Joe Hendry has revealed that his upcoming debut album, Beyond Belief, came together by accident after he mistakenly believed he was being called up from NXT to SmackDown.
Speaking on Insight with Chris Van Vliet, Hendry explained that the project began following a one-off musical performance during his time with NXT. “So the album kind of came together by accident. So there was a period of time where I was on NXT, and I thought I was getting called up to SmackDown. So I went up to it, but I didn’t know,” Hendry said. “I remember it was when I did the song at Christmas about The Miz, and I went up to SmackDown. I remember Becky Lynch asked me, she says, ‘Are you up now?’ I was like, ‘Think so.’ And it turns out I wasn’t, but I thought I was at that time.”
That performance caught the attention of Neil Lawi, WWE’s Head of Music, who approached Hendry about releasing the audio. The idea soon expanded from a single release into an EP before eventually becoming a full album. “And he was like, ‘Hey, what if we did an EP?’ And then I was like, well, actually, the same week I’d done a song for NXT, so I was like, there’s two. And I was like, yeah, there’s a couple other songs as well, and he was like, ‘Can you do one more?’ And then I remember, again, I thought I was going up to SmackDown, so I did a song called, you know, Going Up to SmackDown. So I made that one, and we got about four or five songs, and we both thought, you know what, we’re almost there. Let’s just do an album. And so I wrote 10 tracks in, it was either three or four days.”
Hendry ultimately didn’t land on SmackDown, instead becoming a member of the Raw roster.
Despite the album originating from songs connected to his WWE appearances, Hendry said most of Beyond Belief consists of new material. His experience performing on live television also helped him work quickly once it was time to record. “We did all the main vocal tracks for the entire album in five hours. Five hours for the whole thing,” Hendry said. “So that’s not just the main tracks, but it’s the doubles as well.”
Hendry also set up equipment at home matching WWE Music’s studio, allowing him to record additional guitar and keyboard parts during the mixing process.
He explained that his songwriting process typically begins with finding a hook, an approach he developed while learning guitar alongside Weezer records.
While there are currently no plans for a tour, Hendry said he would like the opportunity to perform the album live.
Beyond Belief is scheduled to be released on October 5.
