Jim Johnston believes wrestlers using commercial songs is a “horrible idea”
While speaking to the All Access Entertainment podcast, former WWE music composer Jim Johnston talked about the creative process of making theme songs. Here is an excerpt from the interview…
All Access Entertainment: “You said in the creation process, obviously you’re getting a sense of the superstar, and that helps you create the finished product. Now, when you’re getting a sense of the superstar, is that a combination of sitting down with them and having a conversation, as well as watching footage?”
Johnston: “Virtually never. Whenever I could avoid it, I avoided it.
It’s really not helpful because the vast majority of the wrestlers, amazingly, don’t really get it in the sense that their suggestions are always what they listen to in the car, you know, like something Metallica, like Metallica, this Metallica song, something just like that.
And there’s nothing more self-defeating, and it almost never works out that you base a theme on a commercial song. And I always thought it was just a horrible idea when guys got big enough that they could convince Vince to let them use a commercial track.
Because this is music. This is pure emotion. And if suddenly your entrance theme is a theme where, it was playing the first night a guy slept with his girl, his association is sleeping with his girlfriend, not with you.
And when you come out, you want people to only be thinking of you. That is the only thing in the universe you want them to be feeling is you.
And I think that happens, like in a case like Undertaker or Stone Cold, people aren’t thinking about other songs or other experiences. They’re thinking about, what is up Austin’s sleeve tonight, and just taking in the moment and the excitement of it.
But if your part of your mind, and more importantly your heart, is kind of being over here, it’s like, ‘Oh yeah, I remember that song.’
That’s just dumb, I think.”