AEW wrestler Bryan Danielson guides us through the music that made him – from Avril Lavigne to the Beach Boys and beyond!
This August bank holiday weekend, AEW legend Bryan Danielson will main event Wembley Stadium for the first (and possibly last) time. Putting his career on the line, the best technical wrestler in the world will take on Swerve Strickland for the AEW World Championship. It's a high stakes event, but it's called All In for a reason.
Ahead of the fight of his life, we meet Bryan for a late breakfast in central London amidst a day of press – he had avocado on toast, if you were wondering. But we're not here to talk diet, we're not really here to talk about wrestling, as we put the American Dragon up against our regular Songs That Changed My Life series.
Although a big music fan, he admits he doesn't listen to anything in the gym. Just silence. “The mind-body connection as you’re working out is very important,” he says. “I enjoy working out so I enjoy feeling my body stress and strain, but it’s also important, especially with what I do, to be cognisant with, ‘Okay, I’m starting to feel a pain in my knee.’ Some people use music to get them through a workout, but I enjoy my workout, I don’t need anything to get me through!”
But when not preparing how to kick people really, really hard, Bryan does find time for some good old fashioned punk rock, '80s glam and even boyband pop...
“When you’re a teenager, you’re going through self-esteem issues, alternating between, 'Life is the best,' and 'I hate myself.' It’s very relatable. I’m from Aberdeen, Washington, which is the hometown of Kurt Cobain, so there was a lot of that too, but Self Esteem was the first song that I really remember connecting to.”
“It’s because my mom would listen to the Beach Boys non-stop. It’s not a specific song, but it’s the Beach Boys’ vibe that I remember from school. And because I didn’t have a grasp of when the Beach Boys were happening, I got asked in school by a teacher, ‘So what’s your favourite ’80s band?’ And I was like, ‘The Beach Boys!’ And everybody just looks at me (laughs). That’s what I associate with school. I don’t even particularly like them now!”
“I love Frank Turner’s Positive Songs For Negative People. I’m a pretty big Frank Turner fan and I find his music to be very much my vibe, in terms of something that pumps me up. It’s not as hardcore as it used to be as when he was with his previous band, but even the songs that are more acoustic, lyrically I find him very much in line with what I think or what motivates me.”
“I actually started loving karaoke when I was here in England to do Butlin’s tours. In 2003 I was here for six months and just did Butlin’s – we’d do Minehead, Bognor Regis, Skegness, six shows a week. But one of the older veteran wrestlers named PN News was very, very shy, and he said, ‘If you really wanna come out of your shell, you’ve gotta start doing karaoke.’ It’s about getting up, getting out of your comfort zone, and going up there.
“I thought YMCA would be a great karaoke song, but then I came up with these rules, because you realise it’s not a great karaoke song. I think the songs have to be under three minutes and 15 seconds and that’s the problem with YMCA. People are into the idea of YMCA except the song is six minutes long, so when you’re five minutes in, nobody cares. Another rule is that you have to pick a song that people don’t expect you to sing. For example, if I go up there and sing some rock’n’roll it’s very expected, but a guy that looks like me who goes up and sings Backstreet Boys is different. That’s my sweet spot: late ’90s, early 2000s pop music.”
“When I’m down I tend to listen to depressing songs. This is one of my favourites when I’m down. The essential idea is, ‘I’m backing out of all this, this whole cultural landscape we’ve put forth out there, and I’m backing up from all of it.’ At the end of it, there’s something about, if you’re as successful as you wanna be, I’ll shake your hand and say great job, but I’ll be content just playing in the sand with my kids. That sort of thing. And when I’m down, songs like that help me realise what’s important in my life or what I aspire for my life to be like.
“When my dad died, it really shocked me, because I’d put so much energy into wrestling. My dad died at 57 and it was completely unexpected, and it was one of those things where you think you’re going to have this time with him afterwards. I thought I’d have my wrestling career, and when you’re wrestling you’re not home much, but when I’m done, I’ll have all this time to spend with my family. But then you realise you don’t have that time, so you have to do it now. Especially now that this is my last hurrah in wrestling. Before, when I was forced to retire, it was taken away from me and I wasn’t ready for it to be. Now I’m ready and I’m really looking forward to these simpler things. Even now, I love going hiking with my kids and going to the beach with my kids. That gives me more joy than wrestling does.”
“It’s the best. I started coming out to The Final Countdown when I was an independent wrestler in the United States. What happened was, I did a tour of Japan in 2004 and one of the music magazines had The 100 Worst Songs Of All Time, and Final Countdown I think was number one. I was like, ‘How is this number one?!’ But when you see The 100 Worst Songs Of All Time, you realise that you love 50 of those songs! I started listening to those songs and I hadn’t heard The Final Countdown in so long, I thought, ‘This would be great entrance music.’ I used it and it became something I was known for for a period of time. We had to stop using it, I think I’ve used it in AEW maybe twice, but it’s a really expensive song (laughs). It’s a Tony Khan decision if he wants to use the song.”
“Besides The Final Countdown, CM Punk in Ring Of Honor came out to this song and it was perfect. I also think Steve Austin’s song is perfect. It’s all about it matching the character. Bullet Club Gold in AEW right now, their song gets stuck in my head. Minoru Suzuki’s song; he comes out and the whole crowd sings it. Wrestling songs are so cool when they gel with the person and the whole crowd really gets with it.”
“It doesn’t get on my nerves, I love it, but part of the reason why I love it is because it gets on other people’s nerves. When I was doing the Butlin’s shows, I loved that it got under the of the people I would ride with. I asked to come out to it as entrance music. I was a bad guy at Butlin’s – doing the USA chants, singing the American national anthem – so I came out to Sk8er Boi, but it’s such an upbeat song that all the kids at Butlin’s were clapping to it. Then Brian Dixon, who was the promoter, he started making the good guys, the English guys, come out to it because the crowd loved it so much. And that just made it better! These guys all hate this song, but they have to come out to it and I loved it.”
“My first concert was Vanilla Ice, but it was after he was cool – he was on the downturn. Ice Ice Baby had come out, it was a huge hit, then everyone turned on him and thought he was shit. He was doing the fair circuit and he came to the Puyallup County Fair in Washington state. The opening act came out and played, everybody loved him, Vanilla Ice comes out and people were jeering him so much and making fun of him that he played two songs and went, ‘I’m outta here!’ and he left! It was great (laughs).”
“That’s really hard. I like Time Of Your Life, that’s not a bad one. If I had more time to think about it, it’d maybe be a Kimya Dawson or a Frank Turner song, but I would really have to think about it. I’d probably have to think about it now in case something happens, right? My wife will be like, ‘Why are we playing Green Day at Bryan’s funeral?’ ‘He said it in an interview!’ (laughs)”
AEW All In takes place at Wembley Stadium in London on August 25. Get your tickets now.
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