Jim Johnston Calls WWE Superstar Input On Music Production 'A Nightmare'
For nearly three decades, Jim Johnston served as the music composer for WWE. He produced the entrance music for every wrestler during his time, amassing a catalog of over 10,000. Johnston is the man behind some of wrestling's legendary theme songs such as "Stone Cold" Steve Austin, The Rock, the Undertaker, Triple H, and more.
In an interview on the RRGB podcast, Johnston went on to talk about his experiences with working for Vince McMahon and co. While he enjoyed his time there, he revealed what part of his job he found to be problematic.
"Honestly, it was generally a complete nightmare if talent got big enough to have the clout to say to Vince or Kevin Dunn, the executive producer, that say 'Hey I want to sit with Jim and talk about music.' The general difficulty there was they would want music that they like to listen to in their car or work out to in the gym, and I would be in the position of saying 'But that's not your character.' Do you think that Harrison Ford pushes to have the music he listens to in his car as the score to his next movie? It just doesn't work like that."
WWE Star Had Major Say in Music
Triple H had many themes throughout his WWE career. There was "Blue Blood" when he was Hunter Hearst Helmsley, "Are You Ready" as part of D-Generation-X, "The Game," and "King of Kings" — all of which Jim Johnston produced. The former composer talked about how much involvement The Game had in his music.
"Triple H was very involved because he was a big star, but also even more involved when he became involved with Stephanie and ended up getting married and you know then became really kinda up the corporate ladder. So he had an unusual amount of say in his music. But I would say overall he was, even though he could have been more forward with me, I would say overall he was pretty respectful of my turf and pretty much let me come up with stuff."
Johnston's work in WWE is impressive given that he's never been a fan of pro-wrestling. Ultimately, Johnston was fired by WWE in 2017 as they were heading in a new direction with their music. def rebel currently serves as the company's in-house music team.