Posted on 1/27/126 by Colin Vassallo
Kit Wilson sat down with Chris Van Vliet in London, England
to discuss his catchy new theme song and how much input he
had in creating it, his solo run following Elton Prince’s
injury, being Matt Cardona’s WWE return opponent, getting
thrown through a wall by Damian Priest, whether “Pretty
Deadly: The Musical” will happen, and more!
How much input did you have into the song?
“So I ended up having a fair amount of input. I was pushing
for new music when I kind of found out what the situation
was going to be and maybe I was going to go solo. I started
messaging a lot, saying I would love new music. Can I get
new music? Then eventually I got into contact with Neil, I
believe, and then he called me. We had little discussion on
the phone. He said, ‘What kind of thing are you looking
for?’ So I said, ‘Can I send you an email?’ Got off the
phone, and I started writing this email, just with all my
references, with all the songs I like, with all the ideas I
had, lyrics, kind of the theme of it, the vibe of it. So I
had so much. There’s a Charli xcx and Billie Eilish song
called Guess, and that opens with a phone call. Actually,
there’s no phone call, but it opens and it goes, ‘Hey
Billie, are you there?’ That I loved. I really wanted that.
So that was my first thing. I wanted a phone call. I wanted
to ring, I wanted to pick up. I wanted a ‘Hey Kit, are you
there?’ I originally wanted an English voice, and I still
would like to have it with an English voice. We’re American
for now, but I think we’ll be okay with that. So that was a
big one. We got that. Then there was just so many other
influences. There’s another Charli xcx song called Speed
Drive, which I really liked. JENNIE from BLACKPINK has a
song called like JENNI that is very poppy, there’s a lot of
girly pop music at the moment that has come out which is
just very catchy. It’s very iconic. It’s very chorus,
chorus, chorus. Chappel Roan, Femininomenon, very good song.
That was a big one I pushed for. There’s also some Harry
Styles influence. 1975 was a big band that I liked, and
Pretty Deadly actually used their song on the Indies for a
theme, Love Me. There’s kind of a guitar riff in that we
used to really like, and I feel like I can kind of hear that
in this song. Jade, who’s a UK artist, she used to be in the
band Little Mix. So there’s just so many references there. I
sent them all. I timestamped the bits that I like, the
choruses, I’m always trying to give as much as I can, so as
much of me is there. And then they came back. Gave me the
first draft. It sounded great. Few tweaks, few tweaks, few
tweaks, and I felt like we hit it.”
Were you nervous about going out on your own?
“Oh my goodness, God yeah. So the first day I went to
SmackDown without Elton, I felt like I was five years old
going to school for the first time. Because, again, we are
best friends. We met on the independents. We signed
together. We’ve done everything together. When we moved over
to America, we live together. We talk every day. I love him,
and we viewed each other as one person. We never talked to
anyone and tried to talk as individuals. It was always about
the team. So to do it on my own, I’ve never been more
nervous in my life, but he’s been really supportive. We talk
all the time. He’s always saying, ‘What have you got? What
you’re doing? You’re gonna smash it.’ He always says, Good
job. So it was nice to have his support, but it was so
nerve-racking going in, and now I feel like I’m finding my
footing and I feel comfortable. It’s kind of fulfilling
doing this whole new part of it, but it is scary, and I miss
him.”
How’s Elton doing?
“He’s doing good. Surgery happened, and it was nice that he
could then talk about the surgery, because he’s quite a
private person. He wasn’t really putting anything out there.
People didn’t really know. Some people thought it was just
this. Some people thought it was just that. So it was nice
for people to get clarity and understand what was going on.
The surgery went well, and so far, it’s been like a week and
a half, maybe two weeks. Everything’s on track and good, but
it’s just a touch-and-go situation. It’s the neck. So it’s
such a specialist area that I think we’re just kind of
taking it day by day. But he is doing good, which is
fantastic. It’s just a scary thing, yeah, and I want to talk
about him, but I don’t want to get too sentimental, because
I’ll start going.”
How was the match with Matt? Because Matt told me, and I can
ask you about this, he said he was laying in a little extra
hard. He’s like, I want to make sure my stuff looks good.
“Yeah. You know, you think being good friends with the very
slay Chelsea Green, that maybe there would be some kind of
friendship there. But I didn’t know who my opponent was. I’d
asked Nick for the opportunity, Nick Aldis, shout out to the
fellow Englishman. I didn’t know who it was going to be. And
then, you know, Matt Cardona comes out. Fantastic. I’m very
excited. Messed my nose up. I don’t know if you can see I
got a makeup here. This was a mess for two weeks. I had two
big boot marks here [on my chest], which are still faintly
there. I’ve chipped my tooth. I went to the dentist.”
I remember seeing a sign in the crowd that said, Pretty
Deadly: The Musical, or we riot.
“Hey, the musical was big, and we had some big plans for
that musical, and it’s still coming. Yeah, I don’t want
people to riot. So it is coming, I just don’t know when.
I’ll say that.”
The musical is a real thing?
“The musical is a real thing. We have 10 songs. We had
lyrics. We were learning them. We were trying to do it
properly and do a proper good job of it. We wanted to go
full force with it, the celebration we did with Nia. I
think, as characters we were trying to find the line of
being bad in a funny way, if that makes sense. We were
trying to be annoying, obnoxious characters, but thought
they were good at this kind of performance and celebrating
our wonderful queen, Nia. But that was that. But behind the
scenes, yeah, we were prepping. We were preparing with a few
more of the guys backstage. We had songs written. We had
lyrics written. We had a story. We were looking to find a
place to perform it. If you have ever seen Always Sunny in
Philadelphia and the musical episode, we’ve kind of based it
around that. So we had a lot in place. So, you know, it
still might happen. We never know, if this career goes well,
I think there’s a good excuse to hit it.”