Joe Hendry (@joehendry) is a professional wrestler on the WWE Raw brand and a musician. He sits down with Chris Van Vliet in Nashville, TN to discuss his new album “Beyond Belief”, how the project came together, holding every championship for the “Give Joe Hendry Every Single Belt” video, his viral song “Tables, Ladders and Chairs”, the segment on RAW with Danhausen, wanting to continue feud with Logan Paul when he get back from injury, and more!
Well, once again, I have said his name, and he has appeared. Joe Hendry, welcome back to the show.
“Thanks for having me.”
What’s going on with your eye?
“Well, this is just part of the job, my friend. It’s from the South American tour we were just on. Had an absolute blast. We managed to do, I think, five countries in six days, so it was an unbelievable experience. And you know what? I’ve got this to show for it as well.”
But what happened?
“You know, things happen. Someone may have bumped on my face. That might have happened.”
If you’re sitting next to someone on a flight and you say, “I’m a WWE superstar” well, yeah, it’s pretty obvious.
“It’s funny you mention that, because I remember I had an unfortunate situation where, for whatever reason. If you’re me, what’s the couple of things you don’t want to leave home without? It’s the blue shirt and the white trousers, which for some reason didn’t make it into my case. I’m panicking, and it turns out Argentina is the only stop where I’m going to be able to go out and perhaps get a blue shirt and white trousers. I’ve gone out there, and at this time, this [the black eyes] was way worse. So I haven’t shaved at this point. I’m just with two black eyes wandering around Argentina, can’t speak the language. I was like, this is probably going to be pretty strange for people speaking to me. But I do want to mention that actually, one of the things that I have really appreciated in the last couple of weeks is the camaraderie that we have in the locker room, and the reason I mention that I want to put somebody over, and that’s Penta. Because I was on the tour, I was trying to find a blue shirt and white pants, and I just couldn’t do it. So I knew Penta was my guy. So I knew we were going to Mexico, and I just said, ‘I am stuck. Can you help me? Where can I go in Mexico?’ And he says, ‘It’s taken care of.'”
What does that mean?
“I’m telling you, I got to that venue, and he had this. It’s better than the ones I’m using on TV. Had this beautiful blue shirt, perfect. He’s a fashionable guy. Beautiful white trousers. He actually went out of his way, his daughter, she went out and got the stuff for me. Then I said, ‘How much did it cost?’ And he went, ‘No, it’s a gift from my family.’ I just wanted to mention that because that’s just like one example of some of the great people that we have in our locker room. They just had that unbelievable match on Raw, him and Roman. I just wanted to take a second to say that about Penta. Fantastic performer, great human being, much like a lot of people in her locker room.”
Does that mean you’re going to retire the old blue shirt, and this will be the shirt moving forward?
“I see what you’re trying to do here. You’re trying to box me into saying there’s one shirt, and I’ve already said on your show there’s not one shirt, but we now have one for the collection. There are multiple shirts.”
How much time are you spending at home these days? I feel like you’re on the road a lot.
“Yeah, I’m very busy right now, and that’s the way I like it. I’m one of these guys, I do not do well with sitting at home and overthinking it. I need to be active and constantly striving forward and doing things and trying to get from A to B and beyond. So I love it. I love being busy. I think that’s where I thrive. The more repetitions I get, whether it’s interviews, in the ring, live performances, media, whatever it is, fan interactions. I just feel the more repetitions I get, the better I get, and I’m chasing that. I want to know how far I can take this, and that’s my whole attitude. I just won’t quit. I know where I want to go, and I will not quit until I get there. So I just want to keep going, keep getting repetitions, as busy as possible. I want to be doing every live event. I love it.”
When you say I know where I want to go, where’s that?
“It sometimes sounds ridiculous to say these big goals, but I have a habit of putting them out there, and then maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but getting there. I believe I get better as a wrestler every week, every month that goes by. I look at the match that Penta and Roman just had, and I say I want to aspire to that. I felt like I was watching two artists, and I just thought what skills do I need to acquire to get to that level? What do I need to gain to get there? What am I missing that I need to get there? That’s what really keeps me going. That’s what the fire is. It’s trying to figure that out. At different points in your career, there’s different ways to do it. When I was in NXT, it was about being in the Performance Center every day, doing the classes, doing all the Florida shows, all the live events, the TVs, trying to just do as much as I could within the WWE system to try and learn WWE television. That’s where my focus was at that time, and I feel that’s what helped me get to that NXT Championship. I’m grateful to Shawn for giving me the opportunity to do that. The footage has been captured in Shawn’s documentary. We had a conversation that was filmed where I just asked Shawn direct, ‘Listen what do I need to do? What skills do I have to acquire to be the type of guy that could be your champion?’ Now I don’t know if Shawn saw me in that light before that conversation, but I do feel like after that, that’s when I just saw that door start to open. I then started to learn more and more from Shawn, and I appreciate the fact that I was able to ask that question for him to give me the answer, and for there to be a path for me to go and do that. I feel like being on Raw has been a great experience as well. I feel like I’m learning so much, and I feel that management, creative, the writing team, and Triple H as well have been very generous with their time. If I have a question, there’s no mysteries. It’s like if I have a question about what do I need to do, it’s like it’s this. I appreciate that. That keeps me focused. All I ask for is an opportunity to go out there and to try and progress, and right now I feel like I’m getting that. I’m getting the repetitions. I’m on those live tours. I’m getting to put out this album. I’m being allowed space to output, and to try things and take big swings.”
You’ve now recorded this album called Beyond Belief. How did this come together? How did this happen?
“So the album kind of came together by accident. So there was a period of time where I was on NXT, and I thought I was getting called up to SmackDown. So I went up to it, but I didn’t know. So I remember it was when I did the song at Christmas about the Miz, and I went up to SmackDown. I remember Becky Lynch asked me, ‘Are you up now?’ I was like, ‘I think so?’ ‘It turns out I wasn’t, but I thought I was at that time. So I remember it was Neil, who is the head of WWE Music, said to me, ‘Hey, we want to put out this single, the audio of your live performance from SmackDown.’ I was thinking maybe if we recorded it professionally rather than using live audio, it might be a better way to do that. And he was like, ‘All right, cool. Well, yeah, let’s record it.’ Then he was like, ‘What if we did an EP?’ Then I was like, ‘Well, actually, the same week I’ve done a song for NXT.’ So I was like, there’s two. He was like, ‘Can you do one more?’ And then I remember, again, I thought I was going up to SmackDown, so I did a song called Going Up to SmackDown. So I made that one, and we got about four or five songs, and we just both thought, you know what, we’re almost there, let’s just do an album. So I wrote 10 tracks in either three or four days.”
These are, for the most part, new songs.
“Yes, most of them are.”
Except for Fire Logan Paul.
“We added Fire Logan Paul. That’s another interesting story because I was supposed to debut the night after WrestleMania, and the song I had was the same song, but it was ‘Raw, Raw, Joe Hendry signed to Raw.’ Then what happened was they’d announced that I was going to be on Raw the next week. Because what I was going to say something that rhymed with SmackDown, I was going say something like back down because I have signed to Raw. That was what the gag was going to be. But I think Cole had said it, and there was like a graphic. I was like, we need to pivot here and then I found out that I was going to be working with The Vision. I’ve always learned in wrestling that you have to go after the biggest, baddest name. Well, the one name who’s got the most controversy and fame is Logan. So I’ll just go directly after Logan, and the words fit right in. So that’s how the Fire Logan Paul song came about, and then it just kind of blew up beyond what we had maybe expected, and then yeah, had to put it on the album.”
Do you start with the lyrics first, or do you start with the melody of a song?
“So, I’m reading Rick Rubin’s book right now, and he talks about the creative process and how you have to engineer this situation where stuff just comes to you, and that’s kind of how it works for me. I just get these phases where I was very lucky that when it came to writing the album. I came up with the concepts for all the songs pretty much in like one or two days, and I just spent the other couple of days refining them. So I just, for whatever reason, had all the ideas just come to me. I’m a huge Weezer fan, and I think that’s how I learned music, was playing guitar alongside Weezer songs because their songs are so structurally simple. They’re almost like, kind of rock, sometimes grungy, nursery rhymes. So I’ve learned that if you keep the melody strong and you have a good verbal hook, you can kind of reverse engineer it from there. So it would be a rare situation that I would start with the verse or something like that. It has to be okay, we’ve got fire Logan Paul. Let’s reverse engineer the rest of the song around that hook. I have to start with a hook that I think is going to hit.”
I love the commercial that you put together, advertising all of the songs on this album. It felt like a throwback to the ’90s, like a late-night commercial you’d see.
“Well, that’s exactly what we were going for. So I think the one that was like the main inspiration was the greatest love songs, and the funniest thing was so much has happened in the last couple of weeks. Very grateful I’m getting used a lot and booked a lot right now, that’s how I like it [when] I’m busy. I was about to fly out somewhere and I realized oh, we don’t have the voiceover for this thing. Who do we get to do it? So then I just found myself, again, I had the same pro mic in my house that they had, and I thought, all right, here we go, ‘The new Joe Hendry album.’ So we had a lot of fun making that, and again, so many talented people. The video crew that WWE have is unbelievable. The work that they’ve done on it. There are quite a few people that worked on it, but I’m so grateful to work with the team that we have. Just the fact that we can pick a 90s niche reference and just go all in on it, and just come up with these crazy ideas, like what if I’ve got this song Tables, Ladders, and Chairs, and every line is a gimmick match, and we just show the match. It’s like, why not? And that’s really cool.”
You’re in an interesting spot because your character is so character-driven, right? You’re the guy that goes out there and you play fun songs. When the bell rings, you can also go in the ring, and I feel like that doesn’t get talked about nearly enough with you. It’s talked so much about your character work and the fun stuff you do, and I feel like the wrestling doesn’t get discussed that much.
“Thank you. I feel it’s because when you are like a character wrestler, you’re always going to be judged more harshly for your in-ring ability and things like that. But to be honest with you, I take comfort in the fact that I feel really confident because how you get better at wrestling is wrestling people who are better than you, wrestling people who you can learn something from. I’m so fortunate in that all throughout my career, I’ve had the chance to work with people who I’ve been able to learn things from in real time, and I just feel like I’ve come so far in ring since my stuff started blowing up a couple of years ago. But I even feel like I’ve come so far in a couple of months, and I just think where am I going to be in January this year? Where am I going to be in two years’ time? It’s exciting to me. I think that’s how you kind of combat all the [negativity]. It’s like the Miz says, block out all the noise. The way I’m able to block out all the noise is because if I’m criticized, it’s like you’re criticizing me for who I was yesterday, and that person is already dead. That’s kind of how I look at it.”
So, when Logan Paul comes back from injury, do you still have your eyes set on him?
“Yeah, absolutely. I think that’s the feud. I think that would be cool for me and Logan to see what would happen there.”
How did you feel about the feedback to this segment you did with Danhausen?
“So I’ll say this: it was an interesting experience for me. Because what I’ve learned is that when you do something that isn’t received how you’d want it to be received, in previous companies it’s just whatever, on to the next. Whereas now, because of the global platform that we have, these moments don’t just go away. You’re getting so much feedback, good and bad, from people that you’re not used to, and it was an adjustment, I think, for a small period of time there. But again, this is a conversation I had with Alex [Williams], and she was teaching me that when we’re doing what we do, it’s 52 weeks a year. It’s like you have to learn the lessons as you go, and go okay. You use that, take the feedback, and go, okay, this is what this is the direction we’ll go next time, and you have to just get back on the horse and keep going. I think learning that, I’ve realized the pathway to success for me is taking big swings. I think that this album is a big swing. Putting out the commercial and give Joe Hendry every single belt and tables, ladders, and chairs. Those are big swings, and I have confidence in them. I think that when you take big swings, there the the cost of that is not everything that you’re gonna that you do is gonna hit 100%, but I will say this is, I can hand on heart say that we genuinely tried our best to deliver for the audience, and I always do. That’s all I’m trying to do is just entertain the audience as best I can. I’m not going to necessarily be successful 100% of the time, but I think the hit rate is pretty good, and I’m proud of the effort that goes in.”
When you look at your wrestling career, and certainly your career over the last three to four years, it really does feel like it’s beyond belief. Is that why the album is called this?
“Yeah, I think it’s that, and also just because I’m trying to be as ridiculous as possible with it. It’s beyond belief, you know. It’s just a title that we found amusing.”
How do you even describe the type of music on here?
“It’s a mixture. I’d say it’s a kind of pop rock album, but we definitely have a country influence in there. Honestly, I mean, the Going Up to SmackDown song is kind of like a military-style sound, so we kind of did a bit of everything on that one. So I think we just had fun.”
When was the last time you had a one-on-one match with Drew McIntyre?
“The last time I had a one-on-one match with Drew McIntyre was 2016. It was in Edinburgh, and it was at Meadowbank, which is an arena where I used to play sports when I was seven. I hadn’t even really thought of that until now, actually; that was the show where I quit the job I had at the time to go full time with wrestling. That was the show, 2016. There was one point during lockdown, I had a business as well at one point, but there was one point where the business wasn’t doing so good. It was just before I went to TNA. I had to get a job, and it was really tough, man. It was a sales job. I did not have any faith in the product that was supposed to be selling. It was up at four in the morning to drive somewhere for five in the morning. You’re just like, what has gone wrong here? That was a very humbling experience. Being a pro wrestler and I’ve got this business that’s making money, and then for the business to start to not do so well, and like, oh man, I’m gonna have to work a full-time job to try and save the business, to try and pursue this pro wrestling thing. But again, I just I just kept going, just never gave up.”
The shot of you in the music video where you are holding every single belt got a lot of people talking.
“So, believe it or not, that is not AI. I’m holding all the belts. I am holding all the belts, we don’t know the exact combined weight, but it’s somewhere between two and 300 pounds, because they’re heavy belts, and I’ve been wearing 15 of them or something like that. Every belt that we had available on that you can buy. So I’ve got my arms stretched out like this and I’m like [groans]. So when you see the footage, I’m dying. I had all those belts on for probably like 15-20 minutes. That was tough, man. I burned some calories that day.”
So now that you have this album out, will there be a tour? Are you going to be performing all these songs at any point,
“So a lot of this is kind of unfolding as it happens. So right now I don’t have a tour to say, “Hey, we’re doing this. But what I will say is the album is out on October 5, and I’m super excited for it. I know, just based on what I’ve done before, based on the feedback that I’m getting, we could do it. Maybe a couple of years ago, it might have been last year as well. I did some live shows that were really well attended in the UK, and I think we could do it again and have a lot of fun. So I would love to start touring the record if we can. I think that’ll probably unfold as we see how the reception is, but I think that’s something we could absolutely do. I’d love to do that.”
What is Joe Hendry grateful for?
“The opportunity, my health, and the people in my life.”
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