AEW’s Mikey Rukus On How Music Is Handled For Talent, Which Theme Had the Shortest Notice

Mikey Rukus recently discussed his work as AEW’s music producer, which theme song had to be done on the shortest notice and more. Rukus spoke with Fightful for a new interview and you can see some highlights below:

On which theme was his biggest time cruch: “It would have to be the Elite Ghostbusters theme. We actually had an incident Friday night with Rampage. I was actually at the venue and I was leaving to go and change and grab some food. Everybody started texting me about Erick Redbeard. So I had happened to have my gear in the hotel, so I came back to the hotel and I was like, ‘I don’t have my guitar. It’s on the truck because we’re performing.’ So I put something together that didn’t have guitar in it, but it was kind of in the style that Redbeard would like. As I sent it up, Tony was like, ‘What about this one?’ I was like, ‘Okay.’ It is what it is. He was like, ‘We’ll use this one down the line.’ He’s like, ‘I promise. Erick’s such a great guy.’ I was like, ‘As long as it’s cleared.’ So we had the race against time to find out who it was that produced the track and then we got it cleared and had it for TV. That’s what happens sometimes. It’s like a cross-training thing. Sometimes you’ll have time, a day or two or maybe a week or so and there’s times where the call happens. I specifically bring my gear down and set it up in the hotel just in case.”

On how music is handled for talent: “It all depends on what their idea is for their entrance theme and what Tony has in mind. We all have a quick conversation. Tony’s a big proponent of having me involved in it from the jump and then we just kind of go from there. If we think it’s something that’s a little more envisioned for bringing some stuff from the outside, just take the steps necessary to make sure the tracks are cleared and doesn’t lock up YouTube and we don’t have issues with playing it on TV and stuff.”

On the original plan before the Elite Ghostbusters theme: “Originally, I had worked with Kenny the week prior and we were doing the Squid Games. I had taken what was the Squid Game theme and I changed that. Instead of using that, I used samples of their names and actually worked it into the song. He was really excited. We were all set to go. My truck was at the mechanic’s shop, 5:30 in the afternoon, I was picking up my truck from the shop, and Kenny texts me. He’s like, ‘How fast can you work?’ I was like, ‘Uh-oh.’ I’ve heard this before. I said, ‘What’s going on?’ He says, ‘They just axed the whole Squid Games thing, I’m so depressed. We gotta figure out something. We’re gonna do Ghostbusters.’ Immediately I was like, ‘I got it. I got you.’ I actually got stuck in traffic on the way home.”

“I was in traffic until about a quarter to 7:00—somewhere in there, 6:30, 7:00 o’clock—got upstairs and immediately just started making decisions on what I wanted to do,” he continued. “About twenty minutes after 7:00, I went to go mix down, my computer froze up. I had updated one of my plug-ins earlier in the day for whatever reason. Everything just froze on me. So it’s 7:20 before Dynamite and I had to reboot. I went back, lost about thirty minutes of progress. I had to go back and do it again, re-mix it. I delivered it to the truck at 8:03. Kenny had the track at 8:01, the truck had the track at 8:03. Kenny’s like, ‘I love you. I don’t know how you do it, but I love you.’ It was really cool. I love moments like that. Some people just freak out, but it allows me to have this hyperfocus. Everything else around me’s just blurred out. It’s like, decision, decision, decision, let’s finish.”