Composer Jim Johnston is best known for his work with WWE, though he often doesn’t get enough credit from his former company. He produced several legendary WWE entrance themesincluding The Brood theme “Here Comes the Money” for Shane McMahon, the iconic entrance of “Stone Cold” Steve Austin and much, much more. Johnston appeared on Ropes N Riffs, where he discussed how he got into the pro wrestling business.
He recalled meeting Vince McMahon’s artistic director at a Japanese restaurant near his home. He said you would always see the same handful of people in the place and they were friendly and one day the boy asked him for help.
“He came one night and said: “You don’t say you write music? I need to put together a video for my boss. I know how to put together a visual, but I have no idea how to put together music,” Johnston explained. “This was really early in my career, so I’m basically half-** lying. “Absolutely, I know how to do that.” He was Vince’s art director at the time. Vince had just bought the company from his father. There was no music… It wasn’t even for the TV. So that’s how I got into it. I invented something. The director asked me to come to the meeting and play it for Vince, which I did, and Vince loved it.”
Johnston said McMahon’s first question was “what else do you do?” The composer went on to work for the then-WWF, a relationship that would last more than 32 years until Johnston’s r.resigned from the company in November 2017.
Before symbolic themes
Johnston revealed on “Ropes N Riffs” that he wasn’t originally hired to make iconic theme songs for wrestlers. He said he initially started doing “fringe stuff” in the WWF. He explained that there was no specific conversation or meeting where he was told that the stars needed login themes.
“The most likely scenario was that I wrote a promo for something and Vince or someone in the truck played it as someone’s entrance number and it worked,” Johnston said. “After that, for a long time, only (the children’s faces) got music. Heels didn’t get music. It was like an iron rule. Which, I must say, I’ve been fighting for a long time. My argument was: Darth Vader. ‘Jaws.’ That’s a powerful thing, bad guys scoring.”
For the longest time, he said, the heels were getting toilet-flushing sounds or things that weren’t very musical to begin with. As the business continued to grow in the music department, he preferred to create songs for the heels and called the babyface themes “more swaggering” and were all very similar in content.
“Look how great I am. I’m the most beautiful thing ever and I’m stronger than anyone,” she said. “It’s hard to keep making things up to make a relatively shallow point.”
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