Hector Tellez Jr: The Cuban Shaking Up America’s Rock Scene

Four many years ago, Cuban-born musician Hector Tellez Jr. was dwelling in Havana: playing community golf equipment a number of evenings a week, delivering passionate performances of properly-oiled melodic blues rock. His type, merging the grit of Muddy Waters wailing on electric powered guitars with the tender-hearted yet mysterious air of Jeff Buckley, was not constantly welcomed by the locals, on the other hand.

“In Cuba, it is a Spanish language country, so I struggled a bit singing rock songs in English,” Tellez Jr. tells SPIN on a new FaceTime video call from a friend’s yard, wanting each individual bit the brooding rocker, help you save for some regular smiles. He’s putting on a reduce-off muscle mass tee that exhibits off a number of tattoos and a pair of spherical-rimmed sun shades that glimpse straight out of the John Lennon playbook. “There have been a whole lot of naysayers, persons who have been like, ‘What do you think you’re executing? You’re Cuban you ought to be singing in Spanish.’”

1 of the believers was Betty Malo. The Nashville-primarily based designer, stylist, actuality Television star, and wife of The Mavericks frontman Raul Malo was checking out the nation, anything she typically does to find new musical talent, when she happened on a set by Tellez Jr. at Havana’s famed Fabrica Del Arte club. “I didn’t know who he was, but I was mesmerized,” she says. “His voice draws you in as if you have hardly ever heard rock n roll in advance of, and his guitar taking part in is a magic carpet journey Hector will take you on … I understood in a few seconds he was a star.”

Shortly more than enough, Malo signed on to be Tellez Jr.’s supervisor and persuaded him to move to Nashville to even more his vocation, being aware of he’d match properly into the rock revival scene that has been dominating Stateside, riding on a wave of chart-toppers — like The Black Keys, Greta Van Fleet, and Jack White — who tap into a common era. The move, however, was risky, as it would choose Tellez Jr. miles absent from the foundation he’d currently developed as an artist.

His earliest musical recollections arrived from his father, Hector Tellez Sr., a well-liked Cuban bolero singer who found fame in the ‘60s, ‘70s, and ‘80s. Tellez Jr. describes him as a “crooner, a Sinatra form,” but astonishingly admits that he never actually needed to be like his father.

“I was born into new music, but I by no means wanted to be a musician. I was not into that,” he says. That was, until he was all-around 11 and his dad’s live performances commenced to resonate. “There would be tons of parties in my property. A large amount of musicians would come, and they’d engage in tunes all night. It was genuinely amazing.”

By the time he was a teen, Tellez Jr. was ready to choose up a guitar. “[My dad’s] a self-taught musician, so he was like, ‘I really don’t know how to train you … just search at me and try to mimic what I’m performing,’” Jr. suggests. He shortly became obsessed with it, tapping his father for vocal instruction when he begun crafting his personal content.

Tellez Jr. states he’s figured out 90% of what he is aware of from his father, as very well as the hand-me-down blues tapes from his brother that were being a gateway to the riffs of Muddy Waters, Robert Johnson, Stevie Ray Vaughan, and Jimi Hendrix. “When I started out to pay attention to blues,” he suggests, “it’s the place I started to comprehend the guitar extra and how you can use it as a distinct voice.”

Now dependent in Nashville, Tellez Jr. has swiftly built-in into a community of musical heavyweights that he continues to glean lessons from. Via Malo, Tellez Jr. satisfied 30 Tigers operator David Macias, who sent the budding artist’s demos to Barrett Martin (Screaming Trees, Mad Period). It was instantaneous musical alchemy, with Martin signing on to develop Tellez Jr.’s forthcoming materials. To assist fill in the gaps in instrumentation required for the job, Martin termed on some other noteworthy colleagues.

“[Barrett] claimed, ‘I’m likely to send out your tracks to a pair of buddies,’ and then he talked about [Nirvana’s] Krist Novoselic. He mentioned, ‘Do you mind if I deliver your tracks to him? He could like to work on this,’ and I was like, ‘Are you kidding me?’” Tellez Jr. says with a chortle. “I have beloved bands like Nirvana and Soundgarden I have been a enormous fan of their do the job since I can try to remember … We didn’t have the World-wide-web or anything at all back then in Cuba, so we just traded cassettes and mix tapes with a great deal of that tunes.”

Tellez Jr.’s other collaborator, one more relationship via Martin, is R.E.M.’s Peter Buck. In fact, Novoselic and Buck felt so strongly about what they listened to in Tellez Jr.’s materials, they agreed to guest on his rollicking, thigh-slapper of a one “Silver Blue Jellyfish,” unveiled on Sept. 30.

“​​It was a seriously nice knowledge doing work with them. They were so humble and arrived into the studio and reported, ‘Hector, this is your album. What do you want me to enjoy?’ … It was like they had been not celebrities and I was the star,” remembers Tellez Jr. “They inspired me to embrace my reality and do whatever I want to do somewhat than pursuing the group.”

It’s a individual ethos Tellez Jr. claims he has adopted in numerous elements of his lifestyle. He describes himself as a spiritual human being who usually quotes Buddha on his social media internet pages and has evangelized the teachings of Don Miguel Ruiz’s groundbreaking philosophical guidebook, The 4 Agreements, noting that spirituality, meditating, and performing yoga and tai chi have assisted him attain a mental aircraft that aids in writing songs like “Silver Blue Jellyfish.”

That new one is the initially flavor of Tellez Jr.’s as-yet-unnamed debut album that will be produced in 2023 via The Mavericks’ Mono Mundo Recordings. Still presently, the monitor is constructing anticipation for much more from Tellez Jr., branding him as an rising voice in a style that can typically grapple with finding extra numerous voices.

Tellez Jr. not long ago made his 1st national Television physical appearance on PBS’ 35th once-a-year Hispanic Heritage Awards as component of Hispanic Heritage Thirty day period. Martin and Buck backed Tellez Jr. in the course of the overall performance, which showcased noteworthy artists (like Los Lobos, Julieta Venegas, Carlos Vives, and Daddy Yankee) who have in their have way altered the landscape of Latin artists in America — a little something that Tellez Jr. hopes to do as effectively.

“I sense good about currently being Cuban and becoming listed here in the States representing my region and tradition,” he says, noting that two songs on his impending debut LP will be entirely in Spanish when some others will be bilingual with a Spanish refrain. He’s also looking at earning his 2nd album completely in his indigenous tongue.

“I want to make a tribute album to my Spanish influences that I have as well — my dad and a lot of classic Cuban singer-songwriters that are astounding but not a lot of people know other than Spanish-speaking international locations,” he suggests. “I want to connect with absolutely everyone that speaks my language.”