Punk Guitarist Diego Sanchez

Diego Playing the Electric Guitar (photograph by Natalie Morales)

By Natalie Morales, Writer

     Miami High sophomore Diego Sanchez is a musician with a vast taste and love for music. So much so, that most of his life is occupied by related things like listening to music seemingly always, playing instruments everyday, and being part of a band.  

 

Their Personal Life 

   Diego Sanchez and his family come from Guatemala and Dominican Republic. He’s also moved around a lot, living in Guatemala, Dominican Republic, and in California before settling down in Miami.    

   Some of his hobbies include playing instruments, biking, and hanging out with his friends.  

  He says growing up was fun. He loves all the places he’s lived and enjoyed making friends growing up. One difficulty in his life was elementary school, where he was not doing well in his classes, but still managed to overcome that obstacle.  

Their Love for Music  

   Though Diego has listened to music all his life, his love and development of his personal music taste didn’t start till early 2019, when his friends suggested he listen to certain artists like JPEG MAFIA, Tyler the Creator, MFDOOM, and Frank Ocean, which influenced what was to become his current music taste. 

   In 2020, he obtained his first electric guitar, something that would motivate him to listen to metal, a genre that consists of distorted guitar riffs and chords, and a genre he would grow fond of. He credits his inspiration to become better at guitar and continue exploring metal to a song by Pantera.

Album covers of band’s and artists Diego enjoys.

   “As I was exploring the genre, I started researching the start of metal and found many sub genres; one by one I started listening to the ones that were really interesting to me and I came to love the metal scene of the 80s to early 2000s,” said Diego. 

   However many subgenres he explored, only so many were able to earn his love. Punk, dungeon synth, rap, alternative rock, surf punk, and especially death metal and grindcore filled his life. 

   A variety of genres composes his musical palette. “I really love the heavy, gut-punching riffs of the distorted guitars and the fast, technical drumming of death metal,” he said. “But I also really love the depressing slow, low tuned guitars and doomy feeling of doom metal.” 

   Some of his favorite artists and bands include Death, Ween, Sleep, and Electric Wizard. His all-time favorite band however is Death. The lead singer and guitarists are cool, and play guitar really well he says and looks up to them for that reason. 

   As well as playing the guitar, he picked up the bass and also plays the tuba and sousaphone for the Miami High marching band and band class. He says he loves blasting the tuba and sousaphone and “destroying his chops.” 

   His love for music inspired a desire to create so he formed the hardcore punk band Fever along with his bandmate Erick.  

 

The Fever Band 

   Fever originally was named Bloodstains, but after some changes, they settled on Fever as the name for the band.  

   Diego is the lead guitarist, and Erick is the bass and vocals of the band. Fever play genres like horror punk and

Fever band Diego and Erick (photograph provided by Fever)

hardcore punk, and have a setlist of songs they cover which include Bloodstains by Agent Orange, Seek & Destroy by Metallica, and Degenerated by Reagan Youth. 

 

   The band plans to publicly perform once they release an EP, which they plan to publish on sites like Youtube, Soundcloud, and possibly Spotify. The band hopes to release an album by the end of 2023. The band’s current Instagram is @fever_band_ 

 

 

 

Their Life Goals/ Future 

   After high school, Diego plans to go to college and earn a degree in music theory, as he’s considering a career in the music field. Some careers he’s considering are being a sound engineer or a music teacher.  

   He also plans to keep his love of music alive by continuing to play the instruments he currently plays, as well as picking up new instruments like the sitar.  

   One of his life goals would be to have a self-written song made popular. 

 

Diego’s Top 5 Favorite Song

Goin’ Blind- Melvins 

Flesh into gear- CKY

Forever my queen- Pentagram

Bloodfeast- Misfits

Finger painting of the insane- Acid Bath