Jim Johnston

A native of St. Louis, but raised in Connecticut, Johnston is a self taught musician and played in high school bands. But he didn't enjoy being on stage and gravitated to studio work. That led to scoring animation and industrial films, then promos for HBO and Showtime before meeting an art director with the WWF, who told him of a promo video that needed scoring.

Johnston and the former art director struck up a conversation one night when Johnston informed him of his background in music. A meeting with Vince McMahon was arranged. At the time, McMahon wasn't using any original themes, with the exception of a few composed by Jimmy Hart.

There have never been any official contracts between the two men - business has always been conducted with a handshake. Until around 1998, Johnston wasn't even an employee of the company but says he will work with Vince in some capacity for the rest of his life.

"Vince and I met and hit it off instantaneously and became as much friends as business associates."

Johnston is responsible for creating a mood and atmosphere, and to inspire and excite the Federation superstars.

Theme music for the wrestling broadcasts developed into musical clips to be played before and after commercial breaks, which in turn naturally evolved into writing theme songs for each of the federation's stable of stars. He estimates that he writes, records, performs and engineers up to 300 pieces of music annually, working alone in his private studio.

"Our music is really film scoring, like Star Wars - like the Darth Vader theme, the Luke Skywalker theme. And every time that music comes on, you have to feel the emotion of that character. That’s my goal."

It can be a hectic experience. Whereas he usually has about one week to come up with a piece of music, he can sometimes get a call in the morning for a work that is needed the same day! He may set up a 4 p.m. recording session when he doesn't yet know what will be performed. He may compose an abbreviated version of a song and then expand on it the following week.

Federation officials (Vince McMahon or someone else) will describe to him a new or incoming character, and Johnston will visualize the persona and try to compose a piece of music that reflects it.

"I get relatively little input. I ask their size. That's important. You have got to establish a basic tempo. Like the Big Show is a large, slow-moving guy, so you need a heavier, slow-moving piece of music. Whereas a wiry guy implies something at a more frenetic tempo and pace and sound.

Sometimes I get lucky and get it right off the bat - sometimes I tweak it a bit."

The wrestlers don't sing their own tracks as a rule, however their characters inspire Johnston.

"The wrestlers have input to the degree that I want to make them happy. I want to write a piece of music that will pump them up, make them feel good. And

it will put them in the mood of their character, like a soundtrack. I consider what I do like a live soundtrack," he says.

With Stone Cold, it is glass breaking and you get that feeling: 'Here comes trouble. Who knows what is going to happen now.' It's grabbing them emotionally, immediately, taking them to new places"

Johnston said the process by which he composes is different every time. He's known to sit and play an instrument until he finds a beat to his liking (he plays everything except the stringed instruments, although he did buy a violin to try his hand at those).

"When something's right it's like the lights go off. It's like some weird recipe - you don't know how long it needs to cook, but you know when it's done."

Once he comes up with the beat, the song needs to be fleshed out - turned into an orchestrated, recorded theme. However, deadlines are so tight for composing theme songs for the wrestlers that Johnston says he sometimes has to complete the job in a single day!

But it's only been for the past few years, really beginning with the D-Generation X theme, that lyrics have been creeping into the theme music.

"I'm liking working with songs more and more and you can get more out the character with lyrics."

Instead of writing general lyrics, Johnston will concentrate on a specific aspect of that character. Good themes, like Chris Jericho's, can "tell a story that we don't even know is being told."

The idea behind Jericho's theme came from the 1934 Frank Capra film classic "It Happened One Night." It also has a Biblical reference - the idea of breaking down the walls. The theme was completed in two days.

Kane's theme, another that Johnston particular enjoys, has a hip-hop rhythm, but there's also a "little sweet child-like piano part" that exemplifies great tragedy and suffering.

A major challenge to writing theme songs is making sure they're the type of music that fans can hear over and over without tiring of them. That is the reason why popular Top 40-type songs are not used as themes.

"Hit songs and most stuff that's on albums have a very limited life span. "They're for right now."

Johnston doesn't really understand the difference between a song that grows old and one that stays fresh over time; he just knows. By the time a theme song is complete, he's heard it several times.

At the same time, many songs such as those for D-Generation X, X-Pac and Chris Jericho, are just plain cool enough that fans would request them and radio stations would play them. Johnston says that one day the Federation will attempt to get air play for its themes - it just hasn't happened yet.

What's interesting about a composer (and Johnston says he's heard this from others), is that once a piece of music is completed "it disappears from you." When it plays as the superstars emerge from the backstage area, it sounds just like any other song to Johnston. He doesn't get any extra feeling of pride because he composed it.

"There's no sense of, 'Wow, I did a good job with that'. There's absolutely no ego, no ownership involved."

The notion of packaging the music into CDs and selling it to the audience came by popular demand, he says.

"The fans really wanted to get their hands on it ... It finally became the obvious thing to do: We gotta release this stuff."

Jim Johnston has written hundreds of pieces of music for the Federation over the years. The first three volumes of 'WWF The Music', which Johnston estimates have sold between three and four million copies, were credited as "various artists" projects.

If you ask a typical fan of the WWF, "Do you know who Jim Johnston is?" the answer is more likely to be 'No' then anything else. However, volume 4 & 5 acknowledges that these CD's are Johnston's show. His name appears on the spine of the discs and it's his name that shows up on the charts.

"That's a big switch and a positive one. It was kind of a mutual feeling like, hey ... this album is more you than 99% of the albums on the Billboard charts. I write it all, produce it all. I play all the instruments. I engineer it. So it was like, okay. Let's get real."

Clearly, Johnston has a lot on his plate. He has been responsible for changing the feel and scope of the sounds of the Federation - Moving away from the 'wrasslin' sound of the 1980’s Hulk Hogan to more of a fusion of hard rock, heavy metal and rap.

From turning out a variety of music each week to creating and producing platinum-worthy songs, Johnston has created a profound impact on the Federation’s talent, their characters and their audience.

"It just so happens this is the best composing job in the universe. I am given essentially total freedom. I am trusted, which is wonderful."