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The Linda Lindas on playing packed stadiums, releasing a new album

11:08
Eloise Wong of The Linda Lindas performs at the Coachella Music & Arts Festival in 2023. (Amy Harris/Invision/AP)
Eloise Wong of The Linda Lindas performs at the Coachella Music & Arts Festival in 2023. (Amy Harris/Invision/AP)

The Linda Lindas spent the summer playing packed stadiums. The all-female punk group opened for the Rolling Stones in Los Angeles and embarked on a U.S. tour with Green Day and the Smashing Pumpkins.

If their summer wasn’t busy enough, the band — made up of teenagers Eloise Wong, Bela Salazar, and sisters Mila de la Garza and Lucia de la Garza — also released a new album called “No Obligation.”

Drummer Mila de la Garza, 14, started performing at age 8. She says she plays drums because when she was younger, her hands weren’t big enough to fit on the fingerboard of a guitar or bass.

“I didn't know how to play drums when we started the band,” she says. “We all kind of learned our instruments as we went.”

All the members grew up in Los Angeles and have known each other for most of their lives. Wong and the de la Garza sisters are cousins, and Salazar is a longtime family friend.

The Linda Lindas formed in 2018 and caught the attention of actor and director Amy Poehler. They recorded the soundtrack for her film “Moxie,” released in 2021, and released their single “Racist, Sexist Boy” the same year. Wong and Mila de la Garza wrote it about an interaction Mila de la Garza had with a racist classmate. Upon its release, the song went viral.

“Even though this song came out of a place of anger, and we're still angry when we're playing, it, it's cool that it's touched and reached like so many people,” Wong says. “It's become more prideful.”

Wong says the inspiration for the band’s songs comes from their day-to-day lives, everything from political upheaval to an ode to one member’s cats. In the song “Yo Me Estreso,” Salazar sings about her experiences with anxiety and feeling clarity after a stressful situation.

“I'm not very comfortable with talking about my feelings in songs like Eloise and Lucia do,” Salazar says. “I decided to write the song in Spanish just because It felt like another layer of protection.”

The band’s 2022 album — aptly named “Growing Up” — explored themes of maturing. But on “No Obligation,” they sing about yearning to stay young and avoid changing too much on the song “Nothing Would Change.”

The de la Garza sisters wrote that song together about the feeling of growing up and out of certain friendships or situations even when you don’t want to.

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“I feel like we've all grown up and matured really fast,” Mila de la Garza says. “And I feel like sometimes, you just want to take a break and get away from it.”

Despite their stardom, the Linda Lindas say they’re able to live normal lives, attend school and balance it all. Salazar insists they’re just normal teenagers.

The band members agree that the best part of their opening stint with Green Day was getting to play their new album live. And looking ahead to the future, none of them have plans to stop making music together any time soon.

“We just have fun doing what we love with people that we love and this is a great tour to be on,” Wong says. “We just enjoy what we do.”


Ashley Locke produced and edited this interview for broadcast with Michael ScottoGrace Griffin adapted it for the web.


This segment aired on October 16, 2024.

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Deepa Fernandes Co-Host, Here & Now

Deepa Fernandes joined Here & Now as a co-host in September 2022.

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Ashley Locke Senior Producer, Here & Now

Ashley Locke is a senior producer for Here & Now. She was formerly with Southern California Public Radio, where she started as a news intern, before moving to the Boston suburbs in 2016.

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Grace Griffin Digital Producer, Here & Now

Grace Griffin is a digital producer for Here & Now.

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