October 31, 2019

Meet Julian Guillen of Deviant Burial in Broward

Local Stories

Today we’d like to introduce you to Julian Guillen.

Julian, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
I’ve been playing music a majority of my life. I was a teenager and picked up an acoustic guitar and played a song he heard from television, and that’s where I officially started learning guitar I’d say. It’s just always been a passion of mine to pick up and instrument and learn some parts and make a song. I think it runs in my family since my grandfather was a piano player and taught me piano when I was about 10.

I finished my Bachelor’s in English while also playing gigs across the state and sometimes out of state and continued in music even there on after. I was like a sponge collecting anything in my path; I’ve just always been interested in learning more about anything relating to music. I later learned about recording, playing and setting up live shows by being in bands, by playing alongside some of my favorite bands, touring and doing live sound.

After college, I joined a number of different bands and still play to this day. I’ve toured a good amount of the United States. Can’t say I’ve been to all 50 states yet but I’m ambitious to play everywhere and to see everything this world has and I try to think music can take me there because so far it has. Not too long ago, I was able to perform in Thailand and Singapore. Right now, I’m in several groups writing several albums worth of music in pre-production simultaneously. When I’m not working on music, I work as a sales associate at a music store, which pretty much goes hand in hand with what I do outside of work. My passion at this point, however, is as much an occupationt as it is part of my identity. I take my craft rigorously and am usually never satisfied, but am always pushing for new heights in what I pursue in my own skill and knowledge in music.

We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
In general, music is a lot of grunt work. Working sound/performing and monitoring your own sound is not an easy task to do, and working with a bunch of heavy, sensitive equipment, carpentry, etc that you have to accomplish around the stage, or even when you have to sometimes create a stage yourself in a parking lot out of all places, leads to a lot of stress and duress not just on you but the acts performing who sometimes are counting on you to have it together. I’ve worked punk shows, venues and then I’ve worked festivals with big acts we all know and the amount of grunt work and time you have to sacrifice for this is grueling in itself. To be honest, a lot of the times I get sick of it or have a mental breakdown at some point, and the only thing that’s worse is when you don’t perform well. Then not only are you mad at yourself but everyone in that moment is also mad at you because they’re counting on you to have everything together and be 100%.

Still, you learn from your mistakes. I try and simply make notes and try and improve every time. “Make sure to bring 5 rolls of gaff tape, not just 3.” “Make sure to bring both speakon and quarter-inch, not just one.” “Don’t overpower everyone.” It’s a lot of little things that go a long way when you get on that stage, a lot of little things that could drastically change the entire aspect of the production. You have to take all these things into account and you have to be prepared every time for scenarios you know are likely. Sure enough there’s always some new problem we always run into sound or power or performance wise but we have to try and prepare and power through it when it does occur.

So, as you know, we’re impressed with Deviant Burial – tell our readers more, for example what you’re most proud of as a company and what sets you apart from others.
If it were to be called a business, then yes Deviant Burial would be the outfit of my business, haha!

As I mentioned earlier, I work in music retail and in all honesty I feel happy to be involved in the industry. It’s selling instruments but that also takes a lot to know about not just how a guitar or a bass or an amplifier is supposed to sound, but also about what character of person wants a specific item or for what purpose. Obviously, instruments vary from one to another and the person that carries and plays it also is important. You could say working in music also reminds me why I’m in music in the first place, we’re all passionate about something in this field.

But mainly what I do is make music, I play and record guitar and bass in a number of different bands and have toured and played around the United States and in some spots internationally. This would include Sapraemia, Bullethorn, Munchausen, Hellwitch, Absolver, Suamox and now, Deviant Burial. My main specialty with each of this bands has been working as a songwriter or performing, mostly with my guitar. It fills me with great pride to be able to learn all this music, to push my group’s talents into another advancement. Some of this music at first I thought I couldn’t play because the compositions were really complex. I can not only to play but to write on a level of discipline I only dreamed about is also really humbling to myself. I have a lot of goals in life and I feel that if there’s one thing I’m proud of, it’s that I’m making progress to get there.

So, what’s next? Any big plans?
Main thing I need to do is get PAID. I think the biggest problem is a lot of musicians don’t care about getting paid and don’t invent new ways of doing it with the use of the internet. You need to market yourself and make yourself accessible so that when you make music that actually does turn heads, that you are also a professional outfit to extend your art. My main focus right now with all my bands is to market themselves in new ways and using the internet to fuel that from which the audience can perceive. This is probably the biggest obstacle for all artistic outfits in this day and age, so I feel it’s also the most important. The only thing different I do now from what I did before is just focus more on my craft and practice new techniques more and more in my daily life. I’d say the rest will follow from there, or that’s what it seems like.

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