Sweet Lizzy Project Brings The Sounds Of Havana To Nashville
LAKSHMI SINGH, HOST:
The Trump administration's rollback of relations with Cuba has made cultural exchange more difficult, but one young band from the island called the Sweet Lizzy Project has made it to the United States. The young Cubans are getting help from Raul Malo, lead singer of the popular alt-country band The Mavericks. His parents fled Cuba after the revolution, and now he wants to build a bridge back. Craig Havighurst of Tennessee member station WMOT has more about the band's journey.
CRAIG HAVIGHURST, BYLINE: The Sweet Lizzy Project writes most of its own material, but its biggest song so far in Cuba is an English-language cover of last year's Enrique Iglesias hit "Subeme La Radio."
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "TURN UP THE RADIO")
SWEET LIZZY PROJECT: (Singing) Turn up the radio. Listen to my song. Feel the beats coming on strong. Losing control, trouble's all gone. Let's bring together the moon and the sun. Turn up the radio. Listen to my song.
HAVIGHURST: In the music video, the band plays live, not lip synced, next to an empty rust-stained swimming pool in the courtyard of an abandoned oceanfront apartment tower in Havana.
LISSET DIAZ: That amazing building, and it's just falling in pieces.
HAVIGHURST: Lead singer Lisset Diaz says the shoot was even a bit dangerous with chunks of concrete falling from stories above.
DIAZ: It's part of the Cuban reality. It's part of its beauty, but it's kind of sad too.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "TURN UP THE RADIO")
SWEET LIZZY PROJECT: (Singing) I don't give a damn. I don't want to cry. With nothing left to lose, no reason to try.
HAVIGHURST: The crew was all volunteer, all friends. They planned the video meticulously in one unbroken shot to avoid editing costs.
DIAZ: We were poor. We didn't have the money. And that's also there in the video, so I love that video.
HAVIGHURST: It was a hit. Bandmate Miguel Comas says it won Cuba's equivalent of an MTV Award after they had left the island.
MIGUEL COMAS: We were here already, and we got an award in Cuba. We couldn't even be there to receive it.
HAVIGHURST: Not that they're complaining. The band's dream was to come to the U.S., but they almost didn't make it after the Trump administration rolled back President Obama's opening of relations with Cuba. But the Sweet Lizzy Project had played for the embassy staff at a Fourth of July picnic, and that goodwill helped get the young musicians to Nashville.
DIAZ: (Speaking Spanish).
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: (Speaking Spanish).
HAVIGHURST: Also critical was sponsorship and support from Raul Malo and The Mavericks, including rehearsal space and a place to stay.
RAUL MALO: We've kind of had to bankroll their living, and that's all right. We have room in our house now because two of my kids have left. And so, you know, you lose two kids and you get a bunch more.
HAVIGHURST: Malo says Sweet Lizzy Project has the work ethic required to dive into the crowded American market. At the same time, he's tempering expectations.
COMAS: As much as they achieved in Cuba on a local regional level, here, you're starting all over again and you're at the bottom rung of the ladder.
HAVIGHURST: Two steps up that ladder are in the works. Sweet Lizzy will open dates for The Mavericks this year and next. And The Mavericks' label will release a full album this fall using tracks recorded in a converted bedroom studio in Havana.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
SWEET LIZZY PROJECT: (Singing) Turning on the TV show. There's some news about the globe. We used to travel to the moon, then the rockets hit the wall.
HAVIGHURST: Miguel Comas began producing demos for Lisset Diaz's English-language songs about five years ago. The band grew from there to a seven-piece, including cellist Yanet Moreira.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
HAVIGHURST: She trained classically in Cuba's acclaimed secondary school music program, but she was drawn to the pop and rock sounds being made by her friends.
YANET MOREIRA: (Through interpreter) So I would go to the concerts, and I loved the shows. And then we just stumbled one day on maybe letting me play cello with the band. And for the first time, I felt liberated finally to play the cello to my artistic idea.
HAVIGHURST: Liberation is a motif in the Sweet Lizzy story. Raul Malo says the band's enthusiasm and personal histories have even inspired his ex-pat mother who's long said she would never visit Cuba again.
MALO: She goes, I think I'm ready to go back. And it's a side effect of all this that we're doing. If we could do that to one old lady here in Nashville, if we do that a thousand times and make people want to go back and soften that divide, maybe, just maybe there's a chance then, you know.
HAVIGHURST: Malo's commitment to that goal still amazes Lisset Diaz.
DIAZ: The fact that he took us out of Cuba and we are living now in his house because we didn't have another choice, it says a lot about how nice he is and how much compromise he feels with music and with the whole Cuban thing because of his roots. He really believes in building bridges and not walls.
HAVIGHURST: The band has grown restive since arriving in December. They've been rehearsing, making videos and waiting for their window of opportunity to fully open. Their work visas came through a couple of weeks ago. For NPR News, I'm Craig Havighurst in Nashville.
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