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Boston Globe

The Linda Lindas grow beyond viral fame to headline their own tour

Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up Bassist-vocalist Eloise Wong (left) and guitarist-vocalist Bela Salazar perform with The Linda Lindas at Boston Calling in 2023. Ben Stas for The Boston Globe/The Boston Globe Advertisement Last year, The Linda Lindas released their sophomore album, 'No Obligation,' an apt follow-up to their debut, 'Growing Up.' The project was critically acclaimed as the group fully embraced their pop rock fervor. Songs like 'All in My Head' showcased the band's saccharine side, while the playfulness of 'Don't Think' captured their blithe yet pensive youth. Guitarist and vocalist Lucia de la Garza says that growth played a major role in their approach to making Advertisement 'For [the album], we just had a lot more touring experience under us. We knew what we wanted out of our studio album a little bit more. We knew how we wanted to sound and we had a lot more confidence in our instruments and everything,' de la Garza says. 'Even just as a younger band, being in the studio for the first time for our first album, there was a lot more fear of doing something wrong.' 'You don't wanna touch the wrong thing … and technically, we didn't really know what we were doing,' she says. 'On 'No Obligation,' we came in with a lot more confidence and intention. We knew that we wanted to write more collaboratively between the four of us. … We did live tracking where we were playing in the same room together, whereas with 'Growing Up,' we were tracking our instruments separately,' a method they had to use because of COVID isolation. As 'Racist, Sexist Boy' implied, The Linda Lindas consider themselves feminists who proudly speak out against inequality. Their brazenness immediately made acts like Bikini Kill and Yeah Yeah Yeahs some of their most notable fans. The group's fiery demeanor isn't some fleeting stunt, though — it's at the heart of who they are. 'Yeah, we're feminists, since it just means supporting everyone's basic rights to be who they are and in the way they want to be and to have bodily autonomy,' Lucia de la Garza says. 'But even outside of calling ourselves feminists, it's just basic compassion, you know?' Advertisement Her sister and the band's drummer, Mila, agrees with this sentiment. 'As long as you're just thinking about others and trying to be a nice person,' anyone can engage with feminism, she says. The Linda Lindas have also mastered the late night television scene, with performances on 'The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon,' 'The Daily Show' and 'Jimmy Kimmel Live!' Their stage presence is high-energy and excitingly unpredictable, but it took a little time for the girls to get there. 'I never really warmed up before going on stage. … I never stretched or anything before going on stage until the Green Day tour,' Wong says. 'That was when I realized that it was the longest tour that we had ever done. It was like seven or eight weeks. And then I would go to myself, 'Why is my ankle kind of hurting? Why does it feel kind of jammed?' I had never really thought about playing shows as exercise or a sport — and that's exactly what it is.' Eloise Wong of The Linda Lindas during The 33rd Annual KROQ Almost Acoustic Christmas 2024 on Dec. 14, 2024, in Inglewood, Audacy Wong also expressed excitement about the band's current headlining tour. 'I feel a lot more confident in our show since the Green Day tour because we've played so much. I hope people who go to our shows also dance. … Don't be afraid. You got to get those emotions out somewhere.' Audience members who demonstrate fear may be subjected to her crowd participation antics. 'Eloise will usually go in the crowd during the opener and try to get the crowd moving,' guitarist Bela Salazar divulges. 'So if you see Eloise, go out there and dance with her or she'll come back and report to us like, 'This crowd's good' or 'This crowd is meh.'' Advertisement The reason behind her actions are simple. 'Move around,' Eloise exclaims, 'because it makes everything else more fun.' THE LINDA LINDAS With Pinkshift. At Paradise Rock Club, 967 Commonwealth Ave., Boston, April 23, 8 p.m. Tickets $47.