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Wrestlers Lollapalooza Interview!

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1. How did Wrestlers get started?

Well we first started playing music together in high school in a rock band and somewhere along the way, our tastes shifted. From then on we were much more focused on what was happening in the electronic underground scene, and what we wanted to do musically shifted as well.

2. What made you decide to change the name and go from a solo project to a duo?

As the saying goes “great minds think alike”, and that’s the best way to put why we ended up changing our name. Creatively, we went from a solo project to a duo because we were living in different cities the past few years. It’s hard to be creatively collaborative when you can’t be in the same room together at any given time, but we would make sure to play the songs as a duo for our live sets. I came back to Houston after living in Austin, and now that we are living in the same city again we can write together more often which led to making it a duo.

3. Who were your musical influences growing up?

Our musical influences growing up are rooted in our parents’ record collections. I’ll never forget when my mom put on Off the Wall and would dance around the house singing the words. Outside of our parents, we grew up in the 90’s R&B golden age and that has played a large part in shaping our music and the kind of emotions we want to get across. Not to mention French House music and the stuff that was coming out of DFA like all of LCD Soundsystem and Holy Ghost!

4. You just released a new video for the song “Say Anything” and you’re currently using the hashtag #GymNasty to promote it. For those who aren’t aware, where did #GymNasty come from?

GymNasty is the tile of the fake work out video produced by its main character Simmons Dupont who is a workout/fitness extraordinaire and may or may not also be comedian Nathan Barnatt. Calling the video GymNasty is just another way to pay homage to the era of 80’s workout videos with somewhat suggestive titles.

5. How did you come up with the concept for the video? What was the process for making  the video like?

The concept actually came from the director, Josh Forbes and we felt that it fit perfectly with the feel of the song. We wanted it to sound like it could soundtrack Beverly Hills Cop and putting it in a workout video setting seemed just as good. Making the video was a great and exhausting experience. We had just flown into LA after a 4 hour drive startingat 2 a.m. from Gulf Shores to make a 7 a.m. flight in New Orleans. We went straight from LAX to the shoot where we basically worked out for several hours. The whole time everyone was laughing and in good spirits so it ended up be an amazing time.

6. If you had to choose one of your songs to introduce to new fans, which song would it be and why?

Of the songs we have released right now it would probably be Hot Hands because it’s one of the songs that we see the best reaction to when we play it live, and its flows from somewhat mellow vibes to a house track which is the area of dance music we are most interested in; when you can’t tell if it’s a house song or something a little different.

7. What can fans expect from your set at Lollapalooza?

They can expect to see the debut of our new percussionist who we just started working with to make the performance even more of a live experience, one of our dearest friends lending her vocals to a couple of our songs, and a cover of a certain essential Chicago House track.

8. You’re also playing at an official Lollapalooza after party. Do you create your set lists based on where you’re playing?

To a certain degree. Our live set is still very much in its infant stage and we are still trying to experiment with what songs we want to place where in order to build a stronger overall performance. The after party set list will be the same as the festival one but we definitely have changed the set for both performances from our last show.

9. Will you be watching other sets this weekend? Who are you looking forward to seeing?

We will definitely be hanging around and watching other sets this weekend. The one act we absolutely do not want to miss would be Blood Orange. Cupid Deluxe has been on heavy repeat the past few months. Over the past year we’ve gotten close to the guys in Gemini Club and Shy Girls so we are excited to see them play on Sunday. Really the whole lineup is packed with some of our favorite artists so we are just excited to be able to see them all in one place.

10. What can we expect from Wrestlers for the rest of 2014?

We are working on finishing an EP that should be out sometime later this year and after that we’re hoping to shoot a couple more videos and maybe hit the road at some point and tour the country.

Gina is a former editor and content creator for Stage Right Secrets. From October 2013-November 2016, she was responsible for social media and SEO practices, on-camera assignments and assigning stories to staff.