Members of Foo Fighters, The Linda Lindas and Minutemen are among those to team up on ‘We Are LA!’, a benefit single for the LA wildfires.
An extensive group of punk and punk-adjacent musicians are involved in the recording, which has been made to support the Sweet Relief Musicians Fund, who provide assistance to musicians and music industry professionals affected by the devastating fires in the city early last year.
Rami Jaffee of Foo Fighters, Mike Watt of Minutemen, Eloise Wong of The Linda Lindas, Jane Weidlin of The Go-Go’s and Jonny Two Bags of Social Distortion have all played on the song and appear in its accompanying video.
There is also an auction of a signed guitar and signed T-shirt from most of the contributors to the song, with proceeds going to the Sweet Relief Musicians Fund. Bids will be accepted until 10pm ET on January 18 and you can do so here.
Other musicians involved in the project are Jim Lindberg of Pennywise, Ron Emory and Greg Kuehn of TSOL, Atom Willard of Alkaline Trio, Tony Reflex of The Adolescents, Annette Zilinskas of The Bangles, Texacala Jones of Tex and The Horseheads, Teresa Stone of The Pony Tales and Paul Roessler of The Screamers.
The wildfires caused extensive destruction in the Los Angeles area in January last year, causing over 30 deaths and destroying over 16,000 structures. With the city home to such a large section of the entertainment industry, NME spoke at the time to a range of musicians and music professionals about the damage they had suffered – read the interviews here.
A series of major benefit concerts were held to raise funds, including the two FireAid shows at the Intuit Dome and Kia Forum in the city.
Over 50 million people viewed the live stream, which saw performances from the likes of Billie Eilish, Lady Gaga, Rod Stewart, Katy Perry, Joni Mitchell, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Sting, Stevie Nicks, Gracie Abrams, Green Day, No Doubt, Olivia Rodrigo, Stevie Wonder, The Black Crowes, Anderson .Paak and Alanis Morissette.
According to the official FireAid organisation’s website, the concerts raised a estimate of more than $100million through ticket and merchandise sales, sponsorships and donations from the public.
Nick Cave, PJ Harvey, Devo and more also contributed to the ‘Los Angeles Rising’ benefit album, with proceeds also going to Sweet Relief, while last week, ‘A Concert For Altadena’ was held to mark the one-year anniversary of the catastrophe.
