In a recent podcast appearance on ‘Monsters, Madness and Magic,’ Ron Wasserman, the composer of the ‘Mighty Morphin Power Rangers’ theme song, shared the story behind the that tune. One fascinating aspect of the theme is that the famous guitar riffs were not recorded with a guitar. Wasserman confirmed that most of the song was created using keyboards, except for some lead guitar parts in the full version. This explanation is intriguing given the influence of the theme in inspiring many to learn the guitar.
The theme’s authenticity even fooled Eddie Van Halen. Wasserman recalled an encounter with Van Halen in which he had to explain that the famous riff was actually played on a piano and Van Halen was very surprised. Wasserman told his story:
“I had a band called Fisher with my ex-wife, and Eddie Van Halen’s wife, Valerie Bertinelli, was a big fan of the band. So she put one of the songs in a movie she was doing, and she said, ‘Come on up to the house.’ We came up to the house, the estate, the compound. I was talking to Eddie for a bit, and he handed me a guitar and said, ‘I have to learn that damn riff for Wolfie. Show me how you played it. And I went over to the grand piano and said, ‘Don’t kill me.’ And he said, ‘All right, good job!’ So I fooled the master.”
New Power Rangers Soundtrack With Wasserman
Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Once & Always was aired on the 30th anniversary of the beloved 1990s franchise. The return of the series was also marked by the return of Ron Wasserman, the producer of the aforementioned theme song. Wasserman produced the soundtrack for the new movie in the series and released it as an album under his own name. In an interview with the Comics Online Youtube channel in April, he talked about the new ‘Power Rangers’ soundtrack album. He said:
“Well, the director reached out to me; I think it was last July or in June, and said ‘We’d love to have you back, are you interested?’ and I said ‘yeah.’ I was pretty excited about it and originally they thought they’d have a cut in August and then September. All fine things take time and you know there’s a million people involved, and then I finally got it in on December 10th. We had notes; he and I went through it’s called a spotting session, where you go through the whole thing, and then from December 12th until January 7th, I took Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve off and just busted my butt on it to make it the best score ever because it’s so different from the original series.”
You can listen to the full album below.