Hill (“the Cheez”) Lu is a San Francisco singer-songwriter and the driving force behind TraumaCheez, the alt-rock band she leads. It runs the East Asian rock she grew up on straight into Bay Area punk.

Raised in southern China, Hill first fell for music through Faye Wong, who blended indie rock (think The Cranberries and Cocteau Twins) with Cantopop. As a teenager she was captivated by Hong Kong guitarist and songwriter Ellen Loo. Like many ’90s kids in East Asia, she spent eight years studying classical piano before setting music aside for academics.

After moving to the US, Hill kept her creative side alive with sound design for video games, and fell for Western bands like Paramore, Radiohead, and Wolf Alice. Ellen Loo’s death moved her to learn guitar, and when the pandemic hit in 2020, she finally picked it up. She formed her first band, DogDays, sharpened her voice at open mics and jams, and launched TraumaCheez in 2023.

Today Hill writes every TraumaCheez song, in English, Mandarin and Cantonese, for outsiders and overthinkers, and brings them to life with her bandmates across the Bay Area. Sad songs in a fun costume. The band’s debut EP arrives in 2027, led by the single “Mediocre Song.”