Being the wrestling nerd that I am, I was pursuing r/Squaredcircle, when I found a metal post?!
Apparently, Type O Negative were commissioned by the WWE to create a new entrance theme for their demon character, Kane, the brother of the Undertaker.
WWE composer Jim Johnston who has worked for the company for almost 30 years now typically creates all the entrance music himself, but occasionally hires out. Saliva recorded Batista's theme. Killswitch Engage recorded an early theme for CM Punk (originally intended for Randy Orton) and of course, the most notable entry is Motorhead recording not one, but two entrance themes for WWE COO Triple H.
So they asked Type O to collaborate on a track for Kane and Type O did, but I guess WWE never used it. The track was eventually included as a bonus track on the band's Life is Killing Me release. It's really a shame, because the track, "Out of the Fire," sounds like the perfect entrance for Kane:
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8HC0THV3m4[/youtube]
Back to the reddit post, the user, BlackNostalgia, posted an excerpt from an old interview where Kenny Hickey and John Kelly talked about the process. It's clear they weren't big wrestling fans as they called SummerSlam, the big WWE summer event, SummerJam and referred to Kane as Caine, but it's an interesting read regardless:
Hickey: "Peter was definitely bummed out about the whole WWF thing. Before he died it's something he'd bring up at times. Not too much, but enough for us to know that it meant something to him, it's something that, subconsciously, ate away at him for some time."
Kelly: "Man we spent so much time composing that instrumental. Peter was always so focused but for that one piece he really wanted the WWF guys to feel the character. I remember when the music guy, Jack Johnson I think his name was, he contacted Peter personally. It wasn't hard to get a hold of us. He contacted us and was like "I'm from the WWF, I'm a fan of your work and I think we can compose something for one of our returning characters". We're all like yea sure, why not."
Hickey: " No one had ever contacted us for a gig like that. Despite how goofy of a product wrestling could be at times, there was something about that particular character that stood out. We traveled to Connecticut, Josh Silver has family in Connecticut so we killed two birds with one stone. So we sat down at the big building, they're playing this reel and clips of the Caine character. He's dark, menacing, blood red, he screams goth; at this point you could see the passion in Peter's eyes."
Kelly: "Oh yea, Peter really wanted to knock that one out of the park. So we get a tape of his original walk out song and a blueprint of what they wanted. Peter spent hours listening to it on a loop, we're on the plane and he's tapping his fingers to the BPM. Once we get back to New York, Peter throws in this satanic growling chant and Johnny starts beating the drums to start it off. Silver begins to play the keys to open up the song like the original version. I followed up with the rifts. Johnny jumps back in and I start playing again and if you listened to it, you can hear how we're challenging each other. Then there was the break where Peter comes back in and starts to chant, and me and Johnny start going at it again. Peter definitely guided us throughout that whole composition, that was his personal baby. Everything just fell in place so perfectly and it came out the way we wanted it too. Peter was passionate about this piece.
So we send it back to Jack and he loved it. He told us this is what they wanted and we were thrilled because at that point, this was I think 2002, we had been on the back burner, we started to, you know, I guess at that point Type O Negative just weren't you know, the Type O Negative that everyone knew from a couple years earlier so it was a way for us to reintroduce ourselves and for the people who watched the WWF stuff to find out about us. They wanted the Caine character to return at the SummerJam wrestling show, and they had it mapped out where he'd come in and wreak havoc against these anti american guys and we were all planning on getting the show and just watching it all unfold just for that particular moment. We get a call, and Johnson doesn't want to use our work anymore because they had different plans for the character where they wanted him to be a bit more on the "normal" side and what we composed was too dark. Peter was bummed out by this because it was an opportunity for us to get back out there."
Hickey: "They ended up giving it to these other kids. The thing about it all was how they didn't want any vocals but the version that ended up getting picked was vocalized. There were no hard feelings, they wanted to use it for a future video package or for DVD purposes, they said they'd contact us if anything and thanked us for our work. We were never contacted to this day. Peter felt like we were snubbed and considering how much work and dedication he put into it, it kind of killed his drive. Peter really valued the piece and he really wanted to release it and so we decided to put it on the extended version of Life is Killing me in 2003 and the song became a hit. The fans in Europe, they loved it. They loved it man. And Peter was proud. But he still wanted Caine to walk out to it, and because he felt a connection to the character, it ate away at him that he was never able to see the original plans unfold."
[via Wreddit]
