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Former WWE music producer Jim Johnston recently spoke with Chris Van Vliet on a number of topics, including not being inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame, his thoughts on current theme songs, AEW never reaching out to him, and much more.
Chris Van Vliet sent the following quotes from the interview.
On a possible Hall of Fame induction:
Did AEW ever contact him?
His opinion of the current music in WWE and AEW:
Jim’s handshake deal while in WWE:
“For the first 15 years, maybe longer, Vince and I just had a handshake agreement. I wasn’t an employee. It wasn’t like he didn’t want me as an employee or I didn’t want to be, it’s just we were fine with the way things were. It wasn’t until the company went public, and it was bring on the lawyers. They come in and do risk assessments. They are like this guy can just walk out and work for the NFL tomorrow, that wouldn’t be a good thing. So then I got a contract and became an employee. In my admiration for Vince, I think we would have worked until my last day with a handshake and both be perfectly happy.”
On the process of writing a new theme:
“I never really got a whole lot of information. If I could see any video, that helped tremendously. Where I start, I want to know a basic tempo and vibe. If it’s a giant guy, it’s going to be a slower theme. The tempo reflects he’s a big guy. The guys that are smaller, you want to reflect the energy. You start there and I just try to find something that resonates. I just start playing stuff and something will make me go that’s it.”
The final theme song he wrote for WWE and the personal meaning behind it:
“I wrote quite a few things, but they weren’t being used because I was being politically squashed. It was “End of Days” for Baron Corbin. Which was very apropos, if you look at the lyrics, there’s always something personal to the themes. A lot of the times it’s very personal. Baron’s was purely an epic I’m bringing end of days on you, it’s very biographical. Also I’m talking about the end is coming, I’m bowing out. The big goodbye was my end of days. There’s a lot of stuff in there, anger and disappointment. But that happened a lot. I wrote “No Chance In Hell” when I was really angry with Vince. It was a literal telling of what I saw, you have no chance against this guy. He doesn’t play by the rules.”