The Linda Lindas, the all-female rock band that lit up social media this week when a video of their recent performance at the Los Angeles Public Library went viral, have signed with Epitaph Records. A rep for the label confirmed the low-key signing to Variety but had no further news; the signing was first speculated by Spin.
The band — Bela, Lucia, Eloise and Mila, who range in age from 16 to 10 and describe themselves on social media as “Half Asian / Half Latinx. Sisters, cousins and friends who play music together because it’s fun!!” — started off in 2018 playing punk rock covers, and have long gotten support from older, punk-centric musicians. They’ve opened for Best Coast, Money Mark and veteran L.A. punk acts like the Dils and Alley Cats, and were specifically asked by Bikini Kill’s Kathleen Hanna to open for them in 2019. The video of the library performance, which was part of its AAPI Heritage Month, has gotten cosigns from Rage Against the Machine’s Tom Morello, Sonic Youth co-founder Thurston Moore and others.
While Epitaph is certainly a perfect musical fit for a band that proudly continues the nearly 50-year legacy of Los Angeles punk rock, the signing is appropriate for other reasons, too: Mila’s dad is Grammy-winning producer-engineer Carlos de la Garza, who has worked with dozens of acts but most prominently Paramore, Cherry Glazerr, Best Coast and Bad Religion, whose guitarist Brett Gurewitz founded Epitaph. Eloise’s father is Martin Wong, co-founder and editor of Giant Robot magazine.
While the sight of young girls playing melodic punk rock in a library was certainly attention-grabbing in itself, the song they were performing — “Racist, Sexist Boys” — and the fact that Mila was wearing a Bikini Kill t-shirt unquestionably amplified the attention.
“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,” Mila said, introducing the song on the video. “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 includes an original song they wrote for Netflix’s “The Claudia Kishi Club,” documentary, as well as cover of the Muffs’ “Big Mouth” and Bikini Kill’s “Rebel Girl.”
Don’t mess with The Linda Lindas.
Watch the full concert: https://t.co/Usv7HJ1lLR pic.twitter.com/pKZ5TKDdiA
— L.A. Public Library (@LAPublicLibrary) May 20, 2021