By James Wright

With a ton of bands following the ever-popular trend of combining metal and rap in hard rock it comes as a breath of fresh air when someone does something original. Enter MCA recording artists Puya. Taking the best salsa and rumba beats from their homeland of Puerto Rico and adding it to their Misfits, Metallica and Sepultura records allowed them to create Puya; an amazing blend of hard edge metal and Latin music which can't be imitated. Since releasing their debut album "Fundamental" the band has toured nonstop with the likes of System of A Down, Incubus, Fear Factory and as a part of the 1999 Ozzfest.

Preparing the release of their sophomore record entitled "Union" Puya are once again ready to resume the spotlight. Calling from his new home base of LA, Ramon Ortiz fills all the Shoutweb kids in on what makes their new record, "Union", one of the smartest purchases of 2001.

Shoutweb: Flipping through your bio you see all these names used to describe you guys like Salsa-core. Does that bother you?

Ramon: A little bit because the whole idea of labeling music is weird to me. Seems like the industry nowadays is just obsessed with that and to me it's just music you know? We're definitely a rock band with Latin influences and when I say rock I mean metal, not like alternative or anything.

Shoutweb: When growing up there were bands like Sepultura which were an influence because they seem to have been the first band to step forth and combine things like metal and tribal beats.

Ramon: Definitely. Sepultura influenced us back in the day when they were playing Death Metal on "Beneath the Remains" or "Arise". The tribal thing came later in their career with "Chaos A.D." a little bit and then full-on with "Roots". Before they were doing the tribal thing they were playing straight up Speed/Death metal. I listened to that when I was growing up in Puerto Rico. When Puya started in the early 90's it was more aggressive and experimental with a little bit of punk. We always just had the concept of combining Latin rhythms with rock music in our minds even before "Roots" came out. It took quite a while to develop it, but sometimes that's the way things go in order for things to turn out the way you want it to.

Shoutweb: After two years on the road to support "Fundamental" what was the hardest part of trying to make Puya a household name?

Ramon: The hardest part is just extensive touring. When the first record came out we hit the road and we actually didn't stop for 2 years. It can get exhausting at times and you just have to try and keep focused, healthy and strong.

Shoutweb: A few of the guys in the band have families now right?

Ramon: I have a baby now here in L.A. and I'm married and Sergio has a wife in Miami with two kids. The other guys live in Puerto Rico and one of them is married, the other is not.

Shoutweb: Does having a family to care for come into play when going onto the road for so long?

Ramon: That just makes it even harder because kids need to spend time with their parents and when you're on the road you can't spend any time with them. That's just part of this business you know?

Shoutweb: Where does the title of the record and song "Union" come from?

Ramon: "Union" is the oldest song on the record because we recorded it and put it out on an EP, we released it in 1997 and that track was always special to us because of the message of unity. It's a really heavy song and it just never got old with us playing it and we thought it would be nice to record it again because we are a much tighter band now than when we originally recorded it. We thought we could make it sound better this time around.

Shoutweb: Is there a definite message your trying to get across throughout "Union"?

Ramon: Well I think there are different songs with different messages but there are a lot of social issues. There is this small island off the coast of Puerto Rico with like a small population over a couple thousand of people and the problem is that the US Navy has been practicing bombing exercises on the island with real bombs! There are a lot of people that depend on fishing for a living and the bombs have killed a lot of the fish there that makes it hard to earn a living. It's been going on for years with people protesting, but now they made a mistake and killed someone with one of the bombs and from that point people said "You have to get out of here!" and the government said the bombings would stop but with Bush in office he said old deals don't matter and the bombing exercises will continue as normal. Things aren't looking good down there and there is a lot of conflict with the people that live there. On the record there is a song called "Pati Pami" which deals with that and it hopefully raises consciousness about the area and informs the people of what's going on.

Shoutweb: Is it a goal of yours to raise people's awareness of things that happen like this around the world?

Ramon: Definitely. There are people living there and it's a beautiful place so to destroy it for the sake of warfare is kind of crazy. I see it in the news but a lot of people still don't know about it, but ten years ago nobody knew about it!

Shoutweb: Was there any pressure when writing this record to make it more accessible than the debut? There was rumors about that you were going to change your vocals and sing in English a lot more.

Ramon: Not really, we just tried to do what we do and make sure the songs are good. This time around we tried to experiment more with percussion and we invited a few Rumba players from Puerto Rico to play on the record. We wanted to explore that element and bring that into what we do. We're really happy with the record because we wanted to make it heavier this time than "Fundamental". I think this record is pretty much the same thing we've always been doing with the singing and it's 50-50 with the lyrics being in English and Spanish. We did it naturally and we just did it song-by-song with what language would flow better with each riff we were working on at the time. If English flows betters with the song then we do it in English, and if Spanish works better then we do the song in Spanish.

Shoutweb: I really like "Socialize" on the record, as it's probably my favorite track. Either that or "No Interference".

Ramon: I'm glad you like "Socialize" because I really like that song and how it kicks into that slow heavy groove at the end of it. I'm really happy cause when I usually work with my music for a really long time I become jaded once it's done and I don't want to listen to it anymore, but with this record I can listen to it and I won't get tired of it.

Shoutweb: Do you guys see the American kids you're playing to, trying to sing along with the Spanish words a lot?

Ramon: When we play in the United States we get a bit of a different crowd and it's funny cause we'll get the Anglo kids trying to sing the Spanish words and they just try and imitate what they hear even though they don't know what the song is about.

Shoutweb: I guess that's not really any different then what happens in Europe when North American bands play there.

Ramon: When bands come to Latin America and people like them you will see kids doing the same thing. They try and imitate the sound of the vocals so they will be there trying to sing the lyrics even though it's in a different language.

Shoutweb: Music does transcend things like the language barrier.

Ramon: Music does transcend things like verbal language and it connects people with the sound of the group. They don't care, they just get into it.

Shoutweb: What was it like to record in Vancouver with GGGarth and Mudrock?

Ramon: We actually had a lot of fun and we recorded the first eight songs in Vancouver with GGGarth and the last eight songs on the record we recorded them in L.A. with Mudrock. With GGGarth we appreciated the fact that he is very strict with guitar and bass tones being played in tune because on this record we played very low and very straight so you need to make sure they're going to be perfect. He paid really close attention to that and we're thankful because we listen to the record and everything is kind of "on the money". After we recorded those songs we took a little bit of a break and then we had a few new songs so the label decided we should go in and record those as well. For those songs we stayed in L.A. and Mudrock came in to produce those songs. It was a good experience as well because he is a really knowledgeable guy and has a heavy as hell sound.

Shoutweb: What can someone out there picking up a Puya record expect?

Ramon: I think they can expect something really heavy but different at the same time. We don't sound like any band that's out there right now and that combination we do; there is nobody out there doing it now.

Shoutweb: Well that's all we have for today Ramon. I thank you for your time and wish you nothing but the best of luck

Ramon: Thank you James.