Jim Johnston Details Creative Process For Composing WWE Theme Music

Jim Johnston's work on theme music during WWE's Attitude and Ruthless Aggression Eras is often credited for helping shape and present the pro wrestlers in ways themes are often failing to today. During an interview with "The False Face," Johnston went into exhaustive detail about the process behind his approach to wrestler themes.

"I was told tidbits, and I truly mean tidbits, about the person's vibe or character," he claimed, adding that he was then given free-reign to develop a theme for the wrestler thereafter. Johnston then confirmed that sometimes he'd been given as little as 90 minutes to put a theme together.

While that was an extreme case, Johnston claims he'd often get very short notice based on how Vince McMahon wrote shows. "New people would be introduced suddenly, someone may change from a [babyface] to a heel, maybe two guys are suddenly a tag team because of the story change, so it's anything from a last minute 'Oh, can you take these two guy's theme and combine them into a theme?' And sometimes it's a new guy and 'we need something.'"

At one time, Johnston – like most of the WWE staff – traveled the road with the wrestlers, but he quickly got McMahon to turn this around for him. "I remember saying to Vince, like: 'Why exactly am I on the road? Shouldn't I be in the studio writing music?'" he recalled. "Early on it was good, because I wasn't a wrestling fan, so it was probably good for me to get immersed in how the business worked and spend a little time, not so much talking with the guys as much as just being around the guys."

Johnston further recalled conversations he had with his then-boss, Kevin Dunn, who always urged him to actively watch WWE shows. "I just resisted probably, first and foremost, because I'm not a wrestling fan; I didn't really want to watch the programs," he admitted. "But, I think, it was the  -curiously – one of the most valuable things is my separation from it." He further made the case that composer and conductor John Williams likely never needed to study aliens to come up with a score for "ET: The Extraterrestrial" or similarly study the ocean to come up with a theme for "Jaws."

"It's being able to have an emotional reaction yourself to the material you're writing," Johnston added. "That was valuable to me. To see a new guy and to approach him as a new guy, and how am I going to paint this guy emotionally? Because I always approached it as nothing but a movie score to these individual guys. Like, each of these guys is their own little film."

If you use any quotes from this article, please credit "The False Face" and provide a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.