The remarkable story of Sweet Lizzy Project’s debut, Technicolor, is unlike almost any other. Building a strong following in their native Havana, the Cubans did so with scant resources and limits on their freedom. The filming of Havana Time Machine that ran as a PBS special featuring them, traditional Cuban artists, and The Mavericks, led by Cuban-American Raul Malo, changed their destiny. Malo was duly impressed, eventually sponsoring the band for U.S. visas and signing them to his band’s record label, Mono Mundo, starting the process in late 2017, slyly saying, “I know Mavericks when I see them.”
Now that the band has relocated to Nashville, they are essentially starting from scratch. They have the resources and many inspirations to draw on in Music City, but their first mission is spread awareness of their infectious rock and pop which draws on several eras while underpinned subtly with Latin tinges. Right away what emerges is the expressive, controlled vocals of lead singer LIsset Diaz, likened by some to Kate Bush, Natalie Merchant, or Paramore’s Hayley Williams. Co-conspirator, co-writer and bandleader Miguel Comas is (was) Cuba’s most respected record producer and rock guitarist. Wilfredo Gatell plays keys with rhythm mates bassist Alejandro Gonzalez and drummer Angel Luis Millet to round out the quintet.
Lisset and Comas overcame many obstacles in forming the band. She graduated from the University of Havana at the top of her class as a biochemistry major while creating music on the side. In 2012 she met Comas, who was a fledging producer building a career in a city with few resources. He built a working recording studio in an apartment bedroom, with computers and audio gear that had to be purchased in the gray market or traded among friends. He absorbed new influences and obtained new music not through the highly restricted Internet, but via an underground network called El Paquete, in which delivery messengers circulate USB thumb drives hand-to-hand with the latest Western albums, music videos and TV shows. Despite these challenges, Miguel’s bands were performing around Cuba and touring overseas, from South America to Japan.
Lisset stood out as a special talent for wanting to write and perform original rock ’n’ roll in English, and Miguel saw potential. When their first duo recordings earned attention in Cuba, she left her science track and the two added musicians to form a band and bring the material to its full rocking realization. Sweet Lizzy Project — a riff on Lisset’s name and on the neighborhood where they did most of their rehearsing — took to the clubs and nightspots of Havana City. Their most frequent shows were at the famous Yellow Submarine, referencing an iconic group that had been banned in Cuba in the ’60s and ’70s.
When Raul Malo met the band, they were already regulars on state television and a mature touring operation with staging, techs and roadies. They’d released a debut album called Heaven and a hit English language rearrangement of the Enrique Iglesias smash “Subeme La Radio.” Malo saw potential but he knew he had to act quickly since the Trump administration was restricting immigration generally. Sweet Lizzy Project got out of the country and made a new start in Nashville in late 2017.
Production began with tracks recorded in Miguel’s Havana bedroom studio. Malo’s longtime recording engineer, the award-winning Niko Bolas (Neil Young, Melissa Etheridge), was impressed with those sounds, thereby keeping many of them in the mix. The band also enjoyed the thrill of playing together in a studio for the very first time. With time on their hands to rehearse, write and create, a somewhat new vision for the album took shape, one that defies expectations of what a Cuban band would/should sound like.
The album opens framing Lisset’s voice beautifully before swelling into a rich chorale of voices and strings and then a psychedelic excursion fueled by Comas’ guitar leads. Moving forward, we find “These Words,” a song about striving to be understood, which opens like a ballad but blossoms into a throbbing guitar jam. “This album is about telling our story, about changes in our personal and professional lives,” Lisset says about including the track “Turn Up the Radio.” “It’s great to have a song that was part of our creative process back home in this body of work. All these songs started in Cuba. They should stay together.” Two Spanish language songs are featured (“Tu Libertad” and “Vuelta Atras”) as well as a duet with the Mavericks, “The Flower’s in the Seed.”
The band is already establishing a foothold. They played the grand opening of the new Bluegrass Underground venue Near Nashville, a rousing set literally in a cave that was broadcast on PBS. Other media followed, including a profile on NPR’s Weekend Edition and a cover story in the Miami Herald. Comas says that even though Sweet Lizzy Project enjoyed star status in Havana, the United States is where he and his co-creators need to be, even with its setbacks and sacrifices. “We can overcome the impression that Cuban music is only rumba and son,” he says. “Having the chance to play for American audiences, that is a win for us already. We’ve had everything against us, but we are here.” Lisset adds, “In Cuba, we were swimming against the tide by singing rock ’n’ roll in English. It took us time to gain respect by the institutions that would let us play our music. And then we had a chance to come here, and we’re outsiders again. But that’s okay. We just want to play.” And, do they ever play! This is rousing, blood stirring music.
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