Dale Oliver

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Dale Oliver
Background information
Genre(s)	Professional wrestling theme music
Associated acts	Blackhawk

Dale Oliver is a music composer who works for Total Nonstop Action Wrestling and former member of Blackhawk.

1 Career
- 1.1 Music composer for TNA
2 Oliver's work
3 External links

[edit] Career

[edit] Music composer for TNA

Like his WWE counterpart Jim Johnston, Oliver writes a huge percentage of TNA's entrance theme tunes including themes for pay-per-view broadcasts. Unlike Johnston, Oliver performs the vocals and instruments for most of the theme tunes himself.

Oliver has been subjected to some criticism in that some say a lot of the theme tunes he has composed are closely modelled on popular songs. Monty Brown's theme tune, for example, is a based on "Down With The Sickness" by Disturbed. Also, Christian Cage's theme song is based on "My Last Breath" by Evanescence, while Christopher Daniels' theme tune is of "Disposable Teens" by Marilyn Manson. Sometimes, as in Daniels case, these songs are already identified with the wrestlers from their use in independent promotions.

Some of best known themes include "I Am", used by A.J. Styles, and "I'm Everything", used by Marcus Bagwell, Apolo, Konnan, Team Mexico, Mexico's Most Wanted, the Spanish Announce Team, and virtually every Hispanic wrestler to ever wrestle in TNA. It is widely considered to be one of Oliver's best theme songs, but bears obvious similarities to Carlos Santana's "Smooth".

The shortest song that Oliver has composed was Chris Candido's TNA theme which was said to be a modification of one of Oliver's own songs called "Born And Raised" (similar to Bruce Springsteen's "Born in the U.S.A.") at only 39 seconds long. Another one of Oliver's shortest songs was Roderick Strong's theme at 42 seconds.

Recently, several TNA stars have used songs from outside bands. This is very unusual for TNA since they have used production music for an entrance only one time before, let alone popular music that can be found in stores. Sting on more than one occasion entered the iMPACT! Zone to "Yours" by tobyMac but quickly went back to his original comeback theme to which there are seemingly no obvious similarities to any other songs. Prior to this, Sting had used a song composed by Oliver titled "Stingellica" which was an obvious rip-off of his last WCW theme "Seek & Destroy" by Metallica. Sting used "Stingellica" in TNA in 2003. "Maverick" Matt Bentley and Frankie Kazarian use a song entitled "Bad Influence" by Bentley's band Less Than Zero. Christy Hemme's theme song is "Wasting Away" by Manic Drive.

Oliver has also been known to make what are considered by some to be his better themes for competitors in the X-Cup Tournaments

[edit] Oliver's work

[edit] Pay-per-view themes

Bound for Glory 2006 pay-per-view theme is modelled after P.O.D's song Alive.
TNA No Surrender 2006's theme resembles John Williams' Imperial March.

[edit] X-Cup teams

Team USA: "Fear" (1st), "Born And Raised" (2nd), untitled rendition of "The Star-Spangled Banner" for 2006 Team.
Team Canada: Oliver's renditions of "O Canada". Team Canada has used three versions. One without an intro, one with an intro, and a redone version.
Team Mexico: The instrumental version of Oliver's popular "I'm Everything" song. The instrumental version is the guitar solo at the 3:10 mark of the lyrical version. It is believed to be looped to play the guitar solo repeatedly after completing, possibly being looped twice which would make the loop around 1:10 due to the fact that one solo is 35 seconds. It may be looped more than 2 times, or it may be played repeatedly by hand by the TNA production crew.
Team Britain: "God Save" which was Oliver's rendition of "God Save The Queen".
Team Japan: "Omori". "Omori" was also used by Low-Ki.

[edit] Individual wrestlers themes

Alex Shelley theme is modelled on "The Fly" by U2.
Chris Candido's theme was modelled on "Born In The U.S.A." by Bruce Springsteen
Christian Cage's theme is modelled on 'My Last Breath' by Evanescence
Christopher Daniels' theme is modelled on "Disposable Teens" by Marilyn Manson.
Diamond Dallas Page's theme is modelled on "Smells Like Teen Spirit" by Nirvana. WCW also used a version of "Smells Like Teen Spirit" for DDP's theme.
Jay Lethal's theme is modelled on "Push It" by Static-X.
Jerry Lynn's first theme is modelled on "Born In The U.S.A." by Bruce Springsteen
Kevin Nash's theme is modelled on "Kashmir" by Led Zeppelin or "Still Dre" by Dr Dre
Kip James's theme is modelled on his "Ass Man" WWE theme.
Kurt Angle's theme is modelled on "Lunatic Fringe" by Red Rider.
Lance Hoyt's theme is modelled on "Touched" by Vast
Latin American Exchange's 1st Theme is modelled on the Filthy Animals WCW Theme "Ashes To Ashes".
Matt Bentley's theme is modelled on "Caboose" by Sugar Ray
Mikey Batts's theme is modelled on Readyfules by Anberlin
Monty Brown's theme is modelled on "Down with the Sickness" by Disturbed.
Phi Delta Slam's theme was modelled on Mad Mikey's theme which was modelled on "Basket Case" by Green Day
Raven's theme is modelled on his old WCW theme, which was modelled on "Come As You Are" by Nirvana.
Rhino's theme is modelled on "Blister In The Sun" by Violent Femmes.
Randy Savage's theme was modelled on his old WWE theme song "Pomp & Circumstance".
Sabu's theme was modelled on his old ECW theme song "Huka Blues" by Harry Slash & The Slashtones
The Sandman's theme was modelled on "Enter Sandman" by Metallica, the original "Enter Sandman" by Metallica was used as his ECW theme.
Samoa Joe's Intro on his theme is modelled on his Ring of Honor Theme Intro which is from the Godzilla Theme.
Scott Hall's theme is modelled on either his WWE Razor Ramon theme or "Those Shoes" by The Eagles.
Scott Steiner's theme is modelled on his WCW and WWE theme songs that sounded very similar.
Shocker's theme is modelled on "Whatever" by Godsmack.
Simon Diamond's theme is modelled on "Simon Says" by Drain STH.
Sting's 1st Theme is modelled on "Seek & Destroy" by Metallica (Sting used "Seek & Destroy" in WCW)
Team 3D's theme is modelled on their old theme "Bombshell" by Powerman 5000, used as their last theme while in WWE.

Both LAX & The James Gang's 1st respective themes both have the words "where's ma dogs at yo" which Dale Oliver stole from a version of Mark Henry's old WWE Theme composed by Jim Johnson, WWE took note of this and threatened TNA with legal action, which is why both LAX & The James Gang's themes have been changed.