The Linda Lindas on freedom, frustration and new album 'GOTTA GET OUT'

The Linda Lindas have released 'GOTTA GET OUT', an album the band frames around the feeling of time moving faster than you can handle. Speaking to Rock Sound, Lucia and Mila de la Garza, Eloise Wong and Bela Salazar explained that writing began just weeks after Lucia graduated high school, while friends headed to college and she chose to stay with the band.

Lucia said many of the songs deal with feeling stuck in one place while the world moves on, balanced by the sense that the four have their own world together. The other driving force was touring: the record followed a North American headline run, and the group deliberately wrote songs built for participation, both in a crowd and in a listener's head.

Opening for Green Day proved formative. Bela said the run taught them to give everything even in front of ten people, while Lucia noted that a 20-minute slot as first of four bands forced them to connect with audiences they could barely feel. Eloise pointed to watching Rancid, Smashing Pumpkins and Green Day night after night, calling that sustained energy contagious.

'GOTTA GET OUT' also marks one of the first times the four wrote and recorded together in the same room. Lucia said the trust between them means new ideas get chased rather than questioned, and Eloise added that their differing influences pushed the songs somewhere none of them would have reached alone.

Among the heaviest moments is 'Blood On Our Hands', which Eloise described as a response to frustration with the state of the world. She called music an outlet for that feeling and highlighted the community that forms at shows, where strangers scream the same words back: "It's easy to feel alone," she said.