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Mikey Rukus On Creating Brodie Lee Tribute Track For AEW Symphony Series, Dream Collaborations

December 9, 2022 | Posted by Jeremy Thomas
Brodie Lee Being the Elite Image Credit: AEW

AEW music producer Mikey Rukus recently talked about his work on the new AEW: Symphony Series II album including his Brodie Lee tribute track, as well as some dream collaborators and more. Rukus spoke with PWInsider and you can check out some highlights below:

On his favorite live music moment in AEW so far: “Sure, so they’re, they’re always going to be I have a laundry list of them. But the ones that stand out the most by far number one for me would be Sting. I remember being a kid at the Richmond Coliseum and seeing Sting wrestle Ric Flair. And it was their their final, their final house show match prior to the first Class of Champions, seeing him as a kid and then being able to create that theme for him to debut in AEW, that is like the the top part for me and then of course, being a live performer and having the opportunity to perform the Lucha Brothers theme at All Out 2021. That was an amazing moment as well. Being able to collaborate with Alex and Sonny Kiss who did the choreography and the Lucha Brothers and even Jose had helped at that point to try to mitigate some of the translation. I mean, I’m Puerto Rican but I don’t speak Spanish. I grew up in Virginia. So Jose was there to kind of help facilitate with that as well. Just an amazing moment overall. And I was actually in the building when, when Adam Cole debuted, you know, just seeing those moments for me are really special. And you always look to the next one and how can you create these moments? But what I’ve learned is you can’t really force, you can’t force those moments, those moments, kind of birth themselves out of the energy and there has to be the right talent. It has to be the right booking. It has to be the right moment. It has to be the right music and all of it kind of plays into each other and, you know, it’s one of those moments that you just, you don’t know how they’re gonna go but when they do go, they hit you right in your soul and they stay there. ”

On his dream collaborations: “I have a few. I would love to work with Tom Holkenborg, Junkie XL, most notably for his score for the Mad Max Fury Road and he just recently scored Sonic Two. I love his orchestral and film, film interpretation, film score interpretation that he puts out. I had a chance to meet with some of his management team last year and they said that he very much took the same road that I did. He was a club DJ, very well known Club DJ, just kind of transitioned into film. He built it up on the side and transition fully and does all of his own stuff, matches all of his own music. I would love to be able to work with him on AEW music in the future. Corey Taylor is another one, not just for AEW, music but even, you know I’m actually in the throes of planning a second solo album, probably in 2023. I would love to work with him on something like that. And most notably AEW music, so those are my two. Dave Grohl would be another one. So those are my big influences in terms of songwriting. I would love to work with all three or one of the three, draw a number, draw a hat, pick three cups with the name underneath, whoever – I would love it.”

On working on the Brodie Lee tribute track on the album: “First of all, it’s an incredibly high honor. So when people experience loss, they act in a certain way, they process it a certain way. Even from an early age, I had always turned to music not just to talk to myself, but to speak to others who were mourning or hurting or wanting to celebrate and remember somebody. My first foray into that…I was in high school. My senior year of high school we had two very good friends of our group that were killed in a car accident right after school, they actually collided with a school bus. They lost their lives and the entire school was… it was a rough time. And all I knew to do was to play music. And we had actually had an assembly where it was like a Christmas assembly and you know, the bands were doing like the musical pieces and they gave me the floor to actually play. So I played a piece and it was… I want to say it was Thunder March from Marty Friedman. But it was a very stripped down version of that song and that was just kind of like a dedication for them and just feeling the way I felt after I played it. That’s something that I’ve always turned to because it’s kind of how I process my grief. I work from home, my home office so I don’t get to see the team a lot. The initial tribute that I wrote was sort of the same way, it was like, it was a spin off of the Exalted One theme, and this time around when we told the story of the Dark Order like how do you not put that in there but at the same time, you know, we’re a year and a half removed, going on two years removed from the passing of Brodie Lee. And we look back and we smile. We look back and you know it still hurts that he’s not here but you can take that and say listen, the impact that he made on the people that he was around, and I had only met him a couple of times, but the impact that he made on the people that knew him. It’s very important to immortalize that and really just and let people know like Hey, he is a staple within the lives of so many. So and I wanted to go above and beyond this time as opposed to just having a musical piece. So I got with my orchestration editor Laura Moore, and she rounded up the Cantata Academy Chorale in Detroit, Michigan and we had a 40 piece chamber choir actually record the finale for the end of that song. So very moving, very intense. It meant a lot to be able to get that out and just put something on the chapter in the story arc, the Dark Order.”

On why fans should check out AEW Symphony Series Two: “It’s just such an amazing accomplishment to be able to do something different within the realm of wrestling music. So, you know, aside from just storytelling, I want wrestling fans to be proud of their music. So even though we all love wrestling music even as kids, you know, there have been times where I would pull up at a light and somebody’s listening to a wrestling theme and they’ve got a blasting but when somebody pulls up, they immediately turn it down because they don’t want people to kind of look at it because they’re listening to wrestling music. I want to be able to create music that not only tells stories but reaches outside of the bubble and allows wrestling fans to be proud of the music that they’re listening to. That’s why we have you know, we ended up in the top of so many Spotify wraps this year, and things like that. Those things are important to me, to make sure that not only are we telling those stories, and not only that people are enjoying it, but we want them to be proud of the music that they support. So definitely check out Series Two AEW Symphony to listen to the different interpretations of your favorite AEW themes. And always feel free to drop a suggestion for me as sort of what you’d like to hear in the future because I’m always listening. I’m always looking. I’m always trying to figure out different ways to be innovative and stay ahead of the curve and just create more content for our fans to consume and really draw a deeper connection to AEW.”