays guitar while his girlfriend Shyann Rodriguiez does vocals. Today, the two lock up with The Bonesaw to chat about these amazing hidden projects.

How would you describe Sapraemia’s sound?

Julian: We’re influenced by Death, Nile, Wormed and lots of really brutal shit. We listen to a lot of the new school and the old-school. I guess the best way to describe us is a fusion of Origin and old-school Suffocation. People seem to really like us. We get a mixed crowd to of tech-death kids and old-school guys who loves bands like Incantation.

What does the name mean and where did you come up with it?

Julian: It’s a blood disease that eats all of your healthy blood cells. You are pretty much rotting from the inside. It’s a pretty metal disease and I found it to be a really cool word. A lot of people mistake us for the band from New Jersey called Sapremia. Maybe one day a tour of both of us will happen.

Any plans for any new material?

Julian: We are working on new material and trying to sell it to labels and stuff. We play new stuff at shows here and there and we do plan on recording it. Hopefully we will have an album before the year is over.

I see you played in Solstice for a short while?

Julian: I played with Solstice for a couple of months last year. When I was offered to join I had no idea who they were but then realized they are legends. It was a great experience playing for a classic band. I was younger than all of them by at least 15 years but it was fun. They’re all great guys.

Can you tell us about your other project Munchausen?

Julian: I was sitting at home one day and I was coming up with grind riffs. Nothing was going on with my other band at the moment so I figured to form a small fun project. I then talked to my girlfriend Shyann and said, “Hey, we should make some grindcore or something. Maybe you can sing.” She told me she didn’t know what to do and I said, “Well, just yell.”

Shyann: Then we discovered that I sound like bullshit. I honestly thought I sounded like crap, but everyone else loved it. I don’t know why, since I’m not trying to do anything spectacular. But I get good reactions so I’ll keep doing it.

Julian: You combine Barney from Napalm Death and Mike from Eyehategod, then make it a girl voice and you’ll get Shyann.

Well if you think about it, grindcore vocals are good for grind but in general are shit vocals. 

Shyann: Yes, it works out that way.

Julian: Unless you’re the dude from Insect Warfare. His vocals are just awesome.

Are you guys working on an album? Anywhere people can hear you guys?

Shyann: We do have a bandcamp where you can hear our stuff. We have two singles up on there. We might upload others. Who knows.

Julian: Shyann wanted to keep us as low-key as possible. We mostly just focus on playing shows instead of mostly putting our music out there. I find it annoying when bands over promote. I see it all the time, bands trying to force you to like their Facebook page or wear their own shirts live or even remind you they have merch between every song they play.  I’m just like, “Dude, let them find out.”

Shyann: It just pisses me off whenever a friend of mine has a band and their stuff is just all over the place. It’s not just 3 or 5 friends, it’s many assholes online who just spam everywhere. “Like Us on Facebook. Check Out our bandcamp. Look, we’re in this video. Look at our Instagram.” It’s over saturation and just way too much promoting. With Munchausen we just set just set out to make music for fun and don’t care about being huge or forcing our band down peoples throat on stuff like Twitter. I think Twitter is the dumbest shit in the world.

I noticed a song called “Comparing Turds” where you bash random bands in the lyrics. How did you come up with this song?

Shyann: I used to join all these metal groups about a year ago. I think I first saw it in this group called “Unpopular Metal Opinions.” Most of the time when someone compared two bands if someone thought both sucked they would comment “comparing turds” or some variation of it. The one who used it the most was this one girl who was an obvious black metal elitist. We became friends since we both like raw black metal and hate everything. She’s very weird. Whenever we chat she always randomly says that a random band sucks. I eventually got banned from those groups and me and her made our own metal opinions group together. I randomly searched the chat and typed in the word sucks and I got many results such as “Mastodon sucks,” “King Parrot sucks” and “Aeon sucks.” I agree with these bands being bad and we decided to write this song as a tribute to her.

Julian: We aren’t bashing her in any way. We love her. It’s a tribute.

Okay, time for the last question. If you were trapped on a desert an could only bring one album which would it be and why?

Julian: Damn that’s hard. I’d have to go with Blut Aus Nord’s “777-Sect(s).” Some of the nastiest, most experimental black metal out there. I love that band. Very varied and dark. The art is amazing too.

Shyann: For me it would be Alice in Chains self titled album. Alice in Chains is my favorite band of all time. People find it weird when I say that because I’m known for listening to all this ambient black metal. They’re pretty much what got me into I guess you could say heavy music. That album in particular has gotten me through hard times. So if I was trapped on a desert island and somehow had a CD player, that would be the album I’d hope would somehow be there.

 

 

 

 

 

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