(Photo: The Linda Lindas via Bandcamp)
Punk-Rock band, The Linda Lindas recently earned themselves a record deal with Epitaph Records after going viral from their set at an AAPI Heritage Month event hosted by the L.A. Public Library in early May.
Band members Bela Salazar, Lucia de la Garza, Mila de la Garza and Eloise Wong, range between ages 10 to 16. They got the inspiration for their name from a 2005 Japanese movie, “Linda Linda Linda”, which centers around a group of teen girls starting a band.
Although Epitaph is a historic punk-rock label, The Linda Lindas’ connection to the label runs deep. Mila’s father is Grammy-winning producer-engineer Carlos de la Garza — who has worked with huge acts like Paramore, Bad Religion, and more. Bad Religion guitarist Brett Gurewitz founded the label.
In the viral clip, the group performs “Racist, Sexist Boy” — a song inspired by Mila’s encounter with a boy from school. She prefaced it by saying “A little while before we went into lockdown, a boy came up to me in my class and said that his dad told him to stay away from Chinese people … After I told him that I was Chinese, he backed away from me. Eloise and I wrote this song based on that experience.” The clip was viewed more than four million times, and their Instagram page has since increased to nearly 250,000 followers.
Since then, The Linda Lindas have gained the attention of famous rock/punk artists such as Kathleen Hanna, Tom Morello and Hayley Williams.