Nuclear Valdez

Nuclear Valdez came together in Miami during 1985 when singer/guitarist Froilan Sossa, who also went by Fro Sosa, partnered with bassist Juan Diaz. Local performances helped them cultivate an audience from the ground up and brought lead guitarist Jorge Barcala and drummer Robert Slade LeMont into the fold. Their name, contrary to widespread belief, bore no connection to the Exxon oil tanker incident; instead it originated as a playful nickname Diaz had given a short-tempered colleague from an earlier job. By the close of the decade the band had secured a deal with Epic Records, which issued the debut album I Am I in July 1989. The record’s ringing guitars and forthright political lyrics drew immediate comparisons to socially conscious rock acts such as the Alarm, and the two groups soon shared a bill on an early installment of MTV Unplugged. The lead single “Summer,” a soaring reflection on the 1959 Cuban Revolution—Diaz, Barcala, and LeMont being Cuban-American—earned notable MTV rotation yet failed to register on the charts. The follow-up, 1991’s Dream Another Dream, adopted more intricate arrangements that incorporated the band’s Latin heritage; the stylistic turn found little favor with American listeners and prompted a lengthy hiatus. Writing resumed toward the end of the 1990s, and in 2000 Dan Ceratelli assumed Barcala’s guitar role as the group began laying down tracks for what would become their last studio album, 2002’s In a Minute All Could Change. Nearly two decades afterward they issued Present from the Past, a 2017 vinyl anthology of previously unheard demos.