Young punk band The Linda Lindas had been on the rise ever since being hand-picked by Bikini Kill to open one of their reunion shows in 2019. They also played shows with Alice Bag (and members appeared on Alice's album Sister Dynamite), Best Coast (and collaborated on stage with Bethany Cosentino), Bleached, and others, and one of the people who saw them open the Bikini Kill show was Amy Poehler, who then tapped the band to cover "Rebel Girl" for her recently released Netflix movie Moxie.
But The Linda Lindas really started to take off when a video of them playing their song "Racist, Sexist Boy" at LA Public Library's TEENtastic Tuesdays for AAPI Heritage Month went viral, earning the band praise from Tom Morello, Thurston Moore, Brett Gurewitz, and countless others, and earning the band a record deal with Gurewitz's legendary label Epitaph Records. A rep for the label confirmed the news to Variety.
The members of The Linda Lindas -- who are named after the 2005 Japanese movie Linda Linda Linda about a band of teenagers who formed to cover songs by Japanese punk greats The Blue Hearts, including "Linda Linda" -- range in age from 10 to 16, and they describe themselves as "Half Asian / Half Latinx. Sisters, cousins and friends who play music together because it’s fun!!" When introducing "Racist, Sexist Boy" on the LA Public Library stream, drummer Mila -- wearing a Bikini Kill shirt -- said, "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 set also included their "Rebel Girl" cover, a cover of The Muffs' "Big Mouth," the song The Linda Lindas wrote for Netflix documentary The Claudia Kishi Club, and more. Watch the full set below.
The Linda Lindas also released their self-titled debut EP in December 2020 (produced and mixed by Paramore/Bad Religion producer Carlos de la Garza, who is Mila's father). Stream that and check out some other pics and videos below too...
