The following are highlights from a recent interview with TNA Wrestling tag-team Bad Influence:
On their favorite TNA theme songs of all-time …
Kazarian: “Currently, our song is my favorite because Chris Daniels and I had a lot of input on that. We knew exactly the feel of the song, we knew exactly the rhythm. We knew exactly, exactly what we wanted and Dale OIiver was gracious enough to really hear us out. He’d give us something and we wanted a couple things changed and he changed them for us and the finished product really, really suits our characters. Over the years, there’s been many, many songs that have been either mocked or sung in the locker room or just the rhythm of it, sung along. There’s been some pretty memorable ones like Abyss’s famous one. There’s been so many ones that have stuck with us over the years.”
Daniels: “Yeah, I’m definitely a big fan of our stuff. I’ve been fortunate enough, not just with the current one that I have, but the last two themes that I had with Dale, I talked it out with him and sort of figured out what I wanted to do. The one I had before the one Frankie and I use now, I actually hummed the bars. It was a song that I had sort of come up with myself. I had sort of a theme that I wanted, so I basically called Dale up and hummed the bars over the phone and he played it on his guitar and that ended up being my theme song for a very long time. As far as other people’s stuff, AJ Style’s music has been pretty good as far as sticking with his character. And I was a big fan of D’Angelo Dinero’s music when he had it. I thought it fit his character and it certainly fit his entrance. Also, another one that sticks out, it’s one of those songs that gets an immediate reaction is the former Beautiful Peoples’s/ Velvet Sky’s music. When that hits, people know who’s coming. I think that’s a big factor when it comes to wrestling entrance music, knowing exactly what’s coming. I think that can be said for our music as well.”
On where Kazarian was the first time he did an impression of AJ Styles …
Kazarian: “Probably in the locker room or in a car or in a hotel room. And it was probably years ago. When you spend so much time with someone, you start emulating them, good, bad, or indifferent. We always just kind of crack on each other and AJ’s got that Southern accent, it was easy fodder for Chris and myself. So probably sometime in the early 2000?s in a locker room or a hotel or a car, I couldn’t tell you, man. But I guess just spending so much time with the guy over the years, I just kind of picked it up as a second language, really.”
On Billy Corgan …
Kazarian: “He was at a live event in Chicago this past March. I know Chris and I had a chance to sit down and chat with him and again, such a fan of our business that he actually started up his own promotion, which is doing very well. Billy, like me, his first passion is music and obviously, his second is wrestling. Both worlds are very and he’s done a great job with his promotion and he’s very knowledgeable, very respectful of us, and he’s a huge, huge musician. So that’s really cool for those worlds to mesh again.”
Daniels: “Yeah, he’s definitely somebody that you can talk the history of wrestling with and the stuff that got him involved as a kid. It still effects what he likes to do, what he watches today, and how he runs his promotion. So he’s definitely very knowledgeable about wrestling and you can tell when he’s sitting backstage at our show in Chicago this year, he was watching the show just very interested to see what everybody was doing, how the promos went and how the matches went. He’s definitely someone that has a real appreciation for wrestling.”
On the rumors that Hulk Hogan originally auditioned to be a bass player for Metallica …
Kazarian: “That’s as silly today as it is the first time I heard it. I think he had said something to the effect of Lars wanted him to replace Cliff on bass or to join the band. I can’t take that out of context. (laughs) I read an interview that Lars responded and laughed it off like, “No, that didn’t happen!” I don’t know why Hulk would say that. I mean I know Hulk did play bass, I’ve actually talked to him about that. But that’s about as ludicrous of a rumor as can be, but if it gets people talking about you, whatever. I’m all for it.”
Check out the complete interview online at JourneyOfAFrontman.com.
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