Who Are the Linda Lindas, the Young Asian/Latinx Band Taking Over the Punk World?
The quartet — who are all between 10 and 16 years old — went viral for a performance in the L.A. Public Library.
With traditional concert venues on pause for the better part of the last 14 months, bands have sought out different ways to safely get their fix of performing live.
Many went the livestream route, scheduling well-produced digital concerts and using Instagram as their stage. Some larger artists gave drive-in concerts a spin. The Flaming Lips stuck to safety precautions in the most Flaming Lips way possible: by providing each attendee their own personal human hamster ball.
A young, all-girl punk band called the Linda Lindas, however, went a different direction: They performed inside an empty Los Angeles Library on May 4 to kick off Asian-American/Pacific Islander Heritage Month. Decked out in plaid schoolgirl skirts and Vans sneakers, the young quartet's 40-minute set — including a cover of Bikini Kill's riot grrrl classic "Rebel Girl" and an original titled "Racist Sexist Boy" — went viral after the library shared a clip of their performance on Twitter last Thursday. Over the weekend, it was announced that the band had signed to esteemed punk label Epitaph Records.
According to their Bandcamp profile, the Linda Lindas are half Asian and half Latinx, with the band's members including "two sisters, a cousin, and their close friend." Their names are Bela, Lucia, Eloise, and Mila, and they range in age from 10 to 16.
They might be young, but their punk cred is already skyrocketing. "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," drummer Mila says in the clip before playing "Racist Sexist Boy." "After I told him that I was Chinese, he backed away from me. Eloise and I wrote this song based on that experience."
Though their social media clout is just now starting to really take off, the band has been a hot topic in the punk world for a little while now: After forming in 2018, they opened a Bikini Kill show just a year later per frontwoman Kathleen Hanna's request. They were featured in Amy Poehler's recent coming-of-age comedy, Moxie. They've already made fans out of Paramore's Hayley Williams, Rage Against the Machine's Tom Morello, and Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore.
Now that they've signed with Epitaph, the Linda Lindas are now labelmates with the likes of the Descendents, Social Distortion, and Pennywise — a massive accomplishment, especially for a band whose members won't all be eligible to vote until the 2028 presidential election.
It's safe to say that new music from the Linda Lindas will be on the way soon, but until then, you can check out their catalog on Bandcamp.