Story of the Year guitarist and backing vocalist Phil Sneed has recalled how the band ended up recording Christian’s popular WWE entrance theme despite initially having no idea who the wrestling star was.
When Christian returned to WWE in 2009, he began using a new version of “Just Close Your Eyes.” The theme had originally been recorded by Waterproof Blonde in 2004 before Story of the Year provided its own version five years later.
During an appearance on The Rizzuto Show alongside special guest Joe Hendry, Sneed revealed that WWE approached the band while they were touring and asked them to quickly record the song.
“When we did the WWE thing, dude, the crazy thing is, they called us. The office called us and said, ‘Hey, there’s a song. Can you record it real quick for a WWE guy?’
And we said, ‘Yeah, yeah. You know, which one?’
And at the time, we were touring. I didn’t know anything about the WWE at the time, and they go, ‘Oh, it’s a guy named Christian,’ which we had never heard of.
And suddenly, we record this thing. They gave us a thousand bucks, and we’re like, ‘Okay, you know, we’ll just do it at our buddy’s studio.’
We did the thing, we passed it on, and all of a sudden, our numbers are, like, jumping everywhere, and we had no idea.
And then wrestling fans are like, ‘Dude, this is one of the coolest intro musics ever, and Christian’s about to take the belt,’ and we’re like, ‘Oh my God, this guy’s good???’”
Story of the Year’s version of “Just Close Your Eyes” went on to become closely associated with Christian throughout the remainder of his WWE career, with the song accompanying him during some of the biggest moments of his run with the company.
