Mikey Rukus Explains Why He Sings On So Many AEW Theme Songs

Mikey Rukus explains how he does songs on the track.

Mikey Rukus explains how he does songs on the track.

AEW Music Producer Mikey Rukus has been at the forefront of All Elite Wrestling’s Music Production and licensing. Rukus has produced and composed a plethora of songs for the company since joining on 2019, but he has now explained the procedure on how some themes are branded.

Speaking to Will Washington, Phil Lindsey, and Righteous Reg of Grapsody, Rukus discussed the method to the madness of how he produces the music, explaining how he comes up with the decisions of promoting the theme songs and the branding decisions.

“A lot of times, fans will ask, ‘How come you have to sing on all these songs? How come he can’t sing?’ There is always going to be an initial reaction to something people aren’t familiar with. 20% will always support it, 20% will always hate it, and the other 60% will look at it and be on the fence and be influenced by a number of things. Maybe they like the song, but don’t like the artist. Maybe they like the song, but the people they follow hate it, so they hate it too. Maybe they aren’t really into it, but they see everybody else like it, so they like it too. There are different things that play into that and it’s the realm of working throughout those things. Tony and I spoke a long time ago about AEW music being prominent in popular music. There’s a reason why I’m doing lyrics on some of these songs. When you have a band like Rage Against The Machine or Tool or Slipknot, they’re going to have the same singer. Our music is being exposed to people outside of the wrestling bubble and it says ‘All Elite Wrestling.’ We want some familiarity and continuity there. If they hear, Rukus’ vocals on the All Elite Wrestling song ‘All About The Boom’ or they hear it again on Keith Lee’s, ‘Who am I, I am Keith Lee.’ Now we put a face with the name, a voice with the sound, and with audio branding. It pulls it all together. When there are opportunities to bring in featured artists, great. When there are other songs where we kind of planned it out where my voice will be on it, great. We have a very broad and long-term plan for the AEW music brand and that’s where all of that ties in. “

In a previous interview with Sean Ross Sapp of Fightful, AEW Wrestler Adam Cole detailed his initial reaction to the song produced by Ruckus, saying that he was initially impressed by the song. You also watch that interview here.

Elsewhere in the exclusive interview, Rukus discussed how he was brought into AEW, saying that he was hired weeks before AEW Double Or Nothing in May 2019. You can hear the full interview on Fightful’s YouTube Channel.

You can listen to his latest project, “AEW Symphony: Series 1” here, including songs for Bryan Danielson, Ricky Starks, and Kenny Omega.

If you use the quote above, please credit the original source with an h/t and link back to Fightful for the transcription.