If you’re ready to break some glass and learn the Stone Cold Steve Austin entrance theme guitar TAB then give me a hell yeah! What? I basically said that this is going to be the Eat Sleep Guitar Repeat Stone Cold Steve Austin theme song guitar lesson. Let’s give the clean tone a stunner and break out the distortion for this wrestling attitude era classic. I think that was the most fun introduction to a guitar lesson that I’ve ever written.
The Steve Austin theme song is an intense affair based around a few power chords, some wah and a few bends. It was composed by a very clever musician by the name of Jim Johnson. Jim Johnson is well known for his work in WWE/F. He served as their resident composer for many years providing music for the wrestling company and their wrestlers.
The relationship between the WWE and Jim Johnson ended in 2017 but his legacy will live on thanks to his compositions that will be remembered forever by fans of the wrestlers who’s persona he helped shape with those iconic theme songs. Stone Cold Steve Austin has Johnson to thank for his work as well as the likes of The Rock and The Undertaker. Johnson won 5 BMI Cable awards during his time with the WWE but is still in my opinion an underrated musician and composer.
Stone Cold Steve Austin entrance theme guitar TAB guitar lesson and guide on how to play the Stone Cold theme song
The Stone Cold Steve Austin entrance theme is roughly 3 and a half minutes in length. Approximately length of your average song. This piece of music played in the background when the Texas Rattlesnake made his way to the ring back in the day. All wrestling fans know the track very well. The music combined with that iconic glass shatter at the start brings back a lot of memoires.
The glass shatter sounds are just one element. There are a lot of memorable little parts to this track but when you learn how to play it on guitar, you see that the Steve Austin theme song is simply 4 short sections repeated.
This is how I’ll be teaching you how to play the Stone Cold theme song in this lesson. We will break each section down and learn them 1 by 1 in chronological order.
Stone Cold Steve Austin entrance theme guitar TAB section 1
The first thing that we hear in this theme song is the big glass shatter right at the start. This first section immediately follows that. This first part is the most well-known section of the track and consists of a cool little combination of distorted power chords and little tiny pieces of lead guitar.
I’ll point out now that this is a track that has 2 guitar parts. I’ll be showing you how to do both but when appropriate I shall be merging the 2 parts together into 1. You can see what I mean with this first part of the TAB.
As mentioned. This is a mix of lead and rhythm. The power chord based rhythm uses an E power chord and an F power chord and is played 4 times as you can see. This part never changes.
You play the power chord rhythm then the first lead lick then the rhythm again then the second lick and so on. There’s 4 lead licks there in total. The lead licks aren’t difficult to play but you’ll need to focus and concentrate on the timing to get this just right.
Stone Cold Steve Austin entrance theme guitar TAB section 2
This is the part of the track where I need to split up the 2 guitar parts. We basically have a background and a foreground part. I personally play the background part which is power chord based. Here’s the TAB
As you can see, the above part repeats 8 times which, when you’re playing it, feels like a lot. It is a lot and can feel and sound a little bit repetitive when not accompanied by the following part on top.
Here is the other guitar part for this section.
This sounds amazing when combined with the rhythm section but a little thin when performed on its own. I’d probably stick with the rhythm guitar part if you’re playing this in a single guitarist situation. But if you have 2 guitarists, go to town. This lead part also benefits from a wah injection so if you have a wah pedal then break it out for this one.
Also pay attention to those repeat marks.
If you are playing just the rhythm then you may also consider shortening the length to 4 repeats instead of 8. This is what I do and it flows really nicely but up to you. If you’re playing along to the track then you’ll need to do the full 8 repeats.
Stone Cold Steve Austin entrance theme guitar TAB section 3
Next up we have section 3 of this wrestling classic. Half of this is rhythm based and half is more of a lead guitar approach. There’s nothing difficult to play here. Take a look at the TAB.
Really fun little part to play in my opinion. Again if you have 2 guitarists then 1 guitar player can play the rhythm and the other can come in later with the lead playing over the top of the rhythm. If you’re the only guitarist then go with the half and half as seen in the TAB.
Once again, keep an eye on the repeat marks.
Stone Cold Steve Austin entrance theme guitar TAB section 4
Finally we have section 4 of the Stone Cold Steve Austin theme song. This is by far the simplest of the 3 sections. It basically serves the purpose of linking back to the first section. Here’s the TAB.
No explanation needed with that. Nice and simple. What I would say though is this section also sounds really cool with a lovely bit of wah. Definitely get that wah pedal out for this part and the part I mentioned earlier.
The rest of the Stone Cold entrance theme
Knowing the 4 sections that we’ve looked at above means that you know the whole Stone Cold theme song as the sections simply repeat over and over again until the track concludes at around 3 an a half minutes. In terms of structure, things are very simple indeed. There’s no deviation from chronological order. In other words, Section 1 is always followed by section 2 and section 2 is always followed by section 3 and section 3 is always followed by section 4. Once you’ve played section 4, go back to section 1. Easy.
Ending the track
As mentioned earlier, the 4 sections that we learned repeat in order until the end at which point we get a fade out. I have a cool little way of ending this one without a fade out. My ending basically sticks the bar part of section 1 at the end of section 4. Very straightforward. Try it out. Simple but very effective. If you want to end it in another way then that’s fine also but my way works perfectly fine.
What next?
I’ll be honest. I really did enjoy creating this lesson. The Steve Austin theme song is something that I always wanted to learn but I just never got around to it. I’m a little annoyed with myself for not learning it sooner because this only took 10 minutes or so to master but oh well. This definitely won’t be the last wrestling theme song I make a lesson for.
As for what you can take a look at next, how about looking at the Purple Haze TAB and guitar lesson. There’s a wrestling link there so this works. Or maybe you could take a look at the last lesson I wrote for Eat Sleep Guitar Repeat which was the My Girl TAB and guitar lesson.
Hello. My name is Ryan J Mellor and I play the guitar. I’m also the creator of Eat Sleep Guitar Repeat. I’ve ben a guitarist for many years and my guitar playing has been described as “above average”. My guitar and music knowledge is somewhat impressive but most importantly, I have a passion for creating great guitar and music related content.