CHIKARA musical director Kenny Pickett recently spoke out for a new interview. Check out some highlights below and the audio:
On writing Brian Danielson’s ROH theme song: “Right after high school a friend of mine, who went to high school with me, was a referee in Ring of Honor. You can actually see his shoulder in the movie The Wrestler but you can’t see any more of him. We knew each other from high school, I was in bands after I had grown out of just playing guitar by myself. He knew that I was a music guy and [ROH] needed original songs. They couldn’t use this licensed music anymore because they were doing TV stuff. So, they needed a knock off version of Europe’s “The Final Countdown” for a young wrestler by the name of Brian Danielson. That was my first freelance music writing gig was writing his theme song which I called “The Ultimate Countdown.” I bet if you look hard enough on the internet you can find it somewhere.”
On how he started working for CHIKARA Pro: “It was a few years ago. Maybe 2009-2010? I had seen some CHIKARA stuff just on-line and I thought it was great. I went to King of Trios one day, whatever year that was, let’s just say it was 2010. I loved it. Honestly, what I did is I went home, went on their website, went to their contact page and emailed them. I was like, ‘Hey, I’m this guy, I went to Berkley, I know how to play music, I’ve written a couple songs for Ring of Honor, I was wondering if you guys need original music. I will write it for you.’ Then, Quackenbush emailed me back and was like, ‘The sounds great. Why don’t you write a song for Los Ice Creams? Just to see if you can get what we want to do.’ I wrote a little ice cream truck jingle for them and they were like, ‘Yes, exactly. You’re the guy.’”
On which wrestling theme songs he hates: “Oh, there are so many! Cesaro’s theme song is the worst theme song of them all. I hate that they always add sirens to everything. It’s the worst. Wade Barrett has had like ten terrible theme songs so far.”
