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(43,138 posts) Sat May 14, 2022, 01:08 AM May 2022

The Linda Lindas Are the Next Great Punk Band

The teenage band is determined to inspire change with their infectious pop punk.

https://www.thrillist.com/entertainment/nation/the-linda-lindas-growing-up-interview

The coolest band in the world is hours away from playing their first-ever headlining show in NYC and there's only one thing at the top of their to-do list. Before they sound check, they are determined to get bubble tea. Luckily, Lazy Sundaes in the Lower East Side is just a few blocks away from Mercury Lounge where they are playing.

Trying different boba places on every tour stop has become a ritual for the latest punk band you need to know, The Linda Lindas. Well, it's become their sole tour ritual—the LA-based four-piece made up of 11-, 14-, 15-, and 17-year-old teenage girls just played their first slate of shows outside of their home state, following the March release of their debut album Growing Up. The group has made the rounds in the LA scene for the past few years and gained support from other musicians like riot grrrl pioneer Kathleen Hanna of Bikini Kill, but ever since a video went viral in spring 2021 of them performing their original song "Racist, Sexist Boy," and landing a record deal with alternative purveyors Epitaph Records shortly after, they've been well on their way to rock stardom.

"We get boba all the time—all the time," says guitarist Bela Salazar. "Our goal for when we travel is in every place we have to find two boba places to try." "If they have it," adds bassist/vocalist Eloise Wong. (As the group features two sisters, a cousin, and a lifelong family friend, the close quartet frequently finishes each other's sentences.) Salazar continues, "This is the first run at it. We were staying in the desert and we did not find any. We did get ice cream, though." San Francisco, they say, was a success. And so is New York, where they visited Tiger Sugar in Koreatown and now Lazy Sundaes.

"We haven't been to this place before, so this is exciting," says guitarist/vocalist Lucia de la Garza. "I wanted to get the Korean Shaved Ice." She did, and it looks so sugary and delectable that, before she even has a sip, her younger sister, drummer/vocalist Mila de la Garza, says, "You have to let me have some of that." (Mila herself got a Thai Iced Tea, Salazar ordered a Rose Matcha, and Wong went with a hot Jasmine Green Tea.)

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Punk Rock’s New Hope: The Ferocious, Joyful Linda Lindas

Fueled by punk conviction (and snacks), this all-girl, school-age band is ready to release its debut album, “Growing Up,” nearly a year after its song “Racist, Sexist Boy” went viral.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/09/arts/music/the-linda-lindas-growing-up.html

PIONEERTOWN, Calif. — “Kids to the front!” the drummer shouted. It was 10 p.m. on a Friday night in February and the Linda Lindas, an all-girl, school-age act from Los Angeles, was playing its first out-of-town show. The musician who beckoned the youngest in the crowd closer to the stage was 11-year-old Mila de la Garza; her bandmates are 14, 15 and 17. In pigtails and power-clashing plaids, they may be the country’s most exciting teen punk band, a galvanizing combination of wholesome and fierce.

Following Mila’s proclamation — a callback to “girls to the front,” a maxim of the riot grrrl movement in the 1990s that helped flip the power dynamic at shows — a handful of middle school and younger kids popped up amid the adults at Pappy & Harriet’s, a dive-y club in the desert here, 16 miles from Joshua Tree National Park. The space was packed, and eager; the sentiment onstage was jubilation, and the crowd caught on. “I feel very fancy,” Lucia de la Garza, Mila’s 15-year-old sister and a guitarist, vocalist and ringleader for the group, said, as she introduced “the first song I ever wrote.”

Channeling the Muffs, the Go-Go’s and the muscular bravado of ’70s punk, especially in the snarling voice of bassist Eloise Wong, the Linda Lindas shredded through songs about identity, friendship, power and cats, most from their forthcoming debut album, “Growing Up.” They windmilled their instruments in tandem, grinned at each other between numbers and tossed guitar picks to the crowd. “They are so cool — I was never that cool,” an objectively cool woman whispered to a companion. Mid-set, Bela Salazar, the 17-year-old guitarist, instructed the audience to do a primal scream. At the end, the foursome thanked their parents.

Nearly a year after they broke out with a viral video of “Racist, Sexist Boy,” an original song they performed at a Los Angeles public library, the Linda Lindas are, to their own shock, quickly ascending rock’s new feminist front. The rarefied combination of their youth, their gender, their heritage — they are Los Angeles natives of Chinese, Mexican and Salvadoran descent — and the ferocity and empathy of their music has made them a beacon, not just for young fans but for established artists.

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