Mountain Goats Announce Pro Wrestling-Themed LP Beat the Champ, Share “The Legend of Chavo Guerrero”

The Mountain Goats have announced a new album, the first since 2012′s Transcendental Youth. It’s called Beat the Champ, and it’s out April 7 in North America, April 13 in Europe, and April 3 in Australia/New Zealand, via Merge. John Darnielle also shared a song called “The Legend of Chavo Guerrero”, which you can listen to above. The song is about pro wrestler Chavo Guerrero Sr., who Darnielle calls his “childhood hero.” 

As you might be able to surmise from the cover (which was designed by artist Leela Corman) and the song, the album is largely about pro wrestling. Darnielle wrote a little about the album on his Tumblr, where he explained the subject matter:

All that glory. All that shine. Nameless bodies in unremembered rooms. Some people might be thinking to themselves, JD, wrestling, I don’t know, I’ve never really been into wrestling, but did I steer you wrong with the Bible album, even though you may not have been super-into the Bible? Fear not. In a world of false promises and hollow gimmicks, please rest assured that the old maxim still holds true, whether scrawled on the back of a claim check or carved into a bench in an abandoned locker room: you can’t trust much, but you can trust the Mountain Goats.

Or, as he says, the songs are “really more about death and difficult-to-navigate interior spaces than wrestling.” 

He also wrote about the album on Merge’s website:

Beat the Champ is about professional wrestling, which was an avenue of escape for me when I was a kid. Wrestling was low-budget working class entertainment back then, strictly UHF material. It was cheap theater. You had to bring your imagination to the proceedings and you got paid back double. I wrote these songs to re-immerse myself in the blood and fire of the visions that spoke to me as a child, and to see what more there might be in them now that I’m grown.

A deluxe edition of the album on colored vinyl will come with the “Blood Capsules” b/w “Dub Capsules” 12″.

Additionally, the Mountain Goats have announced a tour. Check out the list of dates below.

Read a review of Darnielle’s debut novel, Wolf in White Van.

The Mountain Goats:

01-24-25 San Francisco, CA – Sketchfest
04-02 Nashville, TN – Mercy Lounge
04-03 Asheville, NC – The Grey Eagle
04-04 Savannah, GA – The Jinx
04-07 Chapel Hill, NC – The Cat’s Cradle
04-08 Washington, DC – 9:30 Club
04-09 New York, NY – Webster Hall
04-11-12 New York, NY – City Winery
04-13 Philadelphia, PA – Union Transfer
04-14 Boston, MA – House of Blues
04-16 Cincinnati, OH – Bogart’s
04-17 Detroit, MI – Majestic Theatre
04-18 Chicago, IL – Vic Theatre
04-19 Minneapolis, MN – Cedar Cultural Theatre
04-21 Louisville, KY – Headliners
04-22 Columbus, OH – Wexner Center
04-23 Chicago, IL – Mr. Small’s Theatre
05-08-10 Atlanta, GA – Shaky Knees Festival
05-26 Denver, CO – Gothic Theatre
05-27 Salt Lake City, UT – Urban Lounge
05-29 Seattle, WA – The Showbox
05-30 Portland, OR – Wonder Ballroom
06-01 San Francisco, CA – The Fillmore
06-03 Los Angeles, CA – Mayan Theater

Revisit the Mountain Goats’ “Cemetery Gates” session for Pitchfork.tv:

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