Pro Wrestlers Are Asking The Mountain Goats To Write Songs About Them Now
The great new Mountain Goats album Beat The Champ is all about the pro wrestling that frontman John Darnielle watched when he was a kid growing up in Southern California. Before making the new album, Darnielle wasn’t particularly up on things that were happening in pro wrestling today. But before the album came out, I took Darnielle to his first pro wrestling show in 35 years. Since then, he’s spent nearly as much time talking to the wrestling press as he has to the music press, and it sure seems like he’s back in. At that wrestling show, Darnielle seemed very, very happy to learn that some wrestlers were fans of his. And while I wouldn’t have guessed it, Sasha Banks is apparently one of those fans. Banks is currently the Women’s Champion in NXT, which is sort of the WWE’s minor-league feeding system. When WWE signs wrestlers, or when wrestlers get stale and need a reboot, WWE sends them to NXT, its Orlando-based promotion. NXT has its own show on the WWE Network, and it’s routinely so much better than Monday Night Raw or anything else the WWE puts on TV. Banks, in particular, is awesome; the NXT women’s division is light years beyond the WWE version. Sasha Banks, it would appear, now wants her own Mountain Goats song. And she’s going to get it.
Here’s something Banks put on Twitter last night:
Where's my song @mountain_goats ?
— WWE Sasha Banks (@SashaBanksWWE) May 3, 2015
And here’s Darnielle’s response:
@SashaBanksWWE album is all old territories days but I accept this challenge. Song for Sasha Banks will be written before end of tour
— The Mountain Goats (@mountain_goats) May 4, 2015
The Mountain Goats are one of the greatest institutions in indie rock, but if they stuck with the wrestling thing for a few more albums, would anyone complain? How awesome would that be?