Jim Johnston Explains How He Got His Start Composing Music For WWE

Jim Johnston opens up about how he started composing music for WWE.

One of the biggest complaints wrestling fans have with today’s product is the lack of unique-sounding entrance music. Back in the day, a lot of the wrestlers had great themes for their characters. On the WWE side of things, Jim Johnston was responsible for this stuff until he was later replaced by CFO$. He started working for WWE in 1985, and produced countless theme songs during his 32-year tenure there.

Speaking on Ropes N Riffs recently, Johnston was asked how he started composing music for the promotion.

“I met a guy at a sushi bar, and this was back in the days when there were no sushi bars here, so it was just a Japanese restaurant… It was like going to your local bar where you saw the same six to ten people every time you went. One night he comes in and says, ‘Didn’t you say you write music? I have to put together a video for my boss and I know how to put together the visual, but I have no clue how to put together music.’ This was really early on in my career, so I basically half-assed lied and said, ‘Absolutely, I know how to do that.’

He was the art director for Vince [McMahon] at the time, and Vince had just bought the company from his dad. There was no music—and this was just music for a cable TV conference, not even for TV. So I composed something, played it for Vince, and Vince liked it. At that point, Vince was off to the races, so his first question was, ‘What else do you do?’ So we just kept doing different things, though at first it was all peripheral stuff like promos and packages rather than entrance themes.”

In another interview, Johnston said that he would love to create theme songs again, but he didn’t believe he would be asked by WWE. Fans can read his full comments here.

Special thanks to Ropes N Riffs for providing the quote(s).