Downstait - The Band Behind Entrance Themes For Cody Rhodes, The Miz, Dolph Ziggler & More!

On performing The Miz and Dolph Ziggler’s theme songs:

“So let's just start with the man himself, the Awesome man, The Miz, man. He came to play baby. He started off and he was on fire. He had that United States run and he really like we could have been dead in the water. I think right there and then if he fell flat on his face, which he did not by any means and I think he excelled within a year up to the top after he hit that US run. And then we went right to Dolph. We did I Am Perfection. And I guess there was a little bit of a kerfuffle backstage about you can't have perfection in your title, that's Mr. Perfect. So he had not listened to anything that Dolph had had for the six years that prior to that he had had that song, so we changed it to Here to Show the World. And then Alex Riley. So these were all real lumped in real quick, Alex Riley took off. After he broke away from Miz, say to my face, which we won a Slammy Award for. We still have not received our Slammy for it WWE, we want it.”

On moving to the independent scene:

“So that was the end of our WWE run in about 2015, 2016. There was a few more, can you do it? Will you do it? Are you the right fit? And it for one reason or another didn't work. And then we went over and just started doing independent stuff. And that's actually Cody, right when he broke away, he put out this Twitter thing. And we were kind of a sinking ship, to be honest and really kind of gave us a lifeline. I mean, we had some success, and we get a little bit of notoriety just from being involved with WWE, but we hadn't put an album out since 2013. And we weren't really thinking about writing. I'm an administrator at a school. Sean's a lawyer. And my brother runs a body shop And we got old and living in a van or on a tour bus is kind of tough on older guys, especially guys with families like my brother. So I just was on Twitter and I was in my feels a little bit. I'm like, Dude, we're not done yet. Like something's going on. We just got on SmackDown two weeks ago with the radio cover. Like if we did that in a bedroom, we didn't have any, like WWE didn't fly us out. We did that on our own. Like we could still do this. Cody put out a tweet saying what entrance music should I use on the Indies. Yeah. And he said something about Throne by Bring Me the Horizon. And I was wearing that album out at the time. I knew one by being such a big fan of his since he showed up with Bob Holly. Like I knew this dude's character, I'm a wrestling historian, I know what he wants to sing about. And I know what he's going through a little bit just because dirt sheets, sometimes they're right. But at the same time, like this dude should be getting a better opportunity. So we sent him a tweet just through whomever we had already worked for him. We said hey, man, can we give this song a shot? And we sent him a snippet of what we were thinking about and I sent him my words over in that hard times breathe better men it’s straight from his dad's promo. Yeah, like it was like how can I not without being like patronising the situation and being a dummy how can I just sell this character a little bit to the guy that is doing it? So Shawn and I sat down and went on a little bit of a write binger and set something back in within like four hours and he highlighted the lyrics that everybody's singing now, and it's just like, Okay, we still got it. We went and recorded and sent it back to him. He took it to Wrestle Kingdom to Battleground. What's that? That's the TNA one right? Slammiversary Slammiversary like he took it everywhere with him.”

On composing themes for AEW talent:

“[Cody Rhodes’ IMPACT debut] That was incredible. And they gave us enough confidence. It's like the old dog can still play with the young dogs. So we did that and then he started taking it everywhere with him and the song was catching on and just that underground little bubble people's like hey, man, this is a really good tune. It got the ball rolling enough. AEW, was starting kind of at the time. We did something for Britt, we do her song right now. Cody's brother, Goldust, which is my brother's favourite wrestler, Justin, who's also in the band. He asked us to do some for him which I think he could have died that day and been cool. Buddy Matthews we've done a couple for him. One has been put out and he used it and the other one that we have I still swears is like one of the best songs I've ever written but he did, what is in now? The House of Black And he's using their theme, but we have a banger for him right now.”

On the Cody Rhodes Woah: 

“So that's planned, by the way, us being as big of fans as we are. Smoke and Mirrors does have that woah in some form or fashion, we didn't do that on accident. That's a call back joke. Like it's all the way like let's bring this all the way together. For wrestling fans to be so easter egg hunting, like to catch on when it gets to WWE. It's like, it's so cool. And I guess I guess Kevin Dunn is a humongous fan of the tune. So he's put the emphasis on it.”

On a wrestler asking for Downstait to do their entrance music:

“It never gets old. I can tell you that. It's the coolest thing in the world, especially when like our guys come to us like Buddy is one of them, like Britt, you can see coming from a mile away. So when we got to do her song, I was like, oh, man, we're riding her coattails forever. We're super lucky with all these people that we ended up doing the music for that they are so good at their craft, that we just kind of, you know, ride in the wave for a while. Buddy, though, I thought he was so underutilised. And when we got when he reached out and said, Hey, you guys want to? I was like, yeah, do whatever you want. Let's go.”

On how song royalties work:

“So that's insider trading, and you'll never know. It just depends on the guy or the girl for the most part. We're also not the worst businessmen in the world, somebody is an investment. Like a you know, it's a sure thing that we got you. And I hate to even throw that out there. But like, sometimes people need stuff quickly. And if they need something so quickly, then you know, we're going to charge you know, need this by Monday, which is like the Alex Riley thing. Shawn and I were on our way to a vacation. And WWE called us at Friday. We flew out Saturday morning to California to record Say It To My Face. We sketched it out. Sunday night we recorded it, Monday morning on a red eye we got back home Monday night we were listening to Say It Io My Face on TV.”

On how it is decided to use a band instead of the in-house team:

“I would hope that the turnover isn't that great that he is so overwhelmed that he just needs to delegate or facilitate this stuff that way. But sometimes I think I want to give him all the credit like hey, these guys can nail this. And it felt like that after we had nailed those three specific to Dolph, Miz and Riley Yeah, he went kind of back to back to back with us on that with inside of like eight months, I think where he just was able to you guys let's let's try this out whenever he seemed deem fit like for us to do some form it was. It's weird, it's super weird, because not everybody wants a hard rock song which we're we're trying to break that mould as well.”

On Cody Rhodes providing help with music rights:

“So hearing it, so we, I don't want to give away too much. But we were aware that Kingdom was coming and we were in a little bit of a legal battle and Cody Rhodes is absolutely the f*cking man. We were on the phone with lawyers and agents and WWE’s lawyers and composers before, and we have been with them since 2009. And we all have regular jobs. And we just wanted our cut of the pie on this one. We know what happens when you, we’re not Joan Jett, we're not Living Colour, but like when you use a real song, they get paid, those artists get paid. It's not a part of WWE’s work. And this is a song that we wrote.”

On Cody Rhodes nearly having different entrance music:

“It was pretty close to it. And then Cody, we held our silence for a little bit and I'd said my piece and I'm my, my heart is in my throat and not ready to give up the song. You know, I've worked so hard on the song, we worked so hard on the song. And Cody just basically breaks the silence and he goes, Well, you don't get me without Kingdom on this conference call, all right! And he swore up and down right when he started using it that if I go back to WWE I am taking kingdom with me. And I mean, he's been nothing but truthful with us the whole time. But you never know when you know, when it comes down to the moment you never know what's going to happen. And about two weeks before we have this big make or break moment. It might have been two seconds of silence. It might not have been the 10 that's in my brain right now. It might have been 2 hours.”

On his Mount Rushmore of wrestling entrance themes:

“So Jeff Hardy at Armageddon, when he had the words over, it's No More Words, right? I love that tune, absolutely love that tune. It's the first time since I was young, that I popped when he won the WWE title so that song Specifically, I watched that whole write up to him winning the title and I was invested like I was 10 years old again. That works. Booker T's without a doubt might be the greatest ever. Ok, Kane’s always got me, the first one. So it’s toss up now between The Rock, and Stone Cold with the glass.”

What is Zach from Downstait is grateful for:

“Never quitting, family and the boys and the girls.”