Leo Susana, born Juan Leonardo Susana on 24 July 1968 in Brooklyn, New York, to a Dominican father and a Lebanese mother, is a guitarist, singer and producer, a founding member of the rock band Toque Profundo and the leader of the hard rock band Jodio Loco Sucio, known as JLS.

Brooklyn to Santo Domingo

Sent to Santo Domingo at four to live with an aunt whose children studied at the conservatory, Susana grew up around instruments and church choir; his father, back in New York, sent him a Wurlitzer organ and a drum kit. He returned to New York in 1976, went back to Santo Domingo in 1980 to attend an Adventist school, where he first picked up guitar, and returned to New York again in 1981, where he took lessons, discovered the New Wave of British Heavy Metal, played in local bands and recorded a demo with Broom Hellda.

Toque Profundo

Back in Santo Domingo, Susana founded Toque Profundo in 1989 with Tony Almont, Máximo Gómez, Lorenzo Zayas-Bazán and Osvaldo Peña, on the condition that Almont sing, and wrote or co-wrote most of the songs on the band's 1992 debut, «Sueños y Pesadillas del Tercer Mundo», including «Mi País» and «El Jevito». He left the band in 1991.

JLS

In 1992 Susana and his cousin, the drummer Máximo Gómez, formed the experimental duo JLS + Cousin Max, shortened soon after to JLS, for Jodío Loco Sucio. Leading the band alone from the mid-1990s, he released «Testigos de la Historia» (1997), «Serpiente en el Huerto» (2000) and «Un Año de Odio..., un Siglo de Miedo» (2003), the band's heaviest record, produced with Allan Leschhorn and Luinis Quezada at his own studio; a live album, «Crudo», followed in 2007, and «Pa'lante» in 2024. JLS is now based in Zaragoza, Spain, where Susana has lived for years and has also worked as a guitarist for the Spanish singer Huecco.

Estudio 828 and other work

In 2002 Susana and Allan Leschhorn founded the studio and label Estudio 828 in Santo Domingo, producing artists including Luichy Guzmán and Panky y Los Manolos. With Tony Almont he also recorded as Las Marías, Diagonal B, releasing an EP that included «El Blues de Santo Domingo», and has released solo singles including «Frixxxion», featuring Almont, and, from Spain, «Hotel California» (2024).

Legacy

From a childhood split between Brooklyn and Santo Domingo to a co-founder of two of Dominican rock's defining bands, Susana has spent more than three decades moving between songwriting, production and performance, carrying Dominican rock's hardest, least commercial edge from Toque Profundo's early records through JLS's metal catalogue to his current base in Spain.