To grow up in the public eye is one thing, but for The Linda Lindas, it’s one of their main sources of inspiration.
Doing more as a quartet before the age of 21 than some bands achieve in their whole lives, the last few years have been a whirlwind as they navigate not just the world of punk, hardcore and pop-punk but also how quickly things around them are changing. But in having a band like theirs with them at such a pivotal time in their lives, they have never been better suited to the challenges that may be coming their way.
And listening to their new album ‘GOTTA GET OUT’ is to hear the sound and sentiment of a group above their years. A collection of fun, furious and fiery tracks that centre around the feeling of time moving too fast for you to cope, the four have crafted a record that will change the mindsets of as many who let it into their lives as those who want to learn to two-step and show it off at one of their shows.
To find out more about the creation of this wonderful album, and what it means to the band, Rock Sound caught up with Lucia and Mila de la Garza, Eloise Wong and Bela Salazar in some well deserved downtime.
Rock Sound: Where do you feel as though this album really started its life, and what were the things that you found yourself writing about?
Lucia: We started the process of writing and making these new songs pretty much a few weeks after I graduated from high school, and that was really an interesting experience. I had a lot of friends that were going to college and doing something very different than what I was going to be doing in the Fall. But I can’t imagine doing anything else. This is what I want to be doing. There was a time when I thought that I was going to be going to college as well, so it’s funny how like life ends up.
 I think you know a lot of the songs are about how life can make you feel like there’s a whole world happening while you’re stuck in one place. But also at the same time, I feel like we have our own little world that’s happening too, and it’s really special to have each other to pull each other out when we’re feeling stuck. One of the main themes on this album is feeling very stagnant, but as a band we were feeling very excited about playing live more.
We had just come off a North America headline tour, which was like the most exciting thing that we’d ever done. We were still thinking about it in the days after it had ended, and thinking about our live show. We had a lot of that in mind when we made this album: creating a kind of energy where people participate in your music. I don’t mean just in a crowd either. I mean in your head, too, when you’re listening to music. It’s cool when you feel like you’re a part of it, and that’s what we want to do.
RS: You mention being on the road. What were the biggest lessons you learned from your time out there, especially at the really big shows?
Bela: I feel like going on the Green Day tour for us was really eye-opening. We really learned how to perform and always give 110%, even when there are only 10 people in front of you. I feel like we’ve taken that through all aspects of The Linda Lindas.
Lucia: On that tour, we played for 20 minutes. We were the first of four bands, but we had so much fun on the tour because we really got to learn how to interact with a crowd that you can’t necessarily feel. And if you can interact with a crowd that you can’t really feel, you can interact with any crowd at all.
Eloise: What was special was that we played 20 minutes at the beginning, but afterwards we could see all the rest of the bands play. So every other night we were watching Rancid play, we were watching the Smashing Pumpkins, and then we were watching Green Day play for two and a half hours. And watching Green Day is such an amazing experience because they give the show their all the whole time for two and a half hours. They were going through two albums plus some extra songs, and they were still running around the stage, and they were still shouting at the top of their lungs and playing their instruments so hard. That energy of always going for it is contagious, and I think that’s something I took from that too. I was like, ‘Wow, if they can do that for two and a half hours. We sure as hell can do that for 20 minutes in the beginning’.
RS: This was also one of the first times you have all been together playing at the same time in the studio, which is another aspect of the live experience you brought to the table. What was that like?
Lucia: It’s really cool because we’ve been playing music with each other for so long that we really trust each other and our musical ideas and our creative energy. I think that it’s really special because when someone throws out an idea, even if it’s something that we haven’t really done before, we’re going to say, ‘Yeah, let’s go for it because I don’t know why not’. It’s super cool to have people around you that are willing to go on those journeys with you. We’ve never really done anything like this to this level before. Mila and I have always written songs together because we live together and because we’re sisters, and sometimes we’ll bring something to each other if we can’t, like, figure it out by ourselves. But for the most part, having this record done together in the same room, I don’t know if it would have turned out this way if it was just one person in a room writing by themselves.
Eloise: Especially because we all have such different musical influences. We all listen to different kinds of music, and I think that’s really exciting because we wouldn’t have come up with any of these ideas on our own.
RS: You have also crafted some moments on this record that feel like you at your most angry and unforgiving. ‘Blood On Our Hands’ is a great example of this, and it’s one of your heaviest hardcore moments to date. How did you go about articulating your feelings in the way that you have on this track?
Eloise: We write about what we’re thinking about and what’s on our minds. And it is so frustrating what we are singing about in ‘Blood On Our Hands’. It’s just, it’s just a frustration that eats at you. I feel like I can’t really do anything about the state of the world when all of the money that I spend is going towards evil things, and people are getting kidnapped off the streets. It just feels super hopeless, you know. I’m very lucky to have music as an outlet to express that frustration, and when we play live, we get to find a community of people who will sing those lyrics out loud with us. It’s easy to feel alone, so it’s super special to be able to find that you’re not the only one with these kinds of feelings.
It’s such a blessing to use music as an outlet. I think that there’s nothing like sharing music, and there’s nothing like the community of live music. Everyone in the same room screaming along to the same thing, dancing and sweating together. Everyone in a crowd, no matter how well you know each other, is your best friend. And I think that sense of community and that sense of hope is really important in a time where everything feels super hopeless.
But it all starts with sharing the songs with the band. Once you share it with three other people, it’s easier to share it with the world, and you know at that point it doesn’t really matter what other people think of the song because we like it and we feel it. You know, that’s what’s important.
RS: As well as sharing these things, you also shared time with Hayley Williams during this process when writing ‘Closer’. What was it like making music with her, and what does it mean to have someone like that in your corner?
Mila: It means the world. It’s really crazy every time we think about it. The writing was really fun; she basically came into the studio, and we talked for four hours, then wrote and recorded for one hour. The song was already mostly written, but we didn’t have a bridge, so we worked on that together, and she was very good at supporting the creative environment. She didn’t want to overstep, though, and she was very good at helping where she was needed. It was the first time she had written on a feature, I think.
Lucia: Also, this is her genre. So, she had ideas about how to really bring it home a little bit, as far as making it true emo and everything, which was cool. She really loved the lyrics about life passing and time moving too fast.
Mila and I have been around her for the past 10 years or something, so she has seen us grow up, literally. And this song is about not feeling ready to grow up. And with her being someone who has been in our place in terms of being a very young person in a band on tour who is now trying new things with her own music and exploring a whole other world, it really feels like the right moment that we did it with her. And it was really cool to get to talk to her and have her be a part of it because she’s just the best. She’s awesome. She’s so kind, and we love her.
RS: And with all of these things considered, what do you feel is the element of ‘GOTTA GET OUT’ that you are the proudest of?
Bela: In an emotional sense, I feel like I really needed this album. I was having a total quarter-life crisis last year, and I really needed for us to, like, write these songs, or else I don’t think I would have been able to make it through. It was a hard year last year, and it was it was it really helped me a lot to write these songs with these people that I really care about, and I’m really happy for other people that might be going through similar things to be able to listen and know that they’re not alone in going through these things. That it’s completely normal. But yeah, I really needed this record.
Lucia: Musically, I think of a song like ‘See You Next Time’, which was a very collaborative song that we were all really participatory in. There was a time when we were writing it and wondered whether we should even spend time finishing it, because it was just not something like what we’d ever done before. It’s so different. But we kept going, and it turned out to be the closing track, and something that we all left our mark on, and I think that’s very special.
RS: And what are you most excited about what is on the horizon for the band?
Mila: We’ve toured a lot, but I hope we get to tour in other countries on this record. We’ve done a lot of opening for bands, which has been great. But I’m excited to do more headline shows and play these songs live because they are really fun to play. They’re made to be sung along to, and I want to see people dancing to them in real life.
Eloise: I’m excited to play with more bands. That’s my favourite part of being on tour. Just being able to see so many bands play. I love being in the crowd.
