AEW music producer Mikey Rukus spoke with Jack Farmer of AfterBuzz TV for a new interview discussing his work for the company. The show sent out some highlights that you can check out below, along with the full video:
On how he got started making themes:
“I was rooted in the mixed martial arts industry. So I started with fighters on the regional level and the local level and said ‘I’m going to make a custom song for you.’ And within a year I had my music being played in the UFC. I had UFC fighters coming to me asking for custom music and I’ve always wanted to go into the wrestling field but at the time I was just so enamored with the realism and the, the actual warfare hand to hand combat that was mixed martial arts.”
On how he finally connected with AEW:
“I continued to put feelers out there and then finally I just, I tweeted out I said, ‘I am your guy.’ I said, I’ve never been one to kind of stand back and be quiet. I’ve always gone after what I felt like I deserved and I what I felt like I was ready to work for and uh, the midst of that I had somebody contact me and say ‘Hey, this is the person you want to get in touch with.’ and that person’s number that was given to me was QT Marshall.”
On how he became All Elite:
“We began to kind of talk back and forth and originally they needed one song for Double or Nothing 2019 and then they needed five and then it was ‘What would you charge for twenty?’ so I said ‘Well look, you could pay me twenty, you could pay me for twenty, or I’ll just work here forever, for this.” And I’m, I’m paraphrasing of course, but then, a couple of weeks later I got the phone call and they said “We want to bring you on.”
On how far in advance he knows about new debuting stars:
“Usually when it comes to talent that’s on the way, um, I don’t, I don’t really even give a thought to rumors or anything like that. When I get the call, I get the call. Sometimes I get the call, like, the day before. Um, I’ll give you an example. I think the longest, the longest time I’ve had to prepare for a talent coming in was Jake Roberts and that was maybe, er, no, Jake Roberts was two days. Jeff Cobb was about a week, and we ended up needing it earlier than we thought we were going to need it.
