RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Danny Miller and Max Harwood form the indie rock duo Lewis Del Mar. There's a song on their new album called "Puerto Cabezas, NI." Danny's parents met in that coastal town but never really talked about their life there, so Danny traveled to Puerto Cabezas last year to learn more about himself and his family.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "PUERTO CABEZAS, NI")
LEWIS DEL MAR: (Singing) High my blood, heavy like hot rain.
DANNY MILLER: Lyrically, this song sort of begins from a place that speaks to me reconnecting to my family and the relatives I have in the town of Puerto Cabezas.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "PUERTO CABEZAS, NI")
LEWIS DEL MAR: (Singing) Colors mixing on a hot day.
MILLER: Colors mixing on a hot day I think speaks to obviously the inherent climate of the region, but also the fact that my parents are of two different races. And I think that this song overall pertains to the way in which I'm coming to terms with being biracial.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "PUERTO CABEZAS, NI")
LEWIS DEL MAR: (Singing) I finally found the rest of me. My dance hall is all bodies now.
MILLER: I chose the idea and sort of extended metaphor of a dance hall here because it's one of the parts of the culture on the Caribbean coast of Nicaragua that really embodies how mixed everything is.
(SOUNDBITE OF LEWIS DEL MAR SONG, "PUERTO CABEZAS, NI")
MILLER: There you can go from hearing reggae and cumbia to actually hearing a song by Johnny Cash where everybody suddenly knows all the words. It's a very strange back and forth.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "PUERTO CABEZAS, NI")
LEWIS DEL MAR: (Singing) I am bound to you by the mystery of my own name.
MILLER: My father came to the states and I think felt very isolated and actually, over the years after he emigrated here, developed mental illness and was diagnosed with schizophrenia. And there's sort of a line that just speaks very personally about sort of how I've grown up without him as a presence in my life, and coming around and circling back to my identity here, wondering how I can reconnect with him.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "PUERTO CABEZAS, NI")
LEWIS DEL MAR: (Singing) I am electric.
MARTIN: That's Danny Miller from the band Lewis Del Mar. The new self-titled album is out now.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "PUERTO CABEZAS, NI")
LEWIS DEL MAR: (Singing) In the streets that are my insides, my father never lost his mind. How come I never call you now? Why do I never call you now? Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
