Guitar-slinging headbanger Shaynie Rhoads was raised on the music of her parents’ generation, from Metallica and Van Halen to Madonna and Wham. She grew up going to concerts, skateboarding and collecting comic books and trading cards. When she was sixteen, she wrote her first song about World of Warcraft.

“I was always a bit of a misfit, and not the cool kind,” she tells SD Voyager Magazine. “I was the girl that showed up to class in blue eyeshadow and faux fur platform boots. I drove a crusty old car and worked at Vons so that I could buy band shirts and concert tickets.”

After high school, Shaynie went to college to study the classical guitar, where she also learned how to sing and compose.  She attempted to keep up with trends by writing pop music, but eventually returned to her roots in rock ‘n’ roll. She calls her sound “pink metal.”

As a recording artist, Shaynie releases her music independently. She is the primary songwriter and frontman of Runesaber, a heavy metal band she founded in 2024.