FEATURE:
Spotlight
The Linda Lindas
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ONE terrific group…
that I am excited about is The Linda Lindas. They are a great Punk Rock band hailing from Los Angeles. Consisting of Bela Salazar, Eloise Wong, Lucia de la Garza, and Mila de la Garza, their eponymous E.P. was released last year. They are a remarkably young, interesting and super-talented group that are set to be legends of the future. Before I bring in a few interviews with the band, their website provides some useful biography:
“Half Asian and half Latinx. Two sisters, a cousin, and their close friend. The Linda Lindas channel the spirit of original punk, power pop, and new wave through today's ears, eyes, and minds. Mila (10), Eloise (13), Lucia (14), and Bela (16) first played together as part of Kristin Kontrol’s pickup band of inexperienced kids for Girlschool LA in January 2018, where they were joined by Bobb and Bethany from Best Coast and Karen O. That summer, Bela asked Lucia, Eloise, and Mila to back her up on a few songs at a Hi-Hat gig, and the garage punk band was born.
They weren't called The Linda Lindas until they started playing Save Music in Chinatown benefit matinees in the fall, where they’ve shared the stage with punk lifers and legends including The Dils, The Gears, Alley Cats, and Phranc. They’ve also played with Alice Bag, joined Best Coast and Money Mark at a DIY political fund raiser, opened a sold-out record release show for Bleached, and were hand-picked by Riot Grrrl legends Bikini Kill to open up for them at one of their reunion shows at the Hollywood Palladium. They rounded out 2019 with performances at the Viva Pomona Festival and the Dia De Los Muertos Festival at Self-Help Graphics LA.
In 2020, The Linda Lindas wrote and performed an original song for The Claudia Kishi Club documentary, wrote a song and made a video with punk rock friends and legends to get out the vote in the presidential election, and self-released their eponymous debut EP, which features songs penned and sung by each member of the band. In 2021, they reached a wider audience by appearing in a key scene of the Amy Poehler film, Moxie, before performing their now-legendary set for the
Los Angeles Public Library that included “Racist, Sexist Boy.” Unexpectedly and organically, the clip went viral, expediting their pending deal with Epitaph Records and setting them up for more shows, more music, and more fun”.
I really love The Linda Lindas! They are a funny, fresh, spiky, tuneful, consistent, complex and effortlessly cool band that are delivering such compelling music. There is nobody in music right now quite like them, that is for sure!
There are a few recent interviews that are worth dropping in. SLATE recently featured the group and compared them to the iconic feminist bands of the past. They also talked about the success of the group’s single, Racist, Sexist Boy:
“Punk may be having a moment—from the punk aesthetics of the new Disney movie Cruella to the grunge influences of Olivia Rodrigo’s debut album. And if you’ve spent time on social media over the past few weeks, you’ve likely run into a more surprising member of the punk scene: a band of girls who have taken the whole country by storm with just one viral video.
The half-Asian, half-Latinx punk band is made up of sisters Mila and Lucia, their cousin Eloise, and their close friend Bela (each of whom is between the ages of 10 and 16). Together, the Linda Lindas—named after a classic Japanese punk song by the Blue Hearts—have been steadily rising in popularity, playing dozens of shows throughout the city’s major punk venues—from Chinatown to East L.A.—and making a name for themselves in local community music scenes.
Since forming in 2018, the girls have also played with several feminist punk legends, including riot grrrl band Bikini Kill, Karen O of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs (whom radio station KQED cites as a mentor for the band), and L.A.’s own “Violence Girl” Alice Bag of the Bags, a quintessential punk band that was instrumental in creating L.A.’s very first punk scenes, back in the late 1970s and early 1980s. In the past year alone, the Linda Lindas have even had their music featured in two films: the Amy Poehler–directed Netflix movie Moxie, where they cameo as a local middle school group and cover “Rebel Girl” by Bikini Kill & “Big Mouth” by the Muffs, and The Claudia Kishi Club, a short Netflix documentary about the Baby-Sitters Club character, for which they wrote an original song.
Don't mess with The Linda Lindas.
— L.A. Public Library (@LAPublicLibrary) May 20, 2021
Watch the full concert: https://t.co/Usv7HJ1lLR pic.twitter.com/pKZ5TKDdiA
After a live performance of another original track, the punchy “Racist, Sexist Boy,” went viral after it was posted on the Los Angeles Public Library’s Twitter account on May 20, the quartet suddenly landed both a new, larger fanbase and a record deal. The Linda Lindas signed to Epitaph Records, an independent punk record label known for signing prominent groups like Green Day, Bring Me the Horizon, Weezer, and L7.
When Mila, 10, and Eloise, 13, wrote “Racist, Sexist Boy,” they were responding to an experience Mila had in school at the beginning of the pandemic: A boy came up to her and said that his dad had warned him to stay away from Chinese people. “After I told him I was Chinese, he backed away from me,” Mila explains in the viral video, where the band performs the song at an AAPI heritage month celebration event held in a library in L.A..
“I actually talked to Mila right after that incident she had with that little boy,” Bag, who has known the Linda Linda girls for a couple of years now, told Slate. “And she was telling me about it … and she was saying, ‘I’m gonna write song about it.’ ”
“This [song] is about him and all the other racist, sexist boys in this world,” Eloise shouts at the start of the video. After a countdown from Mila, the drummer, the band breaks out into the sludgy, thumping track, with Eloise’s cutting vocals piercing through the empty library. In the tradition of the outspoken feminist punk bands that inspired them, the Linda Lindas’ “Racist, Sexist Boy” unabashedly calls out injustice amid crashing drums and power chords.
The Los Angeles Public Library’s video of the band’s performance has since garnered more than 4 million views on the platform. Soon, other, even bigger names caught wind of the group and started spreading the love too. Tweeting a video of the Linda Lindas’ “Rebel Girl” and “Big Mouth” covers, Paramore’s Hayley Williams wrote, “The Linda Linda’s have been one of my fav new punk bands since about the time they came out of the womb.” Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello also took to Twitter to praise the Linda Lindas and call “Racist, Sexist Boy” the song of the day.
“I think [their fearlessness] is very much in the tradition of some of the bands that came out of the Eastside in the early ’80s,” Betty Avila, the executive director of Self Help Graphics, a creative and mutual aid space dedicated to serving young people and people of color in East L.A., told Slate in a recent interview about the Linda Lindas’ seemingly sudden wave of success. Self Help’s space was also once the home of the Vex, an all-ages punk club and influential hub for young punk rockers of color, especially Latinx artists, since it opened in 1980; it closed in 1983. Avila has maintained the organization’s connections to L.A.’s diverse punk scenes ever since. The punk culture at the Vex, built up by bands like Chicanx punk groups Los Illegals and the Zeros (nicknamed the “Mexican Ramones”), was widely influential and went on to attract a broader, more recognizable swath of artists: Prominent rock bands like Bad Religion (whose guitarist owns Epitaph), Meat Puppets, and the Red Hot Chili Peppers played the venue in the early ’80s”.
A few months ago, The Guardian interviewed the band. Not only did they explore their viral video performance from the L.A. Public Library; we also got to hear how the band formed and how Kathleen Hanna of Bikini Kill became a fan of theirs:
“The girls started playing together in 2018, as part of a pickup band for a Girlschool LA festival, where they connected with Bethany Cosentino from Best Coast and Karen O of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. The girls’ families have ties to the industry: Mila and Lucia’s father is Carlos de la Garza, a Grammy award-winning mixer and engineer for Paramore and Best Coast. And Eloise’s dad is Martin Wong, who co-founded the Asian American pop culture magazine Giant Robot.
“We have cool parents,” said Lucia, seated in her LA backyard, which is also home to their father’s studio. (The parents, listening in on the interview from a distance, shouted their approval of this quote.)
“I grew up with the DIY culture of punk, going to punk shows, making mixtapes – with the idea that anyone can do whatever,” said Eloise, who is finishing seventh grade. “Punk is anything we want it to be. I like ‘do-it-yourself’ because it’s whatever you feel like. It doesn’t have to be a certain way.”
When they first started playing, only Bela could play rock and punk, though the three younger musicians had studied classical piano. They quickly overcame their inexperience and started booking gigs, playing Save Music in Chinatown benefits and then opening for LA punk legend Alice Bag. At one of their first shows, Mila had a broken thumb from a scooter accident, but that didn’t stop her; she played drums with one hand.
Kathleen Hanna of Bikini Kill fell in love with the band after they covered Rebel Girl, and the singer invited the Linda Lindas to open for them at a Hollywood Palladium reunion concert in 2019.
The Linda Lindas – whose name was inspired by a 2005 Japanese film, in which high school girls learn Linda Linda, a song by the Blue Hearts – went on to perform an original song for a Netflix documentary, The Claudia Kishi Club.
“We started three years ago and it was just a fun thing – and then we were like, ‘Woah, we just played the Hollywood Palladium!’ And then we were like, ‘Woah, we were just in a movie!’ And now we are viral,” said Lucia. “It’s bizarre”.
I am going to finish off with an interview from Pitchfork. The Linda Lindas are remarkable mature and composed in interviews - considering they are so young and relatively new to music. This levelheadedness bodes well for a very prosperous and exciting future. Among other questions, of course, they were asked about the library show:
“Who were you most excited to hear from?
Mila: Kathleen Hanna emailed us. During the library show, the others were wearing these shirts that are part of her project called Tees for Togo, which helps raise money for girls’ education and healthcare in Togo. She said that we helped her raise $4,000 in two days. I’m really glad we got to do that.
Lucia: Kathleen Hanna has done so much for us. She saw a video of us playing “Rebel Girl” at a benefit show for [L.A. school board member] Jackie Goldberg and then invited us to open for her at the Hollywood Palladium. Like, who does that? She also helped us get that part in Moxie, the Netflix movie.
What was it like opening for Bikini Kill?
Bela: That was our first real show!
Lucia: That was the biggest show we’ve ever played.
Eloise: When we heard that she had asked us to open for her, we were like, “what!!!”
Lucia: I’m a pessimist, I don’t believe things until they happen. My mom came up and showed me this email, and I was like, “We’re not actually going to open for her, she’s just saying that.” We had been in the band for less than a year at the time, and we were still working it out, playing only covers, getting the hang of our instruments. The opportunity came along, and we practiced almost every day. It was like, “We have homework? Just stay up until midnight doing that.” When we got on stage, it was half an hour but it flew by so fast. Eloise and Mila cartwheeled on stage.
What made you gravitate toward punk music?
Mila: We like it because it’s anything you want it to be.
Eloise: It’s just doing whatever’s fun for yourself.
And it must be fun to scream.
Mila: That’s right up Eloise’s alley.
Lucia: She’s the best at it, really. Whenever any of us try to do it, it just sounds like—
Mila: [yells mildly]
What were your upbringings like? Did they shape your decision to make music?
Eloise: Ever since I was little, I’ve always gotten to go to DIY events and punk shows. [Eloise’s dad is Martin Wong, co-founder of the culture magazine Giant Robot.] Since Chinatown has this history of punk shows, my parents put on shows to raise money for my elementary school music program with bands like Phranc, Alice Bag, and the Alley Cats.
Lucia: Our dad works in the music industry. I have played classical piano since I was in preschool, but I’ve always kind of been in awe of the guitars that our dad has, the drums and keyboards. It’s amazing that we now get to put music out into the world. We put out an EP last December and we’ve been writing so much. We want to put out more songs this summer.
Bela: My parents aren’t musicians, they’re more visual artist types. Basically I just decided I wanted to play guitar—everyone else had a lot more exposure.
Lucia: Bela was the only one who knew how to play her instrument going into this, though.
When did you start writing your own songs?
Lucia: Before the pandemic, we got an email asking for us to write a song for a short Netflix documentary about Claudia Kishi of the Baby-Sitters Club books. That gave us a real push to start actually writing original music, and then the pandemic really pushed us to start writing new songs. Eloise wrote a few about the pandemic.
Mila: The process is different for each one. Sometimes we write it on our own and then bring it to the group and see if they have any changes.
Lucia: Sometimes we have a riff, and we need help on it—we don’t know where we want it to go. That’s why it’s so helpful to have other people.
Mila: We have a voting song, and a song about her Bela’s cat.
Bela: My cat is just a mess. She’s crazy—[turns toward the others] is that a word I can use? No? She’s bizarre”.
I shall leave it there. I am not sure whether The Linda Lindas have an album coming out or whether, later in the year, there will be another E.P. On the evidence of what they have released so far, the group have a very exciting and popular sound that has resonated with a great many people. I am excited to see what comes next. Go and follow The Linda Lindas and check out their music. They are a wonderful band who have the skills and ingredients to…
GO very far.
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Follow The Linda Lindas
