AEW superstar and former world champion Chris Jericho recently spoke with SPIN about his hit entrance song “Judas,” and why he decided to keep using the theme even after he turned heel and formed the Jericho Appreciation Society. Highlights from the interview are below.
How Judas was a hit song prior to his run in AEW:
“Well, the thing about ‘Judas’ is, it was a hit before I started using it [as entrance music], right out of the gate. We did the video, it did 1 million views in a week. Why? I don’t know. Whatever reason, people gravitated toward that song. That’s why I started using it as my ring music. I needed a new song because I had switched from WWE to New Japan [Pro Wrestling]. I thought, well, let me use “Judas,” and maybe there’ll be a promoter who hears the song and brings us over to Japan. Then I realized, this is a great entrance song! So, when AEW started, I brought ‘Judas’ over there, and then it became part of the show. For whatever reason, people just felt a real inspiration from that song and wanted to sing it as I came to the ring.”
Explains why he didn’t lose the song when he turned heel:
“Now, I did just change my character, I went from being a good guy to being a bad guy. We thought about not using ‘Judas’ anymore. But then I thought, why? Why change it? My boss agreed because we have a very unique, very cool moment in our AEW presentation, in that people love singing this song. As a bad guy, I could take it away but then you’re losing this really special moment. People singing ‘Judas’ transcends being a good guy or a bad guy in AEW, it’s just something cool that’s part of the show. It’s like going to a KISS concert and they don’t play ‘Rock and Roll All Nite’ because they’re trying to be creative. It’s like, fuck, we don’t care, that’s the song we want to hear!”