Kevin Bronson on August 3rd, 2022

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Should we be surprised anymore that the young bands seem to keep getting younger?

Probably not. Lydia Night of the Regrettes was 12 (and her drummer was 10) when they were Pretty Little Demons. Chloe Chaidez was fronting the cover band Wild Youth at age 12 before fronting the early incarnation of Kitten at 14. Brothers Max and Elvis Kuehn (original members of Kitten, then of FIDLAR) were years away from a razor when they were punking out as the Diffs. Billie Eilish and Charlie Hickey each put their first songs on Soundcloud at 14. And, of course, punk prodigies the Linda Lindas ranged in age from 9 to 14 when they opened for Bikini Kill at the Palladium in 2019. There are others, of course.

So meet Rooted, a quintet of middle-schoolers, all ages 12 or 13, from the San Gabriel Valley. They’ve already done battles of the bands, played community and school events and performed on the big stage at the Los Angeles County Fair to commemorate AAPI weekend.

The band — founders Maddox Lim and Genevieve Thai, along with Valen Shieh, Karissa Lee and Selina Ye — started playing covers of songs by artists such as the Beatles, Guns N’ Roses, the Bangles, Journey, Leonard Cohen and Echosmith. The quintet came out of the Pasadena nonprofit Los Angeles College of Music’s annual program, “Summer Xperience,” and was mentored by its faculty.

This summer, they turned to releasing original music — sanguine, upbeat, ’80s-influenced pop-rock polished by producer Mike Post at Moosecat Recording Studio. The video for debut single “Waiting,” directed by Troy Carlton, brings back the thrill of surreptitiously passing notes in class. Released last week, “Dime a Dozen” finds a sparkle even after Lim confesses he “woke up on the wrong side of the bed,” and yes, besides the twinkling piano there’s a little guitar solo.

In “Waiting,” Lim sings about “endless possibility,” and at moments like this you think it exists.

||| Watch: the video for “Waiting”

||| Stream: “Dime a Dozen”