After library performance goes viral, teen punk group The Linda Lindas get record deal

A punk band composed of four girls between the ages of 10 and 16 are ready to sign with a record label days after a video of a recent live performance with a song about a racist encounter at school went viral.

The Linda Lindas were invited to play at the Cypress Park Branch of the Los Angeles library system earlier this month. It was the group’s first in-person performance in over a year, and they had “fewer than 10” performances before the pandemic, they told the Los Angeles Times.

Ten-year-old drummer Mila, and guitarists and vocalists Eloise (13), Lucia (14) and Bela (16) played for 40 minutes to a sparse crowd of mostly librarians.

The library shared videoof the performance on their social media accounts last week, which has since gone viral.

It was their original song “Racist, Sexist Boy” that stood out.

“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 tells the crowd, introducing the song. “After I told him that I was Chinese, he backed away from me.”

The band members identify as Asian American, Latin American or both.

Thousands of people have shared the video of the Linda Lindas performance, including celebrities and musicians like Awkwafina, members of Red Hot Chili Peppers, Sonic Youth, Rage Against the Machine, and other bands.

The group is now poised to sign a record deal with Epitaph Records, an independent music label focusing on punk music. All while finishing up school finals, they told the LA Times.

The group has been playing together for a few years, and have played a few gigsopening for bigger punk groups. They also played the house band in Amy Poehler’s “Moxie” and wrote original music for “The Babysitters Club” documentary “The Claudia Kishi Club.”