TNA World Champion Joe Hendry appeared on The Ariel Helwani Show to discuss various topics, including how his hit theme music was put together.
Hendry said, โThe song is five years old. I had it in Ring of Honor, and I remember not being over in Ring of Honor, but the song was super over. No matter what we were doing, they always found a spot for me on the card because they wanted to play the song. It did help me learn and get better. The song was always popular. It was when I got to TNA that we fully developed the character and the turn and all these little elements. They say the difference between a good idea and a great idea is the details. If you look at the Ring of Honor video I had and the TNA entrance, it is the exact same song, there is no audible difference, but the video is โthatโs me.’ Coming up with the song, I decided that I wanted something more energy than I had before. My favorite theme is The Rockโs 2003 Hollywood Rock theme. I also wanted something upbeat because I wanted the audience to interact. โHow can they interact when they are standing together? They can clap. They can wave their hands.โ I was thinking of all the ways the audience can interact when they are seated or standing. I was like, โIโll have a section where I tell the audience what to do.โ I show them in the video that you have to clap. Pop music, for me, the sweet spot is 120 beats per minute. Youโll find that is a common thread for a lot of big pop songs. Queen talked about when they were doing โWe Will Rock You,โ they found what they felt was the perfect BPM to get people to do the โstomp, stomp, clap.โ The first part is very pop and the latter part is very reminiscent of Hollywood Rockโs theme and itโs to the BPM Queen were talking about. I put that together and recorded it at my friendโs house, and we got it done fairly fast. I took two and a half weeks to write it, but we might have recorded it in one day.โ
You can check out the complete podcast in the video below.
(H/T to Fightful for transcribing the above quotes)