Life & Work with Lisset Diaz

Today we’d like to introduce you to Lisset Diaz.

Hi Lisset, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself
My name is Lisset Diaz, I am 30 years old and I was born in La Habana, Cuba. I always loved science so I decided to study Biochemistry at the University of Havana. I graduated and taught Biochemistry for 3 years before I decided to drastically change my life. Even though I have always loved music and singing (like when I was a little girl somehow I discovered that I was able to sing and I used to sing every song I heard) I never really considered being a musician as a “real thing”. Nobody in my family was a musician. I cannot say, like other artists, that I grew up listening to music or surrounded by musical instruments, or “my mom used to sing for me all the time so she was a huge influence for me” (My mom is awesome but… she cannot sing).

There were more “important” things to do like learning all about science, or studying English and French. My point is that I have no idea where my voice comes from. Then when I was in high school my mom bought me my first acoustic guitar. I had a classmate who had one and I thought it was very cool. Then I always loved writing so I wrote a song, for no reason. It was not until my fourth year at the university when I decided that I wanted to record two of the songs I had. Just to have them, you know, for fun. Something I thought it would be cool to show to my grandchildren in the future. I met Miguel Comas, one of the biggest producers and guitar players in Cuba and he loved my songs. One thing led to another and we ended up writing and recording a full album that all of a sudden, was everywhere. Press, TV, music awards, everyone was talking about this controversial album because it was kind of like indie-pop (definitively NOT traditional Cuban music) and it was written in English. I had to put a band together because I was getting gig offers all over Havana and I didn’t have a band. That’s how my current band Sweet Lizzy Project was born.

Now, in Cuba, things are a lot different than here. You cannot just put a band together and go out and play. It’s not that simple. You have to go through auditions and get “approval” from the government institutions to be able to perform. For a Rock N Roll band that sings in English, this is extremely hard. The “Music industry” in Cuba prefers music styles that represent the “Cuban culture“. They wanted me to sing “Boleros” In Spanish, which I love but that was not what I wanted to do. It took me several battles to gain recognition and defend my music. In 2017, PBS wanted to film a documentary in Cuba called Havana Time Machine. Big names in the Cuban music scene were part of it and they included my band. The producers of the show were shocked that there was a band in Havana playing and recording original Rock N Roll songs in English on the Island of “El Son and la Rumba”. They even came to the tiny little apartment where we used to record our songs and couldn’t believe what we were doing with all this old/refurbished gear. We don’t have music stores in Cuba so it is very hard for a musician to buy a guitar or an amp, or even small things like guitar strings or drum sticks. I have ten million stories of how we had to do magic to be able to record and perform. Anyhow, during the filming of this PBS special, I met Raul Malo of The Mavericks. He was the host of the show and he loved our music.

He was also starting a record label called “MonoMundo Recordings” so he offered me a record deal to release the next album of the band in Nashville TN. That’s how I started thinking about coming to the US. It was the toughest decision I had to make in my life. I was at the top of my carrier in Cuba, my family and friends were there, and this could’ve cost me everything including my band. I was basically asking them to leave everything behind and relocate to a completely different place with a different language, different culture, different people that we barely knew, starting from cero in a city where every bartender you meet could be an amazing musician with an amazing band struggling to be heard. I put my fears aside and made my decision based on what I thought was an amazing opportunity and my band followed me. It took us quite some time to gather all the paperwork and figure out the best way to apply for visas to come to the US. That’s another painful step for Cubans. You cannot just take your passport and go to the airport. We need visas to go pretty much everywhere. We got our interview at the American Embassy in Havana and two days before our appointment, the Embassy was shot down by the Trump administration.

That seemed like the end of that journey that had not even started yet. Nobody knew what was happening or what the next steps were. And when we thought everything was lost, we got a call from the Embassy saying that they were gonna process our submission. That’s how we got our visas and came to Nashville in November 2017. And then the real challenge began. Once in Nashville, we started working on our album Technicolor that we had already started in Cuba and we also started performing all over the United States. We had the chance to record at Blackbird Studios and work with incredible producers/engineers like Raul Malo, Niko Bolas, John McBride, and Tom Panunzio. We wrote new songs and rearranged some of the old ones. We got signed by Paradigm Talent Agency and APA for global representation. By the end of 2019, we had already performed in 20 different states and my band had opened shows for Heart, Joan Jett, Jamey Johnson, Johnny Swim, Raul Malo, and The Mavericks. We also got a record deal with Thirty Tigers to distribute our album Technicolor, which finally finished after almost three years. The record came out in February 2020 and after all the great PR work, an amazing tour schedule, and a locker full of vinyls, the world pandemic happened.

It was a tough year but we promoted our music and kept the connection to our fans through live performances on YouTube and Facebook (a series that we called Sweet Quarantine Sessions). Also, we started writing and recording our next record that will come out early next year in both languages English and Spanish.

We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Many. Like I said, being a Rock singer/songwriter in Cuba was not easy at all. Then, coming to a different country was a huge challenge. Nashville was great and I had everything I didn’t have before: guitar center, internet, a car, 12 different brands of toilet paper… but at the same time, I was missing my family, my friends, my home, my whole life. I had to get used to everything and at the same time, I had to stay creative and sane because we had a record to make and a band to maintain. 2020 was another big challenge, but overall I’m grateful that we stayed healthy and creative during such a tough period. Recently we took the challenge of creating a record dedicated to the repression that Cuban people have suffered for years. It is not an easy story to tell, especially to an audience that is not necessarily familiar with the history of my country. And also we are doing two albums in English and Spanish because we want to spread the message in our mother tongue as well for the very first time.

The record is going to be called Pirate Radio/Radio Pirata because that was the only way Cuban people could listen to Rock N Roll back in the ’70s when listening to this kind of music could put you in jail because it was considered against the principles of the “Cuban Revolution”. The album has become even more relevant (and personal) because of the current situation in Cuba.

Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I’m a singer-songwriter, lead singer of my band Sweet Lizzy Project. As a band, we have been together for over 8 years. We have two studio albums, a Christmas EP, and a new album about to come out. I think the most distinctive thing about our music is our genre-defying repertoire. Even though our musical influences come from the American classic Rock scene, we don’t sound like an American band (because we are not) and you can taste the Cuban flair. At the same time, the fact that we actually come from Cuba is very unexpected, because you do get to see a lot of Cuban Rock bands playing original songs out there. I am very proud of our journey as a band and how far we’ve come.

Do you have any memories from childhood that you can share with us?
In general, my happiest childhood memories are from when I used to go on vacation with my family. We would go to rural areas outside Havana to the beautiful natural areas that Cuba has. Spending time with my family is something I don’t get to do often anymore because of my job so I treasure those childhood memories.

Contact Info:

• Email: [email protected]
• Website: www.sweetlizzyproject.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sweetlizzyproject/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Sweet.Lizzy.Project
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/SweetLizzyProj
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEmGVAErd8bIlSDrkHrHBKw?view_as=subscriber
• Other: https://open.spotify.com/artist/3HPBGfJkTUsuGQHtzwWAcn

Image Credits:
Scott Lukes, Alejandro Menendez, Amada Siquier, Ana Lorena Gamboa, Technicolor Album Cover by Kyro Wolf.