Backstage Pass is your one-stop subscription to everything pro wrestling. Breaking news from the most reliable insiders, interviews with legends, live Q&As with industry veterans, we have it all. SUBSCRIBE NOW - https://bit.ly/3zbHEH8
In this video, we explore the incredible career of Jim Johnston, the unsung hero behind WWE's most iconic entrance themes. From 'Stone Cold' Steve Austin's glass-shattering anthem and The Undertaker’s chilling theme to D-Generation X’s rebellious tune and The Rock’s electrifying intro, Johnston’s music helped shape the personas of WWE’s biggest Superstars. Discover how his unforgettable compositions also brought legends like Shawn Michaels, Triple H, and Kane to life, leaving a lasting impact on the world of sports entertainment
You can also visit our site: https://www.sportskeeda.com/wwe
#jimjohnston #stonecold #therock #undertaker #tripleh #randyorton #wwe #wrestling #sportskeedawrestling
In this video, we explore the incredible career of Jim Johnston, the unsung hero behind WWE's most iconic entrance themes. From 'Stone Cold' Steve Austin's glass-shattering anthem and The Undertaker’s chilling theme to D-Generation X’s rebellious tune and The Rock’s electrifying intro, Johnston’s music helped shape the personas of WWE’s biggest Superstars. Discover how his unforgettable compositions also brought legends like Shawn Michaels, Triple H, and Kane to life, leaving a lasting impact on the world of sports entertainment
You can also visit our site: https://www.sportskeeda.com/wwe
#jimjohnston #stonecold #therock #undertaker #tripleh #randyorton #wwe #wrestling #sportskeedawrestling
Category
🥇
SportsTranscript
00:00In an industry like professional wrestling, and especially the WWE, it's all about the
00:10big spotlight and the bright lights.
00:12When we talk about WWE, we often talk about the superstars, the big executives, or at
00:18a stretch, some of the few people working right behind the scenes in the guerrilla position
00:22area.
00:23We're talking about backstage producers.
00:26But how much do we even talk about them anyway?
00:28It's been brought up time and time again, and most fans are aware that with a company
00:32as massive as WWE, there are many people working tirelessly behind the scenes that we know
00:38nothing about.
00:40Think of people driving WWE's big trucks from town to town across North America.
00:45Think about the people setting up the ring, doing the superstars' costumes and makeup,
00:50the catering team, the ones setting the stages, the men and women in the office at Stanford,
00:56we can keep going on and on.
00:58While we often credit the people on the camera, we rarely give props to the majority that
01:02grind backstage to make WWE what it is.
01:06With the man who this video is about, it's a bit of a confusing contradiction.
01:10Jim Johnston is highly regarded by anyone who knows his name, anyone who grew up watching
01:16WWE between the mid-1980s and mid-2000s.
01:20At the same time, Jim Johnston still feels underrated and unappreciated.
01:32Jim Johnston is the man behind the soundtracks of many of your childhoods, and he's a wrestling
01:37icon.
01:39Just think about it.
01:40Theme songs of guys like Stone Cold Steve Austin, The Rock, Vince McMahon, Brock Lesnar,
01:47The Undertaker, Mankind, The Ultimate Warrior, and Degeneration X were all masterminded by
01:54this man.
01:55For 32 years, he worked for WWE and produced some of the most well-known music in history.
02:01He composed over 10,000 songs in that time.
02:05So who is Jim Johnston and why is he the unsung hero of WWE's music and maybe even WWE in
02:11general?
02:13Growing up in Pocahontas, Arkansas, Jim Johnston came from humble beginnings.
02:18He was born in St. Louis, Missouri, but his father hated life in the city and took his
02:21children to live the simple life in rural northeast Arkansas, the place he came from.
02:27His grandmother played the organ at the Methodist church in town and his father often had a
02:31record player on.
02:34Johnston actually took piano lessons and didn't find it to be a good fit so he called it quits.
02:39Jim Johnston had an ear for music like many people do, but there was one pivotal moment.
02:44His parents had taken Jim and his siblings to an amusement park of sorts and he heard
02:48some music playing.
02:50He tried dragging his parents to see them, but they were uninterested.
02:54He described the band he saw as being very Beatles-esque and it was like a drug and it
02:59was all he needed to hear to know he was going to pursue music.
03:04He ended up renting a guitar for a year and started teaching himself.
03:08He finally convinced his father to buy a supposedly horrible acoustic guitar and his love for
03:13music just expanded from there.
03:15Jim Johnston wanted to pursue music, but his father wasn't having it.
03:20His family moved to New York to have access to a lot of different opportunities.
03:24At the time, the chances of making a living in the music industry were slim, so he ended
03:28up working his way to become an architect.
03:30He even went as far as getting accepted into Harvard's School of Architecture, but he
03:34had a change of heart.
03:36His father wasn't exactly happy about it, but he couldn't stop his son's destiny.
03:42He fell into the trap of thinking he would work during the day and work on his music
03:45at night.
03:46Jim Johnston worked as a carpenter to support himself and still managed to rise the ranks
03:51of the music industry.
03:53He managed to get gigs with HBO, Showtime and other major broadcast networks and it
03:58took him to Connecticut.
03:59His favorite food at the time was sushi and there was only one place that served it, a
04:03Japanese restaurant.
04:05Sushi might be one of the most popular things to eat in the world today, but back then it
04:09was still pretty niche.
04:11Because of that, Jim Johnston ran into the same people every time and one guy asked him
04:16about his music career.
04:17That guy was WWE's art director back then, Brian Penry.
04:22Penry said he was putting together a video to show in a broadcast television convention
04:26and had no idea how to fit the music in, so it gave Jim Johnston his first unofficial
04:31assignment with WWE.
04:33Penry managed to convince Vince McMahon to give him a chance and Johnston and Vince hit
04:38it off right away.
04:40One of his first official assignments was WrestleMania 1, the high-pitched saxophone
04:44instrumental.
04:45Johnston said that when he heard that theme for the first time in an arena and heard people
04:49reacting to it, it was the closest he felt to the high that musicians feel when performing
04:54live on stage.
04:56Back then there was no entrance music for superstars.
04:58The only two examples off the top of our heads of wrestlers who had theme songs were the
05:03legendary Gorgeous George, who we covered in a different video, and Mildred Burke.
05:08Vince McMahon told his father before he purchased the WWE from him that he wanted to put entrance
05:12music in.
05:14His father, in a prediction that aged like milk, said that putting entrance music would
05:18kill the business.
05:19Initially neither Jim Johnston nor Vince McMahon had any concrete major plan to give every wrestler
05:25a theme song.
05:26It was a slow, organic process that began with songs for their broadcast TV shows and
05:31then for a couple of superstars.
05:34Once it started working, they began to slowly give theme songs to superstars, but at first
05:39only good guys were getting theme songs.
05:45This was the first time that Jim Johnston felt he needed to push back at Vince McMahon
05:49because he didn't agree with the idea that bad guys shouldn't have theme songs.
05:54Eventually his idea won over and even bad guys started to get cool entrance music.
05:59Believe it or not, Vince McMahon and Jim Johnston worked on a handshake agreement for the longest
06:04time.
06:05It wasn't until WWE went public in October 1999 that Jim Johnston got into a contract.
06:11Once the lawyers got involved, they were shocked to learn that the guy who created the best
06:15music WWE ever produced could just walk away and work for another company at any point.
06:21But the relationship that Vince McMahon and Jim Johnston shared was an interesting one.
06:26Johnston told Newsweek that his conversations with the most powerful man in wrestling history
06:30rarely had to do with music.
06:32More often than not, Vince McMahon would give him bullet points about a certain superstar
06:36and Johnston worked with what he was given.
06:38He once said that McMahon had a reputation for being a hard ass because he was rarely
06:42creatively surprised.
06:45Johnston was one of the few people who seemed to impress Vince on the regular.
06:49But make no mistake about it, when Vince didn't like what he heard, he would let Johnston
06:53know.
06:54It's quite incredible to read and listen to the thought process behind the music he
06:57made for the greatest legends.
06:59Let's take for example one of Jim Johnston's personal favorite works of his, Stone Cold
07:04Steve Austin's theme song.
07:11Stone Cold was always appreciative of his work and let Johnston know that he needed
07:14a song that let everyone know that chaos and disaster were coming.
07:19Johnston picked up his guitar and started strumming what became the riff to one of the
07:22greatest theme songs in wrestling history.
07:25He first had the idea of the intro starting with a car crash and then moved to the idea
07:29of glass shattering.
07:31When he found out that the noise of a glass shattering was too thin, he added the car
07:35crash to it.
07:37After taking just 20 minutes to make the song, he recorded the first version of it just 8
07:41hours later.
07:42He wasn't normally that quick with making music, but he knew it fit the character of
07:46a superstar who walked in, raised hell and left.
07:49It was meant to represent the anti-authority persona of Stone Cold Steve Austin.
07:54It was a lightning in a bottle type moment.
07:57On the opposite end, when he made Mr. McMahon's theme song, it was meant to represent the
08:01immovable authority of the man himself.
08:04The funny part about that is, is when he was making McMahon's theme song, he was actually
08:08annoyed with his boss about something at work.
08:11He thought to himself, quote, you've got no chance against this guy, end quote, the
08:15ultimate authority of the professional wrestling slash sports entertainment industry.
08:20He had already written the guitar riff for the song and found himself singing, no chance,
08:26no chance in hell, over it and that was what created another iconic theme.
08:36To Johnston, it wasn't a song about one man, it was a song about the man.
08:42The man who operates an entire industry and the people in it like a puppet master and
08:47creates a system that imprisons human beings.
08:50And to think that the freaking song was made about his own boss.
08:53In Johnston's own words, Vince McMahon let him take risks.
08:57To him, creating the theme of Degeneration X was a risk.
09:01It was a risk because it went against the grain of the time, which was a chaotic, earth
09:05shattering entrance.
09:07If you think of the DX theme song, you'll recall that it starts slow with a guitar groove
09:12and mild beats of the drum.
09:14The incredible singer Chris Warren would blurt phrases, you think you can tell us what to
09:19do, you think you can tell us what to wear, you think you're better, before it picks
09:25up.
09:30To Jim Johnston, the intro was meant to represent a confrontational characteristic that every
09:34member of DX shared.
09:36He even wrote down tons of phrases before it came down to, you think you can tell us
09:41what to do, and the ones that made the final cut.
09:45Even though the song has been compared to Rage Against the Machine, Johnston considers
09:48it to be more of a funk groove type of song, even though Rage considers themselves the
09:53renegades of funk.
09:55When it came to the Rocks theme song, Jim Johnston told Vice that his idea was to create
09:59an entrance that would make people scream about the Rock appearing in front of them.
10:04Johnston wasn't sure if he wanted to make the theme song rock, rap, or even orchestral,
10:09so he smashed everything together because in his own words, the Rock is his own genre.
10:18The Rock left a real impression on Johnston as a human being, and the guitar solo in his
10:22song was meant to represent his unshakable confidence and swagger.
10:27The Undertaker is one legend who has been vocal about the importance of entrance music.
10:32To him, it sets the table for what's about to happen in the ring.
10:36For the phenom, the sound of the gong meant it was go time.
10:44The thought process that went into this theme song is absolutely incredible.
10:50Johnston had the idea of a song that represented what you hear in funerals with church bells
10:54and organs.
10:55It was meant to convey emotions of tragedy and sadness.
10:59To Jim Johnston, the work of making music was as much of a psychological undertaking
11:04as it was a musical one.
11:06He used his childhood trauma of being a middle child in his family and always feeling invisible.
11:11Honing in on that, he made the song an extension of his personal struggles as well as the darkness
11:17of the Undertaker's character.
11:23According to Johnston, the Undertaker was always a character who made it okay to think
11:28about difficult subjects like death and afterlife.
11:32Jim Johnston told YouTuber Albert Janour that when you break it down, it begins like a nursery
11:36rhyme before adding the ominous effects of rain and thunder, all while the gong keeps
11:41going.
11:42The climax was directly adopted from a piano sonata named Pesante e Sostenuto, a simple
11:48track.
11:49But Johnston told Albert Janour that while the greatest melodies in history are simple,
11:53there's nothing more difficult to do than simple.
11:56The simplicity of it all turned the song into what it eventually became and played a big
12:00part in who The Undertaker eventually became.
12:03Can you imagine The Undertaker having the same level of impact without the aura and
12:07mysticism of his entrance theme?
12:10Johnston was gradually getting phased out in the 2010's but not before he created
12:15some absolute bangers.
12:22Randy Orton's theme song Voices was a collaboration between Jim Johnston and Rev Theory and as
12:27of this year, courtesy of Lion France, audiences are singing it and adding another layer of
12:32aura to Randy Orton.
12:38But in 2017, that story came to an end.
12:42Johnston admitted on the RRBG podcast a few years ago that to some degree, it was time
12:47for him to go, but that doesn't mean it didn't hurt.
12:51It felt like a divorce after being consumed by a three decade long relationship.
12:55Vince McMahon ended up calling him and letting him know that they weren't renewing his contract,
13:00putting an end to an iconic partnership.
13:03According to Johnston, he was a victim of backstage politics and an unnamed person worked
13:07for years to get him fired and finally succeeded.
13:10The pronounced difference between Jim Johnston and his successors was that he felt like the
13:15success of the superstars in WWE were in his hands.
13:19That's a massive responsibility and it reflected in the outcome of the music he produced.
13:24In the eyes of many, WWE's theme songs feel more generalized, more corporate and less
13:30authentic.
13:31It's hard to argue with anyone on that because there aren't many superstars with memorable
13:35theme songs anymore.
13:37Think of The Glass Shattering, The If You Smell, The Car Screech, The Gongs and the
13:43theme songs of the greatest legends in WWE history.
13:47Their theme songs were part of who they were, they're so timeless that even decades after
13:52they were created, they generate a reaction that gets people off their feet, still gets
13:56people excited and it plays a direct role in connecting superstars to fans.
14:01When Jim Johnston spoke to Conrad Thompson, he straight up said that modern wrestling
14:06themes don't generate any emotions.
14:09To him, music is about making people feel something.
14:26What he said summed it up best.
14:27The music of many superstars doesn't feel like it has anything to do with the character.
14:32Putting hard hitting drums doesn't make them feel badass.
14:35Once again, think of the greatest legends in WWE history from the 80s, 90s and 2000s.
14:42Their theme song perfectly fit their character, but that doesn't seem to be the case anymore.
14:47In a weird way, it kind of represents the climate of the real world.
14:51Things feel like they're getting increasingly corporatized, increasingly homogenous and
14:56lacking in character and depth.
14:58The entire premise behind professional wrestling is for it to be an escape from the real world.
15:03So when fans get frustrated at the lack of memorable theme songs, it's important to
15:07remember that things like these are in the back of their minds even if they don't realize
15:11it.
15:12But there's also the argument to be made that wrestling has always been a reflection
15:15of society at the time.
15:17It's hard not to feel for Jim Johnston when he gave his life and soul to WWE.
15:23He is without a doubt one of the most important non-wrestlers in WWE history.
15:28In cinema, some of the all time great directors had their fixed composers who they kept associating
15:32with throughout their career.
15:34Italy's Federico Fellini had Nino Rota, the man who went on to write the theme for
15:38The Godfather.
15:39Japan's Akira Kurosawa had Fumio Hayasaka, George Lucas had John Williams, Christopher
15:50Nolan had Hans Zimmer and the list goes on.
15:53To some it might be laughable to compare Jim Johnston to such musical greats, but he was
15:58to WWE what all those legendary composers were to the greatest directors.
16:03It could be argued that wrestling songs don't really work outside of wrestling, but does
16:07that even matter?
16:09It was largely because of this one man, Jim Johnston, that the greatest reactions in WWE
16:14history were produced.
16:16Hopefully one day his achievements will be recognized and celebrated in the WWE Hall
16:21of Fame.
16:22Until then, he's enjoyed nearly a decade of not having to work under pressure and deadlines
16:27and focus on music that he enjoys.
16:30Thank you, Jim Johnston.