Zack Call dives into the process of Cody Rhodes using ‘Kingdom’ in WWE.
It has been over a full year since Cody Rhodes made his return to WWE at WrestleMania 38. This weekend, Rhodes is heading into his second consecutive Premium Live Event match against Brock Lesnar at Night of Champions.
Rhodes became a topic of conversation in an interview that Chris Van Vliet conducted with Downstait lead vocalist Zack Call. Downstait is the band that created Cody’s ‘Kingdom’ theme.
Call opened about how there was a bit of a ‘legal battle’ between them and WWE about the usage of Kingdom before Rhodes returned to the company. He said Downstait just wanted their piece of the pie for what they created. He then recalled being on a conference call with Rhodes and Rhodes expressing that he comes with the theme song. Call added that Rhodes was ‘pretty close’ to having a different song for his return.
I don’t want to give away too much (about how Cody Rhodes was able to use Kingdom in WWE). But we were aware that Kingdom was coming and we were in a little bit of a legal battle and Cody Rhodes is absolutely the f*cking man. We were on the phone with lawyers and agents and WWE’s lawyers and composers before, and we have been with them since 2009. And we all have regular jobs. And we just wanted our cut of the pie on this one. We know what happens when you — we’re not Joan Jett, we’re not Living Colour, but when you use a real song, they get paid, those artists get paid. It’s not a part of WWE’s work. And this is a song that we wrote.
It was pretty close to it (Rhodes having another theme for his return). And then Cody, we held our silence for a little bit and I’d said my peace and I’m — my heart is in my throat and not ready to give up the song. You know, I’ve worked so hard on the song, we worked so hard on the song. And Cody just basically breaks the silence and he goes, ‘Well, you don’t get me without Kingdom’ on this conference call. All right! And he swore up and down right when he started using it that, ‘If I go back to WWE, I am taking Kingdom with me.’ And I mean, he’s been nothing but truthful with us the whole time. But you never know… when it comes down to the moment, you never know what’s going to happen. And about two weeks before we have this big make or break moment, it might have been two seconds of silence. It might not have been the 10 that’s in my brain right now. It might have been two hours.
Rhodes was in the final segment of the 5/22 Monday Night Raw and Paul ‘Triple H’ Levesque attempted to reason with him about competing against Brock Lesnar with a ‘broken’ arm.
