WWE Hall of Famer “Stone Cold” Steve Austin recently appeared on Insight With Chris Van Vliet, where he discussed various topics, including Jim Johnston’s creation of his iconic WWE entrance music.
Austin said, “I remember when I was down in WCW, I had a pretty decent little entrance song. It was pretty rocking for as cocky as Stunning Steve was. Then when I came into WWE, as I was using the Million Dollar Dream as my finish, and I was a Million Dollar Champion, they had this dreamy slow music. I’m like, man, what the f*ck? How do you walk to the ring with any kind of swagger to this? I was lost. Finally, they want to redo my music, because I turned into Stone Cold Steve Austin, and I just hit Jim Johnston with, ‘Hey, man, I like Bulls on Parade from Rage Against the Machine.’ So if he listened to it once, twice, or didn’t listen to it, and he came up with what he came up with, and he put the siren in there and the glass breaking, which wasn’t part of that song. So I’ve always given him just the nth amount of credit, because, man, he made winners. And yeah, God dang if that ain’t one of the best entrance songs, or top three, I don’t know what is.”
On how it ended up working with Vince McMahon:
“I don’t remember. I just remember he was interviewing me one time. He was talking about whoever was the President at the time. But I said on the interview, I said, everybody knows you’re the boss, Vince. And I think maybe that was when he woke up and said, Hey, let’s do this. I don’t know. He was the mastermind. I don’t know what he’s doing now, but that was a feud that transcended the wrestling business. And even if you didn’t, even if you weren’t a wrestling fan, per se, you were interested in being entertained. So you put on to see what this motherf*cker from South Texas is terrorizing his boss from New York City. Of course, Vince is from North Carolina, but you know, he’s the guy with all the money, and here’s this guy that he’s trying to give a hard time to and make everything hard for him. He’s outsmarting him, and he’s kicking his ass. At some point in anybody’s life, they’d like to punch their boss in the mouth. When it was time for me to get mine in, I did. When it was time for Vince to get that heat back, he did, to keep feathering the storyline. So it was just, you know, master at creating a storyline and feuding with him as long as we did, and really, it never became boring.”
On how far Vince was willing to go for their storylines:
“I’ve always said that Vince will go to any length to further any angle. And obviously, considering himself, he wants to be the leader of the pack and the king of the mountain. So he’ll do anything, sacrificing himself as part of it. I loved it, we were the perfect rivals.”
On the controversy of Austin 3:16:
“I did, yeah. Religious people could consider it as blasphemy. I remember walking through airports, and I would get priests and stuff like that. You could see they were because they were wearing their stuff in the airport, wearing the gimmick, You never wore your gimmick. You don’t wear Austin 3:16 shirts. If anybody wore their T-shirt to the airport, dude, you’re a mark. You can wear the sh*t in the building. But anyway, so I would be signing autographs for preachers and stuff like that and the airports. I said, ‘Man, you ain’t mad about the Austin 3:16?’ [They said] ‘Oh no, Steve, it’s okay. But at the time, could it be construed as [controversial]? Yeah, but certainly it was by some.”
You can check out the complete podcast in the video below.
(H/T to 411Mania.com for transcribing the above quotes)
