In the world of professional wrestling, an entrance theme is the heartbeat of a character. Joe Altier, the powerful vocalist for Brand New Sin, recently sat down with John Kiernan on the Ropes N Riffs podcast to pull back the curtain on some of the most iconic sounds in the business.

From being scouted by WWE royalty at a heavy metal show to the drunken inspiration behind a famous catchphrase, Altier’s journey is as “sludged up” and soulful as the tracks he records.

Scouted by The Game and The Billion Dollar Princess

Most musicians send out demos and hope for a break. For Altier, the break came in the form of Triple H and Stephanie McMahon rocking out in the front row of a Motorhead concert in 2005.

“We were on tour with Motorhead in 2005… we’re on stage and like the second song, I see two people out of the corner of my eye come running down in between the barricade and the stage… and it’s Triple H and Stephanie. So they’re just standing in front of our stage… rocking out and just having a blast. They fist bump me and they’re enjoying our show. We go into the dressing room… and there’s a knock on the door and I open it and it’s Triple H and Stephanie. And they’re like, ‘hey, we wanna present you guys to the brass. We think you guys could be a great addition to the music world in WWE.’ And we’re like, well, of course, yes. Of course we want that opportunity… he’s now the boss of the freaking company. She’s the daughter of the owner… these are people that are actually going to make something happen.”

Sludging Up the Big Show with Jim Johnston

That encounter led Altier to the hallowed halls of WWE Headquarters to work with the legendary composer Jim Johnston. The goal was to take The Big Show’s existing theme and give it a gritty, heavy makeover for the track Crank It Up.

“They had Jim Johnston on the phone with us. And he’s like, ‘no, I just want you to take the existing theme song and just sludge it up, slow it down, down tune the guitars’… We ended up rolling in and WWE headquarters that Monday, which was crazy because Monday Night Raw was going to happen that night. So there was a lot going on in the studio… It was pretty chaotic, but to watch Jim work… to watch someone of that stature work was f****** fascinating. He knew what jobs he had to do and he was balancing it all. And I was like, this guy’s a fucking Superman… Jim‘s like, ‘well, what guitar do you want? What amp do you want? What drums do you want?’ They’re like, ‘you don’t need anything. We have everything…. Once they got the music down, then he kicked everybody out… and then we spent two, three hours to record those vocals.”

Finding the Iconic “Weeeellll…”

Creating a wrestling theme requires an immediate hook, something that tells WWE fans exactly who is coming through the curtain within a fraction of a second. While working on The Big Show‘s theme, Altier stumbled onto the vocal flair that would define the entrance.

“As any wrestling entrance theme goes, you’ve got to grab someone within the first half a second… You hear the glass smash and there comes Stone Cold. You hear a certain noise or you hear the funeral bell, you know The Undertaker‘s coming out. So that part has to be so iconic. If anyone remembers that original theme song, it was very bluesy… And I kept trying to do it like that. And Jim‘s like, ‘no, no, no, no… Stop trying to do that.’ And he goes, ‘what would you do?’ And I just kept toying with it. And I’m like, ‘Well, I just went, ‘Wheeee…’ maybe a second and no music happens. You just hear that and we know The Big Show‘s coming.”

Whiskey and the AEW Transition

Years later, when Paul Wight made the jump to AEW, composer Mikey Rukus tapped Altier to provide the vocals once again. However, the most famous part of the theme—the booming “WELLLL”—was almost left on the cutting room floor.

“When Mikey Rukus (AEW Composer) sent me that track… it didn’t have ‘WELLLLL’ in it. He had already written the lyrics and the melody lines and everything and I just kind of had to mimic it. And he’s like, ‘man, if you feel something, you feel something. And in my head, I’m like, ‘Well, there has to be some kind of bridge. There has to be something that connects the two (themes).’ I just went back there and I just took a big slug of whiskey… did a shot and I came over to the mic… And I just heard that, and there was a stop. And I’m like, there’s my opportunity… And I’m sorry, I’m still just shocked that it didn’t come through. And he’s like, ‘You got to do the WELLLL, man. You got to do the WELLL.’”

Beyond his work for The Big Show and Paul Wight, Altier is also the voice behind Tommaso Ciampa’s new AEW entrance theme, My Shadow Knows.

You can check out the full interview on the Ropes N Riffs YouTube channel or wherever you get your podcasts.