Mainard Larkin

Lil’ Chief Records is proud to present new signing, Mainard Larkin. Mainard previously had a run of streaming hits as hip hop act Randa, but recently he’s made a surprising jump into alt-country and has created a loose concept album about a pro-wrestler who is down on his luck.

‘Rattlesnake Boy’ is the title track of Mainard Larkin’s debut album out on Lil’ Chief records on 22nd May. The song perfectly captures the bittersweet, reflective mood of the album as a whole. On the surface, it’s a playful song about a pro-wrestler facing the decline of their career and trying to keep their chin up - an aspect that is brought to life in the accompanying music video. This story is used to channel Mainard’s own feelings after a relationship break-up.

Mainard’s music-making partner for this project was Shannon Fowler, who is better known as Tom Lark, with popular early tracks such as ‘Never Be Your Man’ and ‘Something To Tell You’ (the most played track on Australia's Triple J over the summer of its release), while his more recent work has gained multiple award nominations, including Best Folk Album at the 2024 AMAs. The current project was born from a throwaway comment from Mainard about wanting to do a country album, which Shannon saw as a fun idea and soon the pair began writing a new set of songs, with banjo and lapsteel in hand.

Mainard has been a fan of professional wrestling since a young age - as a teen, Mainard not only attended a Raw event in the US but also joined a gym and learnt the basic moves. It later became clear that many of the wrestlers of the early 00s were actually working within an industry in which drug use was common and health & safety concerns were non-existent. Mainard decided that a playful way to express their own moment of being at an emotional crossroads would be to use the story of a pro-wrestler who was going through a similarly disruptive upheaval:

“The song is a portrait of a wrestler in the prime of his career, but is facing this sudden dip and he’s aware that he’s not living by the most amazing amazing values. He's trying to figure out what to do with his life and find meaning in existence. Then at the end, he finds hope.”