L-R: Josh Van Hoorebeke, Gary McClure, Bridgette Imperial, Ian Reitz. Photograph by Kevin A. Roberts
As Gary McClure tells the story, it’s all relatively simple and straightforward. Some things happened, followed by others. And then one day, he’s in St. Louis, married and living in South City, the owner of a record deal with Fat Possum, which released American Wrestlers’ self-titled album in 2014. The whole story’s laden with interesting twists and turns, though, too many for this space, but we’ll do our best to chronologically break down the most intriguing band to land in St. Louis in a good while.
McClure’s start as a musician came when his uncle, “a boy genius,” gifted him a guitar. That uncle was Roddy Frame, founder of the well-regarded Scottish pop band Aztec Camera, now a solo artist and early on “a huge inspiration.” He’d pursue other instruments over time, “branching out if I had the instrument. I’d stay at a friend’s house for a few weeks and would play the piano there. My brother got a bass, so I picked that up. I wasn’t a singer until four years ago. I just believed that I couldn’t do it.”
Starting in 1999, through a good chunk of the 2000s, McClure and songwriting partner Phil Kay formed Working for a Nuclear Free City, a Manchester, England, “nu gaze” group that would release albums, tour Europe and, interestingly, find their most-avid support in the U.S. They were a fast-working team, writing and recording tracks in the same day—or scrapping them, with no compromise for laggard tunes. McClure says that Kay found a hard drive with 2,000 songs, in various states. Not to get used today. “I prefer to look ahead.”
With the group in limbo, McClure released a solo album, plotted on ways to leave the gray skies of Manchester, and then an American, Bridget Imperial, with whom he struck up a trans-Atlantic relationship. It went well. In time, they’d marry and settle in Benton Park. But there were many hours when he was awaiting a green card and “She was at work, and I’d have nothing to do.” So he wrote songs on a $300 TASCAM eight-track that was breaking down all through the recording process. “I might get it fixed.”
Sending out the songs that would make up American Wrestlers, he wrote to bloggers all over the country, saying that he was moving to their town. “In Boston, they put me on a mixtape.” Attention was steady, and multiple labels began showing interest. Fat Possum was the one that came with the best approach. “They offered to release it on vinyl the next Monday.” After that, the Windish Agency signed on as the Wrestlers’ booking agent, and a band coalesced with Imperial on keys and second guitar, Ian Reitz on bass, and Josh Van Hoorebeke on drums.
For a band born of a studio project, touring’s the next step and, in the lead-up to the group’s true coming-out show in St. Louis at Loufest, the act’s been out on a summer tour. The road’s where McClure wants to be “forever. Even if I had a job, I’d want to do that. The only thing that would stop me is that I have a couple dogs. I wouldn’t know what to do with those. I’d have to get rid of them, and that makes me feel bad.”
Notoriously studio-phobic, McClure’s unsure if he’ll get that eight-track fixed, but he will be making more music and it will be recorded by him, at home. “I hate studios. I will do it myself again. Maybe have someone with, to polish things. An equipment upgrade would be nice. Whatever works best at the time.”
If American Wrestlers is rough around the edges, it’s due to the machinery, as a lo-fi sound isn’t what he was after. But, as with a lot of McClure’s life of late, it seems, things worked. The cuts are brilliant, and are gaining American Wrestlers a far-flung network of fans and supporters.
To double back, McClure says there was a certain pressure to being kin to Roddy Frame. “I didn’t want them to find out,” he says. “There’s no way to win! If you compared me to him, there’s no way. His words, his writing, his playing is far and away from anything I could do, and I shied away a little bit. He’s one of the reasons I could write a line that felt like a throwaway. Regardless of if it was good or bad, it had to sound good to me. I thought, “What would Roddy, think if he hear this?’”
We’d guess he’d think, “Good job, nephew. Good job.”
See American Wrestlers at LouFest on Sunday, September 13 from 1:45–2:30 p.m. on the Shade Stage. For more info, go to facebook.com/pages/American-Wrestlers.
Note: This article has been updated with the correct spelling of Ian Rietz's last name.
