Let's Wrestle Interview: SXSW 2010

Let's Wrestle arrive at SXSW having just released their debut 'In the Court of the Wrestling Let's' in the US via Merge Records. The record, which hit the UK on Stolen Recordings last summer, is a breathless, shouty gem with wry lyrics that -- needless to say -- couldn't sound less like the album its title parodies: King Crimson's prog-rock opus 'In the Court of the Crimson King'. We caught up with guitarist-singer, and apparent fantasist, Wesley Patrick Gonzalez prior to his group's SXSW trip.

How did your band form?

We are a kind of supergroup of backing singers. Darkus was a singer for Annie Lennox, I sang for Wyclef Jean and Mike sang for Norah Jones.

What are your musical influences?

Nirvana, Pavement, Beatles, Neil Young, Breeders and David Bowie.


How did you come up with your band name?

A Book By David Shrigley.

What's your biggest vice?

Smoking crack and involving myself in gun crime and video piracy.

What's in your festival survival kit?

I really try not to go to festivals so I'd say a hotel near to the festival, and a man to carry me around so I don't get muddy and to feed me so I don't get hungry.

What's your musical guilty pleasure?

I don't feel guilty about nothing but people don't seem to think Thin Lizzy and Cheap Trick are as cool as I do, usually.

Beatles or Stones?

BEATLES! The Stones are awful apart from 'Je Suis un Rock Star' by Bill Wyman. The Beatles are Let's Wrestle's favourite band. They are incredible and for them to be put in the same sentence as the Rolling Stones is an insult.

What's the craziest thing you've seen or experienced while on tour?

[Gonzalez points us toward a Buckinghamshire local news story about the theft of a 8ft by 4ft sign advertising Bekonscot Model Village and Railway. Spinner cannot confirm or deny Let's Wrestle's involvement in this incident.]