WWE Star Joe Hendry Talks His Album, Beating Taylor Swift and His WWE Future

And now I've just managed to overtake Taylor Swift's new album in the UK's iTunes album charts. Welcome to TMZ's Inside the Ring. I'm Branson Quirk. I'm Roger Corral. And so you and I both, we sat down and we listened to the entire Joe Hendry Beyond Belief album. Not only are they funny, but they're cool. They're they feel like they're made for a wrestling fan. It dropped yesterday. Yeah, man. Just yesterday. And, um, and you actually, that was your second time listening to it was so we're very honored. We're so excited. Uh, you know, this guy needs no introduction, but I'm going to give him one anyway. Uh, you know, he's a former WWE NXT champion, uh, former TNA world champion. And also I wrote down a few others here. First TNA world champion to enter the Royal rumble. Also the first TNA world champion to Russell at WrestleMania facing Randy Orton. And we are so honored to have him here. Joe Hendry, welcome to TMZ. How are you doing today? Say his name and he appears. Thanks for having me, guys. Wow. He does. We didn't say his name. All we did was dye her hair. OK. All right. All right, Joe. Do you do you do you think that I did this just for the interview? I think consciously or subconsciously, you know, the answer to that. We all know the answer. That's actually he has a really good point. I may have subconsciously done that. That's insane. I did this a couple of days ago. I tried highlighting my hair just a few streaks. Somebody told me I could do it. And then all of a sudden, here we are. I've got a whole head of bleach. Yeah. Subconsciously, you put too much bleach in and dyed your hair blonde. That's why. Exactly. Hey, how do you keep your hair up? Do you do it yourself or do you have somebody do that for you? Come on, man. I'm a TV star. I'm a TV star. I can't do this myself. No way. I would have burned all my hair off by now. Have some. Don't don't make the same mistake. Hey, it looks good on Joe. You look amazing. Hey, congratulations on the beyond belief album. Thank you very much. I have to say it's it's been climbing very, very fast. Right. And you've been posting updates. Open us open up to us a little bit about that. So on iTunes right now, is it climbing charts? Well, let me tell you guys, it's been a pretty busy 24 hours. I had raw last night in St. Louis, just got back to Orlando now. And even on the plane, I've been in battles all day, my friend. I was in a battle with Elvis. We managed to we managed to move up the charts, managed to overtake Elvis. I was in a battle with the Beatles, with the Beatles. And I managed to I managed to overtake their their album because they've all their albums, their deluxe editions. We managed to overtake them. And now I've just managed to overtake Taylor Swift's new album. Oh, yeah. Oh, my goodness. iTunes album chart. So we're at number five right now. So, you know, you remember how crazy it was when I believe in Joe Hendry got to number one on the UK iTunes chart. So now, you know, an album is a whole different beast. But we're now at number five. So a little push from the pro wrestling community. And we could have a number one album on the iTunes charts. And then, you know, it starts to it starts to bleed into other charts as well. And it gets a little bit crazy. But also the number one soundtrack album in the U.S. and the UK as well. Wow. Wait, wait. Are you nervous that this might lead? Because sometimes this could lead to a whole new career and you might have to perform in front of audiences all the time singing these songs. Now, are you nervous about this? Oh, no, that would be terrible. Let me tell you something. What a privilege it is to perform in front of the WWE universe and to be able to perform wrestling and music. You know, when my single came out a couple of years ago, I managed to do some shows up and down the UK, and they were really well attended. And so if I get the opportunity to do some live shows, I'm absolutely going to jump at that. But no, it's an absolute privilege. I want to thank the fans. As I had, I genuinely had I didn't have expectations for how this album was going to perform, but it's just it's always so much fun when you start to see it appear in the charts, the fans start to push it up. And, you know, that's it gets pretty exciting and interesting from here. So we're at number five. I'd love to see you go higher if we can. Wow. Can I ask? And, you know, a lot of artists do this, Taylor Swift included, you know, sometimes, but maybe maybe not Taylor Swift. I don't want to say that, but is there a ghostwriter involved? Do you have any ghostwriter? How dare you? I have to know. I have to know. There's a there's a lot of amazing material here. And did you write it all yourself? Come on, bro. Come on. I'll I'll tell you this. So I have my I have a skill for songwriting, and it's that I can write them quickly. I don't know what the exact number is, but I've probably written something like honestly, it's got to be somewhere between 20 and 30 songs, maybe even between 30 and 40 since I've been in WWE. So that is you know, this is something I've been doing since I was 15 years old. So it's a skill I pride myself on. And, you know, I think what's really cool about this album is WWE really gave me a lot of creative freedom with the album, with the album, with the videos. I was like it was so awesome. Like, you know, a lot of the time you kind of expect you'd maybe you write the songs and you send off the files and that's that. But we had a system where I had the same equipment in my house as they do in the studio in New York. So we're sending files back and forth. I'm adding harmonies, extra guitar parts, things like that. So it was a really fun process. And, you know, respect the WWE for for, you know, allowing me to to have a very big say in the production and the mixing and, you know, and to just go ahead and write these songs. You know, I wrote a couple of them that I thought, you know, oh, I don't know if this is going to get approved. But yeah, all the songs got approved. Yeah. I mean, you're so musically talented that you'd probably be the best person to ask this question. I think your answer will be the most credible. Then if you had to pick other than your own, obviously, who has the best theme song? Maybe a couple. Maybe give us your to your top two, top three favorite theme songs on the roster if you had to pick other than your own. OK, so favorite theme of all time is the Rocks Hollywood theme. Like to me that that just like it as a fan, it gave me goosebumps watching that. You know, I think some really iconic ones, obviously, Steve Austin's glass match, the you know, the game by Motorhead is iconic as well. On the current roster, there are some great songs. I think ultimately songs are about crowd interaction. So I think they did a really good job with that trick song. Yeah. You know, there's there's so many great ones. I'm going to bounce off of that question. I feel like you're not the only gifted person musically backstage. We've seen John Cena sing his own theme song. Shawn Michaels sing his own theme song. Who do you think is the second most gifted wrestler musically? I really appreciate how you worded that question. And I think that I was a professional wrestling musician. So I very much appreciate that. You got it. Oh, man. And that that is a tough one. That is a tough one. I'm trying to think. Well, I mean, I will say this is is. I mean, hey, Little Yachty, he's he's technically on the roster now. Right. That's a good answer. I think we've got to recognize his talents here. He's an amazing performer, amazing musician. I got to spend a day with him in Glasgow when he did a show there. And then watch him from the stage, watch him and tell the creator and just seeing his creative process. It was very cool. I actually learned a lot from him, even in terms of equipment. I you know, he helped me kind of get my hands on the right microphones and the right. He gave me some tips with like, you know, interfaces and things like that. So, yeah, that was really cool. Wow. That's awesome. Were there any unreleased songs on this album? Because you have how many tracks here? You have eleven eleven tracks. Sometimes there's always, you know, that one track that you're like, ah, not going to put that out. So there was one that made it to the album that I didn't think was going to make it to the album. And it's called Going Up to Smackdown, which I wrote when I fully believed I was I was going to smack after Arrested Demise. And I was like, oh, man, I really like this song. I hope I hope you don't have to throw it away because because I ended up But yeah, they let they let me keep it, which I thought was really cool. So, no, all the songs got approved. Branson mentioned Taylor Swift earlier. Taylor is known for having deluxe editions of her albums. Would you ever consider putting out a deluxe edition of this album? Maybe throw in a few other things for your fans? Hey, never say never. Never say never. I like that. You know, I mean, me and Taylor and we're in similar sort of charts now. Like I say, I'm honored and privileged to be in battle with with Elvis, the Beatles and Taylor Swift is it's pretty cool to see your name climbing amongst these artists. So that kind of that kind of happened last time as well. But I really thought I believe in Joe Hendry. It was a it was Taylor was the competition. So I wonder if she's seen this or is aware of this. But I will say the the respect to the Swifties, they've they've been pretty kind to me thus far. They appreciated the fun. Did you just say Swifties and kind in the same? I heard they've been kind to me. I did. They've been kind to him. We need to let Harvey Levin know about. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because the fact that you beat the Beatles, that's a big. That's a big deal, actually. Do we have to, you know, for sure. Look, we're talking about the Beatles. They can they can let Joe Hendry have a week. You know, I mean, one week. That's all I need. Yeah. And they they have what, five movies coming out. Yeah, they do. I don't know how many deals there are. Yeah, right. Hey, you know, four meals. Oh, my gosh. And if in a Joe Hendry biopic, who would you choose to play you know of any actor in the world? It would have to be Jake Gyllenhaal because I could see it, dude, because I would say when people come up to me 98 out of 100 times, they they go, are you Joe Hendry? But every, you know, 2% or so, they go, you really look like you really look like someone. I thought they were going to go that wrestler from TV. They go, no, you look like Jake Gyllenhaal. Wow. I get that a couple of times. Really? That's a good looking at him. Yeah. Do you embrace that? I mean, that's a great. That is. That's I can think of a lot, a lot worse people to be compared to. I'll take that. Hey, you know, back to music here. Would you ever branch? Because I don't know what you consider your genre of music. Would you say it's pop? So I would I would say it is it's it's pop, it's rock. It's I guess it's a soundtrack as well, because it's a soundtrack to WWE. And like I say, it is, you know, not to just since we drifted here against the number one soundtrack in the US and the UK on iTunes at the moment. But in terms of genre, I think it's I took a lot of inspiration from the likes of like Tenacious D and the Lonely Island and things like that. And I think with that, it's about have fun, but also like the songs have to be good in their own right. That's what I wanted. I wanted the songs to be to be actually good songs. And I really I feel strongly that they are good songs and it's well produced. And we did a great job. So, yeah, it's it's it's fun. We're having fun with it. But also, I tried to write some good songs that people can enjoy. Do you think we would see you branch into like hip hop because you mentioned Lil Yachty or country eventually? Is that something that you would be open to one day? Well, I would argue that Tables, Ladders and Chairs is a country. And so I've already dabbled in country music. I have to say, I don't I don't think of myself as a as a future hip hop artist, you know. But, you know, I would say never say never. But that one, I think that's that's I've never considered that. And probably for I don't know if I'd be too good at that. You have the hair for it, by the way. So you'd be great. I do. Yeah, you do it. Recently, John Cena talked about the John Cena classic might happen in December. I want to know, are you going to toss your name into this? I want to see John Joe Hendry in action, not just singing. But I want to see you in the ring, man. Yeah, I think that for for me, this has been like a super there's been a lot of fun moments of this part of my career. We've been able to go all out with the music stuff. But ultimately, pro wrestling is number one for me. I am a pro wrestler and my desire is to be world champion. The days of me saying I'm going to do this and I'm going to do that because there was a period of time where I it just felt like I was manifesting anything and everything that was going on in my career. And those I'm leaving those days behind for now. There there comes phases of your career where, you know, there was a phase where I was doing that. And then there comes a phase where you go, OK, we've had a few years of all being able to shoot for all these big goals. But for right now, I'm going to do the work up front, which is I'm going to attain the main event level physique. I'm going to I'm going to constantly work on my ability to have great matches. I'm going to improve my promos. I'm going to improve everything. I'm going to become the best version of myself. And then I'm going to trust that by doing that work is going to take me to where I want to go in the professional wrestling business. But make no mistake about it. I have the desire and intention to one day become a world champion. I love that. Actually, that leads me to my next question. And there's so much more to come with you. But, you know, in this time period of your, you know, since you debuted in WWE, what are you most proud of if you had to choose anything you've done so far where you're like, hey, I'm really proud of that? What would that be? I would say that the biggest moment for me, the single biggest moment was obviously wrestling Randy Orton at WrestleMania. And I'm proud of everything I did to get to that point. But I know what was the most difficult. And I think it was, you know, someone in my position, the way I came into the company, I did not have to go to NXT on a daily basis and go to the classes, but I chose to. I was able to humble myself. I was going to all the classes, you know, the in-ring classes, the promo classes. I was doing all of the smaller live events that we do in Florida. I asked to be on everything. And that that was a risk, you know, because it's like you're really putting yourself out there as someone who's been on WrestleMania to humble yourself, to go and do that. So I'm proud of myself for being able to to do that and reap the rewards of that by becoming an NXT champion. I proved to myself that even at this stage in my career, I can re I can reestablish myself. I can prove myself all over again. Wow. Before we even get, like I mentioned, a potential John Cena classic appearance before we get to the championships, you're going through a few with JD McDonough. I want to know, what do you want this to lead to? What do you want to happen to JD McDonough? You've been torturing this guy for weeks, man. What do you want this? What do you want to happen to this poor guy? What do I want to happen to JD McDonough? You know, I really haven't thought about that. And I it's you know, with Logan Paul, it's obvious I want him to be fired. You know, that's that's very clear in the song. I think it's a really good point. I'm glad you asked that question. I actually haven't sat down and written down my objective for what I want to happen to JD McDonough, but probably something to the effect of I'd like to see that I'd like to engineer a situation where, you know, let's say he gets a Funko Pop, but I get all the profits because I mean, you know, like something like that, that that would be fun. And yeah, no profit share. Hey, you know, there's a lot of people I'm sure you looked up to growing up, but I don't know if you've already said this or not. But who did you look up to most in the wrestling world when you were watching and who who inspired you to get into it? I was the rock, the rock. And so I was like, I wasn't a huge wrestling fan until I was about 14, 15. And I just didn't have access to wrestling on a regular basis when I was younger. I really got into the into wrestling through the video games. So I remember playing the Warzone video game because it was the first one that you could create your own wrestler. So I would just create all these characters. And then I had Smackdown and you could create characters in that. And then in Smackdown, I saw, you know, I played that game. I thought the people's elbow was the coolest thing I'd ever seen. And in the game, I mean, this folks, this is 1999. The elbow pad actually came off. This was like mind blowing at the time. And then but when I got Smackdown two and they had that huge roster with all the different match types, you know, they had Hell in a Cell casket matches, ladder matches, falls. That to me at that point was like, well, OK, I'm in. I got to get into this wrestling thing now. So then I discovered the Rock's promos. And after that, I just knew that's that's what I wanted to do. It's funny. The Rock had a music video for a while. He did a song with Wyclef Jean, and I thought it was the coolest thing ever. I want to know. I thought your music video was really, really cool. I saw you riding a horse. How was that experience? Have you ridden a horse before? Have you done music videos to this degree before? So I have to say, I actually chatted with Chris Van Vliet about that Wyclef Jean song the other day, and it was the first song I ever downloaded, you know, destroyed the family computer for that one. So I agree. That was that was an awesome track. And in terms of music videos. No, I'd never done a music video on this scale. Like all the other ones had been filmed on either a phone or sort of like an entry level Canon camera. I think we used a ZV-1 for for I believe in Joe Hendry, which is just me and my brother. Yep, let's go film it. And then, you know, I green screened the other part of it in my house. So that that it always been very sort of bare bones. This is the first like big production music video that I did. And we were fortunate enough to find a ranch in Orlando. And they were just like, hey, do you want to do you want to ride the horse? And we were like, yeah, I didn't we didn't even think they'd let us. Hey, do you want to ride the tractor? Yeah. So they just let us do all this cool stuff. So, yeah, it was and also they had never ridden a horse before. So there was that. We got like, you know, 20 belts delivered to the performance center to do give Joe Hendry every single belt. It was it was an incredible experience. And the team, the performance center to help me make the videos, you know, like Sean and JB and Jimmy, just, you know, unbelievable talented guys. Wow. Wow. That's cool. Is there anyone backstage that you consider your like best pal, best friends, anybody backstage you'd consider naming? Oh, that's a, you know, I guess maybe the people you sit down with the most. I would I would say my my best friend backstage in the locker room is, you know, someone that I tend to have beef with regularly on air. So I won't I won't I won't mention it at this point in time. I don't want to I don't want to put him over in any shape or form because he is he is a piece of garbage. So we don't want to we don't want to give him any spotlight here. But I will say in the locker room overall, I'm just blown away by how great the locker room is. It's such a great environment. And, you know, I told the story recently about how I somehow managed to leave the house without my signature blue shirt and white pants. And Penta managed to source some for me in Mexico. And it was just you know, it was just done like that. And I just was very thankful. That's just one example of the locker room looking out for each other. You know, we'll we'll often help each other out. And it's a great team environment. You know, I think having that like the having the USOs around, it's, you know, even just kind of watching with them on the monitor, just how they kind of pick apart matches and kind of, you know, I've picked up things by just by just listening to how they approach matches and talk about them. And really that that WWE style. So I'd say, you know, just to have the USOs in the locker room to help pass on some of that knowledge and help us elevate is very, very cool. Wow. And bringing it back to the music, I think I heard you say that you wrote most of your songs around December ish. I want to know, is there something around that time of year that brings out the creative juices? You know, people are more cozy at home. It's Christmas time. Thanksgiving. Is there something that motivates you around that time that kind of gets it going? Bro, you are just killing it with the questions. You are. You are just killing it. I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not. Yeah, it's it's it's Christmas, you know. Jingle balls. Jingle balls. Yeah, that's true. That's true. That's true. Yeah, I think sometimes when you're when for me, it's like inspiration comes in bursts and it doesn't come like you can't force it. So in that particular period of time, I was just rapid fire writing these songs. So I just was like, I got to keep going. I got to keep going. If you ask me to write an album in three, four days now, I that might be pretty tough. I was very fortunate that the inspiration came at that time. But like I say, I'm grateful it did, because guys were number five in the UK charts for the number one soundtrack on iTunes in the US and the UK. I think we can get it to number one. I want to say a huge thank you to the fans. If they do want to support and all they got to do is go on iTunes and purchase the album. Love that. Do you do weddings by any chance? For the right price. Oh, you get mad, right? He is. Am I getting married? I'm already married. He's already married. OK, well, thank you for offering. Yeah, I know you got to get out of here soon. A couple last questions here. When it comes to Scotland, the only two wrestlers I can really think of is you and Drew McIntyre coming out of Scotland. Could you talk to us a little bit about, you know, like what it what it what it means to you being from Scotland and how maybe things have expanded out there in terms of wrestling? Oh, yeah, absolutely. I mean, I'm super proud to to have learned the craft when I did. You know, I was I had great coaches. I it was a great environment for me. It's a very thriving scene right now as well. I've spent so much time in Scotland and the UK. And, you know, I just just driving up and down the UK for years and years and years. And that's why it's very special to see the album doing so well in the UK charts, because, you know, now moving over to America, you just you don't want to lose that bond with the UK fans. And so I'm just so proud that it's it's still there. So I want to say thank you to my fans back home. And also, hey, look, Raw is in Glasgow, Scotland in January. And like I say, there's there's no guarantees that I'll be on the show. But folks, you know, say his name and he appears. If enough people call for it. And my hope is that we can get me on that show. I'd love to perform in front of the fans back home. It's a dream of mine to be able to do that as a WWE superstar on Raw. Just doesn't get any better than that, my friend. Fingers crossed, dude. Fingers crossed. Thank you, Joe. We really appreciate it. And congratulations on your new album. And hey, everybody, please. Beyond belief. Let's get that to number one. Let's do it, baby. He just defeated Taylor Swift. So who's next? I think there's a couple more people on. Easy. Still has to Ariana Grande is next. Currently, we've battled Elvis. We've battled the Beatles. We've battled Taylor Swift. We're now we're we're we're in competition with Ariana Grande. So we've got some big names, but we can do it. I know we're TMZ and I can't maybe say this, but but this is this just beats life of a showgirl on court. Oh, a hundred percent. That is a quote. I think you can say that. You said that. I said it. I said it right. Joe, thank you so much. And we'll see you very soon. Thank you. Thank you so much. Have a great day, guys.