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Sweet Lizzy Project - What A Band! |
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Imagine living in a country where you become a microbiologist and when
you graduated you were at the top of the class and began a career as a
university professor and you performed music on the side, as a hobby.
You were probably thinking at the time even though you enjoyed being a
singer what was the point, considering a broken guitar string was a
tragedy, as there were not any places to buy more guitar strings and if
a piece of your equipment failed well good luck on replacing that.
Combine that with the challenges you faced with forging a music career
in Cuba and no it made much more sense to keep teaching at the
University of Havana and one certainly would never have imagined then
moving to the United States to pursue a music career. It sounds like
quite the adventure or someone has an active imagination, except these
are the real life adventures of Sweet Lizzy Project.
Lisset Díaz is the lead singer for the Cuban band Sweet Lizzy Project a
group that plays a mixture of Rock, Pop and Americana music and they do
all of it well. The electric guitar work by Miguel Comas is stunning and
echoes Eric Clapton in the days of Cream (with Jack Bruce and Ginger
Baker) and as another musician suggested to us there are also shades of
David Gilmour (Pink Floyd) in his playing. The rest of the musicians
Angel Luis Millet (drums and percussion), bass player Alejandro
González, Wilfred Gatell on synthesizer, Lenard Delgado the other
electric guitarist (as well as acoustic and backing vocals) and cellist
Yanet Moreira are all fabulous. Comas, also provides background vocals.
Although, the music is considerably different, Sweet Lizzy Project may
be the best band to emerge with Cuban roots since Gloria Estefan and the
Miami Sound Machine.
Lisset Díaz joined Riveting Riffs Magazine recently to talk about the
new album, “The song “The Flower’s In the Seed,” was written by John
Goodwin and Kostas Lazaride and they are amazing songwriters. Raul
(Malo) had this song on his computer for years and no one ever played it
or recorded it. One night he called me in and said hey you guys should
give a listen and see if you want to play this song. He didn’t think
that we would like it, because it was different from the music that we
were doing. From the moment that I listened to the song I loved it. It
was perfect, because it was a message.
The song is about love and bridges and there is such a positive energy
to it. We created our own version of the song and then when Raul
listened to it again he said we need to do this song together with The
Mavericks. He said we need to have this song on the record
Technicolor. We went to
BlackBird Studios and we recorded this song with The Mavericks and Sweet
Lizzy (Project).
That was the first time that we recorded in a real studio. It was not
just any studio, but BlackBird Studio, which is one of the best studios
in the world. We couldn’t believe it and we were all so excited and
happy. It was literally a dream come true. It was also the first time
that all of us played together for a recording session. We never could
do that in Cuba, because the place that we had for recording was a
little apartment, so it was impossible for all of us to be in the same
room and recording at the same time. We had cameras all over the place
and when I saw the footage from the video on that day it was incredible.
You could tell how happy
everyone was from the videos, so we decided to use that footage for this
song (click
here to watch the video). I don’t think we could come up
with a better idea for something that would show what happened here and
what the song was about. We were two bands from different countries with
different backgrounds, with totally different histories and we are here
playing together. This means a lot and our faces say so. We should use
this and that is how the video was created by Wilfredo Gatell our
keyboard player and Miguel Comas our guitarist. They did such an amazing
job and I really like the video. The reason I like it is every time that
I see it I remember what happened. I remember the way that I felt and it
feels so good. That’s the story of “The Flower’s In the Seed.”
Lisset Díaz talks a little bit more about recording in BlackBird
Studios, “It was so easy. We are not used to things being easy. In Cuba
everything was hard for us, so when we got to BlackBird it was like
paradise. You don’t have to worry about anything, because you have a
team working for you and with you. Whatever you need they are going to
be there to help you. It was perfect. In my case it was totally easy,
because I just have to sing. I don’t have to worry about the gear or if
this guitar is better than that one. For me it is my voice.”
Growing up in Cuba, Lisset Díaz describes herself as being “a very happy
kid,” who loved science, math and physics. She wanted to be a scientist.
“That is why I went to school to study biochemistry at the University of
Havana. I graduated and then I taught at the university for three years.
In the middle of that at some point I decided to start writing my own
songs. They were for me and nobody was going to hear them, because I
didn’t want them to hear them. I didn’t want to be an artist or a
singer. I like art in general. I like drawing, I love singing, I love
dancing, but it was kind of like a hobby. I thought I can do this for
fun and then I can do a real job, which was being a scientist. That's my
thing. Don’t forget that! Then I started writing my songs and I met
Miguel and when he listened to the songs he said we need to record these
and we need to make an album out of these and I said no! We are not
doing that, because what’s the point?
Finally we did it and he had some songs as well. We put an album
together and once I tasted the process of making music I couldn’t stop.
It got more and more real and people started offering us jobs, like
gigs. They asked if we could play here and here and we didn’t even have
a band. We put a band together and that is how Sweet Lizzy Project was
created.
In Cuba it is not like here, if you are going to start a band you need
to be approved by the music institutions in Cuba. Sometimes if you don’t
come from music school or you don’t play traditional Cuban music and in
Spanish it can be hard. It was hard for me at first to be able to start
performing regularly with a band, because we decided we wanted to play
Rock and Roll in English.
Eventually we made it and we have a huge following in Cuba. We have a
lot of fans and friends. It was hard at first, but then it all worked
out.
I couldn’t keep up with both jobs. I was making music at night and
playing all over the place, in clubs, bars and theaters and then in the
mornings I had to wake up super early to go to the university.
Eventually I had to choose and music won,” she says.
The song “Technicolor,” was written at a time when Sweet Lizzy Project
was not allowed to perform in Cuba and it is one of the best Rock songs
you will hear this year.
She says, “We were not allowed to play in Cuba, because of some stupid
paperwork. We were stuck, so we decided to enclose ourselves in this
very little, very tiny apartment and we wrote and recorded our songs.
“Technicolor” was one of the songs.
Let me remind you that in Cuba you don’t have music stores. If you want
to buy simple things like a guitar string or drumsticks you can’t. There
aren’t any Guitar Centers or any other music store, so it is really
hard. (To get these things) you have to have friends and you have to
have contacts, like oh I know this lady. I remember there was a lady and
she has guitar strings. How does she get them? I don’t know. Maybe she
has a son or a daughter or another family member who can travel and then
supply her with guitar strings. I don’t know. It is basically the same
thing with everything. That is how it works.
I remember we used to play at this really nice hotel every night. One
night there was a group of Canadians there and they had so much fun and
we became friends that night. We kept in touch and we are still in
touch. One of the guys was so impressed with the drums that we had back
then, because literally it was a piece of #$@. It was the ugliest thing
you have ever seen in your life. It was different parts of different
drum sets. It was different colors and it was terrible. It didn’t sound
so good either even though my drummer is really good. It was not his
fault, it was just the instrument was really bad. The (Canadian friend)
said I am going to give you guys a drum set. I am going to buy it for
you in Canada and I am going to bring it to you. We thought ya’ sure. A
month later he was back in Cuba with a drum set. That is how incredible
Canadians are. We love you guys. You are so nice and so generous.”
We get back to talking about the song
“Technicolor,” and she says, “Yanet Moreira played
the cello for this album. Some of the songs have cello. She came to the
band later on, because for the songs that we were playing back then we
thought it would be cool to have a cello player and she was great for
the job.
I am very lucky, because Miguel Comas is one of the best guitar players
in the world (she enthuses). I really think that (she laughs lightly).
It is not just the technique, but he puts a lot of his soul (into it)
when he plays and it helps that he wrote this song with me. He knows
what we were trying to say and he came up with this (guitar) solo that
was just perfect. It really takes a part of me every time that I listen
to it. Miguel is a huge fan of Clapton and Hendrix,” says Lisset Díaz.
Lisset Díaz gives us a peek into her own musical influences and those of
her bandmates, “I love all kinds of music and it is not like oh this is
not Rock and Roll or this is not Pop, so I am not going to do this. That
is not the way that we think. I didn’t come from a family of musicians,
so it is not like I had a lot of musical influences when I was growing
up. Also, my family was very, very poor, so there wasn’t a lot of music
around. I remember having an old Shakira cassette or something and that
was it. I think it was her album
Pies Descalzos (Shakira’s third album) and I really loved it. It
really inspired me and that is how I started singing. When I realized
that I could sing I really liked it.
I have also always felt empowered by female singers like Celine Dion and
I got to see her live at the Bridgestone Arena and it was amazing. It
was the first time, so it was very special. I love
Heart and last year it was a
great experience for me and the Sweet Lizzy Project when we got to open
two of their shows. It was part of the
Love Alive Tour. I never
thought I would meet them, talk to them and to see them perform live.
The truth is even though I write most of the songs, we make music
together and Miguel writes as well. He is the producer and the guitar
player and he has his own influences. The same happens with the keyboard
player or the drummer. We all have our own influences. When we are
making music we all put our own souls into it. That is why one song can
be more like this and another one may be more like that. I love that we
are all different and it is cool and I love that the result is such a
variety of songs. They are all different.
It is also what I like about
Technicolor (the album). We have a first album that is called
Heaven and it was more
personal. It was more like my album. When I listen to (the new album) I
don’t get bored. I can
listen to it over and over again, because each song is different and
each song reminds me of a different moment of our lives. It has been a
long journey from Cuba to Nashville. We have been working on this album
for maybe three years. There is a lot of history there. That is
something that I would like people to know and to appreciate. It’s not
just the music, but the history behind it and the history behind it is
really the story of our lives. It was one of the toughest periods of our
lives when we came to the United States.”
Another one of the songs that appears on the album Technicolor and that
was recorded in Havana, Cuba is the English cover of the Enrique
Iglesias song “Súbeme La Radio,” or in English “Turn Up the Radio.” The
song however, as we alluded earlier is a lot different than the
original.
“There is a super funny story about “Turn Up the Radio.” Descemer Bueno
(one of the writers of the song) is Cuban. He is our friend and he saw
us play live once. He said hey guys would you like to do an English
version of the song “Súbeme La Radio.” We said sure, but in my head I
thought he was going to use whatever English version we came up with to
record the song with another famous artist. I didn’t think he was going
to make us play the song.
Descemer Bueno is such a talented songwriter and he has been around
forever. His work is huge and the fact that he was talking to us and
asking us to do this was huge for us. When we sent the song back to him
in English he was very happy about it. He told us we needed to make a
video for the song, because if you do it I am going to post it on my
social media and you will get a lot of followers. I said wait a minute I
am not singing this song. This is not my song. It was definitely a huge
opportunity. “Súbeme La Radio” was super popular and it was getting a
lot of attention. It was a great opportunity for us even though it was
not our song. We made a lot of changes, because we wanted to make it our
own.
He said you need to give me a video for this. Imagine that! We didn’t
have a penny to make a video. This was on a Tuesday and we had to have
the video by Sunday. We gathered a team. We need to do this, because we
didn’t want to let these people down or to disappoint Descemer. We need
to deliver the video, but again we didn’t have any money. We looked for the cheapest place we could find. The place where we filmed the video used to be an amazing building for super wealthy people, before the revolution. Now it is almost completely destroyed. There are three families that still live there, but I think it is dangerous. It was dangerous for us to film there. It was so dirty and so crappy we thought this is perfect. It is going to look exotic (she giggles). If felt like we were looking for this on purpose.
The other thing was we didn’t have any money to make this look pretty or
cool or expensive, so (we thought) let’s get creative. Let’s add
something extra to it, for example we did just one shot from the
beginning to the end. That was hard, because we had to rehearse it and
we had to do it over and over again. We had to wait for the perfect time
of the day when the sun was in the perfect spot and the light was great.
There were several details we had to take care of. The sound on the
video was recorded there. This was not a studio version played on top of
the video. Everything that you see and hear happened there. I think that
was very cool, because it was not only a video, but it was a live
session. It was hard too, because it was super, super hot and the
computer was shutting down every five minutes. We had to be quick. It
turned out great. By the end of the day when I saw the footage I thought
oh my god this is perfect. This is the perfect video for this song.
We posted it on Wednesday of the next week after some editing and it was
huge. We had a thousand views every day. That was big for us. Our
YouTube channel was not that big and we didn’t have a lot of
subscribers, (but then) the numbers went up super-fast,” she says.
What was the impact on the career of Lisset Díaz and Sweet Lizzy
Project? It was huge in Cuba.
“There were a lot of people who definitely did not know about the band
before and after that video came out the radio was playing “Turn Up the
Radio,” every day on all of the stations. It was on every channel on TV.
We became famous all over the country thanks to that song,” says Lisset
Díaz.
So Lisset what were you thinking?
“(She laughs as she says) okay we just need to wait for the next song
that Descemer and Enrique Iglesias write and then we will do an English
version. That’s perfect. I don’t have to do anything (more laughter),”
she says.
Once they got to Nashville (we will get to that, be patient), Sweet
Lizzy Project revisited with sound engineer Niko Bolas some of the
previously recorded songs.
“When we first showed Niko the music he was talking with Miguel about
the technical aspects of the music (and how it was originally recorded).
He was so impressed and he wanted to know how he knew how to use those
things. If you didn’t have this how did you do that? He said we need to
release this album the way it is right now. It is impressive and he
thought the sound was very special. He respected the sound a lot and it
meant the world to me.
We decided we wanted to change a few things. For example “The Flower’s
in the Seed,” was not on the original album that we recorded in Cuba.
There were some other tracks that we decided to include on the record
later on.
On the fourth of July in 2018 Blackbird Studio was so cheap, because
nobody was going to record there (on that day). We thought okay we are
going in there and we are going to record as much as possible. It was
like a toy store for kids. We didn’t record the whole album, but we were
able to record once again some of the stuff that we didn’t think was
perfect. Something I love about this album is it has the old sound from
our little studio in Havana, but it also has the polished and amazing
sound of BlackBird Studios. That is so awesome,” she says.
We know you have been wondering all of this time what the connection is
between Raul Malo and The Mavericks and Sweet Lizzy Project and how they
ended up in America, so this is how it all went down.
“Two and one-half years ago PBS went to Cuba, because they wanted to
film a special documentary called the
Havana Time Machine. It was
about the Cuban music scene, different artists and we were part of it.
The Mavericks and Raul Malo were the hosts of the show. That is how we
met. The first time we met we took him to the little apartment where we
recorded. He freaked out. He said you record here? He was so sweet. He
was so impressed, because we were doing so much with so little. He
listened to the music and he loved it. Right away we felt that
connection and he was so nice. He is part Cuban. Both of his parents are
Cuban, so we also felt that connection, because of his roots.
He was starting a record label MonoMundo Recordings and he thought it
would be great to sign a Cuban band. He said I will call you in a few
weeks and we will set this up. It is all going to work out. Then he left
the apartment and we thought we aren’t going to see this dude again. It
is not going to happen. We always think that, because there are a lot of
people in the music industry that make promises and they are empty
promises. We have always been focused on working hard. If something good
happens or someone wants to help great, but we are not waiting for
anybody or anything to happen. We are going to just do it ourselves and
do it the best that we can. We thought we weren’t going to see this dude
again, because it is a huge band and it would take a lot of money and
time to bring us to the States and make it work. He made it work. A
month later he was calling and he sent several emails. He was touring
and he was very busy. He said you guys should come over and see the
place where we live. That was the first trip to the States for Miguel
and me. We came here to make sure this guy was not a psychopath or
something and that he was for real. That was the first time here in
Nashville and we met all of the family. We met Niko Bolas. We went to
BlackBird to see the place and it was amazing. We came back to Cuba with
the idea of bringing the band back to the (United) States altogether.
That was the plan. We had our appointments to get our visas at the
American embassy and two days before our interviews the embassy was
closed by Trump’s administration, so we just thought we have to stop and
this is not going to happen. They said we can’t receive you guys right
now. Nobody really knew what was going to happen. What am I supposed to
do now? Do I have to leave the country? It was like the end of our
dream. I thought this is it. It was going to be really hard to go back
to reality. Even though we were doing great in Cuba and especially after
“Turn Up the Radio,” that did not compare to the huge opportunity of
being able to come to Nashville and to record a new album in Nashville.
That was unbelievable.
(Eventually) our cases were reviewed and we got our visas to come (to
the United States). That is how we made it, but it was literally a last
minute thing. It was one of the most stressful situations I have had,”
she says.
Our conversation drifts back to the album once again and this time we
talk about the song “Tu Libertad.”
“Tu
Libertad,” literally means “Your Freedom” in
English. When you (listen) to the song it is very relaxing and it has a
Brazilian sound. We really like the song and we can hardly wait to start
performing it live,” explains Lisset Díaz.
She talks about the last two years in America, “We have been to nineteen
different states already, which is a lot. A lot of Americans haven’t
been to nineteen states. I think it is so cool, because this country is
so big and every state is like its own country and it has its own
special things. I really enjoy that.
We were here and making videos and working on the album, but we were not
playing that much and we needed to play. We bought this old minivan,
thank god. I hope it lasts a little bit longer. We went on the road
everywhere. Wherever I could find a gig we would go there. Before we had
a booking agent it was me all of the time writing emails to all of the
venues in the state. I would do something like search music venues in
Georgia. I had a list and I would send emails to all of them. If out of
two hundred venues, two of them replied we could go and play there and
that was perfect. That is what I did and that is what we did. That is
how we started. Then we got a (booking agent) and we kept working and we
went everywhere. Our agent is getting our schedule ready for this year
right after our album release. It is looking great so far and I can’t
wait to be back on the road. This last three months has been kind of
tough, because we had to prepare all of the videos for
Technicolor (the album).
Those videos took a lot of time. We are ready to hit the road again and
get to know some new places.”
The story of Lisset Díaz and the other members of Sweet Lizzy Band is so
inspirational and we would be remiss if we did not also mention the help
that they received from Raul Malo, his wife and The Mavericks.
That being the case we asked
Lisset Diaz what she would say to other about pursuing their dreams and
this is what she told us.
“Giving up or quitting is not an option for me. This is what I love and
there are a lot of problems, trouble, obstacles and tough situations
that you just have to overcome, but at the end of the day it’s worth it.
It has been hard for us, because of the place that we came from. I see
it like a blessing and it really is for me. When I think every day of
where I come from, I appreciate every single day of the life I have
right now, all the plans that we have and all of the things that we have
done. I really appreciate it and I don’t take anything for granted. It
helps me to feel grateful, very thankful and very lucky.
My advice is don’t give up. Keep going and be passionate about something
and fight for it. Never forget the people who helped you to get to where
you are right now.” On October 16, 2020 Sweet Lizzy Project will be hosting a virtual concert from their official Facebook page for the release of their new single "Sticky Situations." You can read our review of the song here. You can follow Sweet Lizzy Project on their official Facebook page here. You can also visit the website for Sweet Lizzy Project where you can pre-order the new album Technicolor and order some pretty cool merchandise.
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