Let’s Wrestle must do their colouring now
Words Kev Kharas
It’s my fault, I suppose. I’m interviewing Let’s Wrestle and I’ve chosen the internet as the place to chat. But, one email in, Wesley Patrick Gonzalez and Mike Lightning, both 18, are gargling my innards and pissing in my virtual fridge, brushing sense aside as they hammer gleefully at the keys.
“Me and Mike have been playing music for years under different names,” explains Gonzalez. “Grip Right Swing Right, The Biff Hitler Trio, Oblong…”
Lightning: “We needed to start a musical revolution that would zoom London into the 21st Century. We met punk enthusiast Rev. Darkus Bishop at college and asked him to join our Dinosaur Jr-inspired noise rock band, Chamois Leather. His funny drums took us onto a next level of crazy musical magic…”
Et voilà. All lies, presumably, but lies that make Let’s Wrestle very entertaining interviewees. The time’s right to broach the subject of other musicians. Lightning, Gonzalez, anyone we should be keeping an eye on?
“Hot Silk Pockets, Wrexham Aluminium, Wood, I Absolutely Must Do Colouring NOW, Drug Friends, Roly Poly and the Racists, Greg’s Mum, and our best friend’s band who are doing quite well, Flush.”
Seriously?
“All the bands on Stolen Recordings.”
Now we’re getting somewhere. Stolen are the label releasing Let’s Wrestle’s self-titled anthem this summer, the latest in a trickle of recent releases - an EP, ‘In Loving Memory Of…’, and ‘I Won’t Lie To You’, a single that recalls the C81 strand of post punk as much as the absurdist drawings of David Shrigley.
“I like him in the same way I like Television Personalities,” Gonzalez says of the Scot, one of whose books his band are named after. “They can’t play and Shrigley can’t really draw, but there’s something underneath the sloppiness.”
Whatever that something underneath is, Shrigley’s drawings are often ridiculously funny, as are Let’s Wrestle. Gonzales sounds unsettled when asked if the wacky will hear lyrics like, “We’re gonna sniff some glue, then piss on your car / Nick your cash and go to Quasar,” and think of them as a comedy band.
“I worry about that, but I seem to be the only one in the band who does,” he sighs. “The songs are supposed to be funny. They’re supposed to be sinister.”
They are - sinisterly funny. Gonzalez has a comic timing worthy of stand-up and a darkness grafted from Shrigley. Comparisons to Art Brut are obvious too, though Let’s Wrestle don’t hyperventilate at the hilarity of their own ‘concept’ when within chewing distance of a microphone.
“We’re not a joke band,” he reaffirms. “We write good songs. Sometimes I dwell on a lack of girls, but that’s our only flaw.”
I’m not inclined to agree. Let’s Wrestle are often at their best when they’re pining after some errant bint or other, looking to fill the void with, variously, Leo Sayer, wasps and genocide.
Right then, enough conjecture. Let’s end with the facts: Let’s Wrestle are Wesley Patrick Gonzalez, Mike Hankin, and 19-year-old Louis Scase. ‘Lightning’ and ‘Reverend Darkus’ are fabrications, but the rest isn’t: they did meet at college, bond over Dinosaur Jr, and Hot Silk Pockets do exist. Let’s Wrestle are the real deal, wise guys - ropey, shambolic proof that truth can be stranger than friction.
