Submitted photo Chicana punk band Fea will bring its politically charged songs to Volcanic Theatre Pub on Tuesday.

In Girl in a Coma, drummer Phanie Diaz and bassist Jenn Alva played down their gender, sexuality and ethnicity to avoid being pigeonholed.

It’s quite the opposite in their new band Fea. The group proudly calls itself a Chicana punk band (though guitarist Aaron Magana is male, all four members are of Mexican descent). Its songs tackle racism, sexism, homophobia (both Diaz and Alva are openly gay) and social injustice in the vein of the quartet’s riot grrrl foremothers, and feature lyrics in English and Spanish (and in the case of single “Feminazi,” German, French and Japanese, too).

“We made it a point in Girl in a Coma to be like, we’re just a band. Don’t look at our gender, don’t look at — just don’t look at the gender or sexuality; this is just a band,’” Diaz said recently while traveling to the group’s next tour stop in Los Angeles. The West Coast tour, the band’s third, hits Volcanic Theatre Pub on Tuesday.

“But now I think with Fea and given what’s happening politically around us, I think it’s really important now. It’s almost like — I kind of compare it to having your parents and they’re showing you records, and you don’t want to listen to them because it’s not supposed to be cool. But now you’re finding, oh, I’ve really liked this record all along so I’m gonna blast it. That’s kind of like what’s happening with Fea — it’s like, you know what, I’m not gonna be afraid of what I am, and if I’m gonna talk about it, we’re gonna talk about it.”

After just three years together — and only two with lead vocalist Letty Martinez — the San Antonio, Texas, quartet has already garnered some big-name followers. Surf-punk pioneers Agent Orange brought Fea out on tour earlier this year, and Diaz said the band will tour with them again next year. In July, Fea’s self-titled debut came out on Joan Jett’s Blackheart label (also home to Girl in a Coma), and featured production work from Laura Jane Grace of Against Me!, Alice Bag of The Bags and Lori Barbero of Babes in Toyland.

The band’s sound, which draws from hardcore punk, rockabilly, surf and Latin music, stands in sharp contrast to the dark indie rock of Girl in a Coma. But the new group’s righteous anger has also been resonating with a new audience, Diaz said.

“We have a couple Girl in a Coma fans that show up, but it’s a completely different project,” she said. “Either some of them stick around just ’cause they’re loyal, but then there’s a ton of people that are like, ‘No, this is not my cup of tea’ — they’re just more into the indie rock thing that we do with Girl in a Coma. But it’s interesting watching this whole new audience of kids come in.”

Diaz and Alva formed Fea after Girl in a Coma guitarist/vocalist and Diaz’s younger sister Nina Diaz decided to pursue a solo album. Initially the band featured lead vocalist Theresa Moher; Martinez joined the band about a year in, along with Magana. Diaz said the goal from the start was to play the riot grrrl punk that influenced her and Alva when they were younger.

“That was actually the original idea we had when we were gonna start Girl in a Coma, but Nina just has a melodic voice, and became her own thing and started writing on her own (so) that it became its own project, its own challenge,” Diaz said. “So with this band we have a little more control. And Jenn and I write in this band; we actually write riffs and guitar lines and stuff like that, and everybody feeds off of each other. It’s a lot of fun. It’s the music we grew up listening to, Jenn and I.”

Lead single “Feminazi,” with its fist-pumping, multi-lingual chorus and plea to “meet in the middle” and find common ground, caught the ears of fans and detractors alike. The music video debuted in June and featured a collage of racially and sexually charged quotes from President-elect Donald Trump, just in time for the then-candidate’s rally in San Antonio.

“There was an immediate backlash from men, which was, I don’t know, Just men coming and saying, oh, you’re these — they were already calling us feminazis, and we’re trying to explain that we aren’t,” Diaz said. “But they were like, oh, these kind of women. We got death threats, all kinds of stuff; the Trump supporters came out. And it was very interesting to see that — to see women defending (us), and then seeing the men just backlashing and angry that we were speaking up about an issue, and not even listening to the lyrics of the song at all.”

Next year Diaz and Alva will reconvene with Nina Diaz to work on a new Girl in a Coma album. But Fea also will continue to tour, and given the socio-political climate, Diaz said she hopes more punk rock like Fea is on the way.

“Now that this is going down, it’s kind of crazy, and I think it’s even more important that bands like ourselves start to emerge and come together and speak their voice,” she said. “It’s a very critical time, a crucial time. I’m hoping to see this emergence of bands, more punk rock and more political stuff like it was in the ’70s, and hopefully this new movement will come through.”