Tony Khan doesn’t skimp when it comes to licensing music for his All Elite Wrestling talent. AEW’s CEO has ponied up for the rights to numerous well-known songs including Living Colour’s “Cult of Personality” (CM Punk), The Pixies’ “Where Is My Mind” and Jefferson Starship’s “Jane” (Orange Cassidy) as well as Baltimora’s “Tarzan Boy” (Jungle Boy).
Khan has also licensed Europe’s “The Final Countdown” for Bryan Danielson, Kansas’ “Carry On Wayward Son” for Kenny Omega and The Young Bucks, Pantera’s “Walk” for Rob Van Dam and 50 Cent’s “Many Men (Wish Death)” for The Gunns.
Now, if Billie Starkz gets her way, Khan will soon be in touch with pop punk legends Blink182. Starkz tweeted to the band recently expressing her interest in using their 1999 song “Aliens Exist” as her new theme music.
“Dear @blink182, Please give me permission to use Aliens Exist for my entrance music everywhere,” Starkz wrote. “Also, would be really cool if you could do it live some time for me 🙂 Thanks.”
It’s almost a given that Khan will try to make this happen, as he previously has expressed his fandom for Blink182. The band also did a brief cameo back in 2019 at AEW Fyter Fest.
“Blink-182 did something with us in AEW, and they were tremendous,” Khan said on Bex & Buster. “They were really nice to do it several years ago, and they’re also one of my favorite bands ever.”
Khan also previously told the Battleground Podcast about how he has been able to secure the rights to some songs, specifically when the artist is willing to negotiate a “reasonable deal.”
“That’s why I wanted to pay the extra and go the extra mile to get ‘Walk’ by Pantera,” he said. “Pantera was great and worked with us and we worked out a reasonable deal. I compare music licenses and wrestling to trades in pro sports. It’s like, you can do your best, but every trade is its own transaction, it has to be between, at least two willing parties. Sometimes people ask for money that I don’t think is reasonable, other times we have gotten deals that I thought were very fair.”
Khan continued: “Every great moment where we’ve licensed music, we still have that music, I paid for the rights in perpetuity. I’ve had a lot of other opportunities to license music and work with a lot of great artists. We’ve done all kinds of great stuff, and hopefully, someday all of that will be available for people to watch in perpetuity on the library forever.”
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