Jamie Iovine On Interscope Records Nearly Buying ECW, Is Eminem A Wrestling Fan?
On a recent episode of The Wrestling Inc. Daily podcast, Wrestling Inc. Managing Editor Nick Hausman sat down with NTWRK co-founder Jamie Iovine where they discussed Iovine's postponed Prochella show. Iovine, also the son of Interscope Records co-founder Jimmy Iovine discussed being around the musicians that had a hand in the Attitude Era.
"During a period of time, my dad's label actually had a licensing deal with the WWE, and we licensed a lot of the music," Jamie noted. "For instance, when Edge did 'Never Gonna Stop' by Rob Zombie, we let Interscope license that. When 'Beautiful People' was the theme song for SmackDown, we licensed that as well, and 'Rollin' for The Undertaker. I wouldn't take that much credit, but I was there for a lot of it. My old man would bring me in to consult because he didn't really know much about the current state of the Attitude Era and stuff. He knew the old school stuff. 'Is this Edge guy cool? The Undertaker, I thought he was dead. He's riding a motorcycle now?'"
Iovine also touched on Paul Heyman recently revealing that Interscope was on the list of buying ECW. He noted that he was only a teenager back then, but of course, the deal did not go through and WWE eventually bought ECW.
There's also that whole thing where Paul Heyman revealed in an interview, of course, I'll leave it to him to reveal because we didn't say much, until he talked about it, that Interscope was one of the lists of people who was interested in buying ECW before it went out of business," Iovine said. I met Paul Heyman the first time, God, I had to have been 15 – 16 years old back when ECW was starting, right after the TNN deal went through, and they were needing money.
"And my old man was one of the people interested. It didn't end up happening because it just didn't seem like it was going to work out, and WWE had a better offer. [Hausman jokes that Iovine could have been Tony Khan right now] I would like to be. Tony is someone that I would love to aspire to be in terms of having your cake and eating it too."
Hausman asked if Iovine ever had someone in the music industry that he talked wrestling with, and he said lead vocalist of Limp Bizkit Fred Durst is someone that he remains close with. He also praised Snoop Dogg and everything that he's doing now including his work on the Mike Tyson and Roy Jones Jr. exhibition.
"I became good friends with Fred Durst throughout those years. We're still good friends today," Iovine stated. "We hung out a lot. Fred's a great guy. I was really really hoping, there was that rumor that, not the most recent WrestleMania, but the year before that, there was the rumor that Taker was going to have one more American Badass appearance. Him (Durst) or Kid Rock would have played him to the ring. I thought that was going to happen. It didn't, but he was the one I really hung out with.
"I'm not as close with Fred as I am with Snoop, but Snoop is a family friend as well. He's heavily involved in the wrestling scene as you know. It only took them 30 years, 25 or however long it's been since Doggy Style came out. People are starting to realize now that he's that guy. He can do it all. He's got a great outlook on life. How could you not want to just spend hours listening to probably one of the most Zen, happy people on the planet?"
Eminem was brought up, and Iovine revealed some details about Eminem's personality most notably that he is a lot more shy than most fans would presume. He also noted that Eminem is also a big fan of comic books.
"Eminem's a funny guy," Iovine said. "Eminem is first off, incredibly gifted [and] incredibly talented, but much more of a nerd than a lot of people would think. First off, loves comics, reads them all the time, and if you listen to a lot of his songs, he has a lot of references in there as well. He's not current in the product at all. They have licensed him a lot.
"I remember when I was with the company, there was a package that was made for John Cena – Bray Wyatt match at WrestleMania 30. And it was to an Eminem song, and so he's familiar with it, but he's not as deep. And he's also one of the more quiet people that you'll ever meet in a person in a one-on-one thing. That's why he doesn't do a lot of interviews is because he's very soft spoken. When you meet him, you're expecting mass chainsaw guy, and he's not.
"He's very reserved, very quiet, very shy is a word I would use, which really surprised me the first time I got to speak with him. You can tell there's a lot going on behind the eyes. There's a lot of thinking and analyzing, and I think the fact that he's sober now really has opened him up to a lot more than just hip hop. He's interested in a lot more things now. I wouldn't be surprised if we see him be in a lot more movies going forward."
You can follow Jamie on Twitter @Jamie_iovine. Jamie's full interview aired as part of a recent episode of our podcast, The Wrestling Inc. Daily. Subscribe to get the latest episodes as soon as it's released Monday – Friday afternoon by clicking here.