Mikey Rukus details how he joined All Elite Wrestling.
Mikey Rukus joined All Elite Wrestling as the Music Producer, where he has produced theme songs for stars like Claudio Castagnoli (formerly known as Cesaro), Jon Moxley, Adam Cole, and many more. That said, he detailed how he made his way to AEW, saying he was officially hired by the company a few weeks before AEW's first ever Pay-Per-View event, the 2019 edition of "Double or Nothing".
Speaking to Will Washington, Phil Lindsey, and Righteous Reg of Grapsody, Rukus discussed how he joined AEW, who contacted him, detailing when he was hired.
"We had gotten into deep discussions. I had a couple of conversations with Brandi (Rhodes) and I had a conversation with QT (Marshall). At the time, that's who my direct contacts were with. At the time, I had somebody hit me up and say, 'Contact this person, they will get you to where you need to go.' It was almost like a cryptic 'find a treasure map.' You're walking down the street and some old dude slips you the map. He gave me Matt Sell's cell number. I text Matt and said, 'this is what I'm looking for.' Matt hit up QT, and QT hit up me and was like, 'What are you looking for in compensation?' 'We can talk about that.' That's when the initial call came from Brandi. Our correspondence after that was mainly, 'How many can you do? Can you do three or four by this date?' Then it turned into ten and then 15. Originally, Nyla Rose's track was my audition track. Before we got into that conversation, they said, 'let's try this one first and see how it goes.' I made Nyla's track in the first 24 hours. I wanted to show them that, not only could I handle the assignment, I could handle it quickly and consistently. I dropped that, sent it over, and it was a couple of days before I heard anything. Then they were like, 'how much would you charge for this? What are your rates? Send over a rate sheet.' I sent over a rate sheet that broke down literally everything I could do, all the way down to voice-overs, scoring, interludes, clips, and things like that. I said, 'If you guys want, I'll work here forever.' I just floated it out there. I got a call a week later from Chris Harrington and he was like, 'we want to bring you onto the team.' It was 11 at night, I was on my front lawn, it was nice and warm outside. Complete silence. When I saw the phone ring, I was like, 'I have to take this.' 'I stepped outside.' 'Is this a good time or bad time?' 'It's a good time.' 'I want to know what life is like for you right now. We want to bring you onto the team.' At that point, I walked back in, looked at my wife, and was like, 'this is it.' It didn't initially sink in, wouldn't tell a soul, but when I went into work the next day...this is probably mid-April of 2019. Double or Nothing was going to hit at the end of May. Mid-April is the time we decided this was all going to happen. I signed my official contract on May 1, 2019. By then, I already had a list. 'Give me a list of what you need and we'll start and knock them down one at a time.'"
Elsewhere in the exclusive interview, Rukus discussed why his methodology for making songs. 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.
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