John Tesh
Appearances
The Athletic NBA Daily
Wolves handle Thunder | Roundball Rock with John Tesh
The funniest thing about that is I'm in Los Angeles, right? I have a lot of friends because I grew up there and worked there. A lot of friends in New York. And one Saturday night, it was, I guess it was about 8 o'clock, 8.30 Pacific time. And my phone is blowing up. I'm getting texts that are just very confusing. Things like, are you okay with this? Do you see what's happening here?
The Athletic NBA Daily
Wolves handle Thunder | Roundball Rock with John Tesh
Oh my gosh, these guys, I hate these guys for what they're doing to you right now. I'm thinking, what in the world is that? And it was like, okay, watch Saturday Night Live. So I sit there with my wife and we watch the thing. And I watched Jason Sudeikis and Vince Vaughn and Robinson, all these guys.
The Athletic NBA Daily
Wolves handle Thunder | Roundball Rock with John Tesh
And at the end of it, I go, I turn to my wife and go, this is the best thing that's ever happened to me. And the funny thing about it is that they studied the Avalon show that I did for PBS where we played the theme. And Sudeikis, I'm going to show you this. I made this for you guys. Sudeikis dressed and talked and hairstyle exactly like me. So that's Sudeikis on the left.
The Athletic NBA Daily
Wolves handle Thunder | Roundball Rock with John Tesh
And that's me on the right. And so, I mean, they did some work on there, even down to the goofy tie. This is 1994. Oh, yeah.
The Athletic NBA Daily
Wolves handle Thunder | Roundball Rock with John Tesh
Thank you. Thank you for cleaning that up for me. 1994, I'll tell you right now, John Tesh, he was well-dressed in 1994. Fair enough.
The Athletic NBA Daily
Wolves handle Thunder | Roundball Rock with John Tesh
All you have to do is just have another look at this. Exactly. Look at it. Absolutely.
The Athletic NBA Daily
Wolves handle Thunder | Roundball Rock with John Tesh
Get the graphics department on that. To answer your question, instead of people singing the basketball theme to me in airports or even the Entertainment Tonight theme, it became ba-ba-ba-ba-ba basketball. Yeah. And give me the ball because I'm going to dunk it. Yeah.
The Athletic NBA Daily
Wolves handle Thunder | Roundball Rock with John Tesh
uh it was it was great and i ran into vince vaughn at a buffet one day out here with his son on a sunday you know he was talking about because he didn't he had no idea who i was if you watch if you watch it again on on youtube you'll see he at one point vaughn goes well you know tess he wrote the uh he wrote the entertainment tonight So, yeah, no idea.
The Athletic NBA Daily
Wolves handle Thunder | Roundball Rock with John Tesh
But, yeah, that's become a big part of what people remember because of YouTube. Things just live forever, of course.
The Athletic NBA Daily
Wolves handle Thunder | Roundball Rock with John Tesh
Yeah, brought it back into the zeitgeist. So, again, we mentioned the NBA is going back to NBC. Roundball Rock's coming back. Is it going to be the classic Roundball Rock that I grew up with, or are you updating it for 2025? Yeah.
The Athletic NBA Daily
Wolves handle Thunder | Roundball Rock with John Tesh
This is, you know, we're coming up on All-Star weekend, right? And so I thought, you know, I'm going to go because I just want to go. I'm going to take my song. I'm going to go and hang out and meet some fans. And I want to do that crossover thing, you know, where you go and you shoot baskets and you hang out. Yeah, yeah.
The Athletic NBA Daily
Wolves handle Thunder | Roundball Rock with John Tesh
Um, I, uh, so I wanted to figure out, you know, what are, what are, I've never really done this before. So I used Instagram and I, and I, I made two different mixes. One is, is called, um, uh, it's just, it's the OG mix. Right. And another one is there's, there's a, there's a club mix now and a shredded mix.
The Athletic NBA Daily
Wolves handle Thunder | Roundball Rock with John Tesh
And when we debuted the shredded mix, um, months ago, sports illustrated was likening it to, to, uh, I mean, they give it a great review. USA Today too. So what I do is I took, I'll play a little bit of this. What I did on Instagram is I took the two themes side by side and with a video editor, I went back and forth and back and forth. And then at the top, I said, pick your mix, right?
The Athletic NBA Daily
Wolves handle Thunder | Roundball Rock with John Tesh
And so people could pick the mix that they wanted. So here's a little bit of that so you can see it. So that's the OG mix there, of course. Right. Now we switch to the shredded mix.
The Athletic NBA Daily
Wolves handle Thunder | Roundball Rock with John Tesh
Oh, the guitar. Interesting. This easily could have also happened in 1994. I feel like that guitar is very... Yeah.
The Athletic NBA Daily
Wolves handle Thunder | Roundball Rock with John Tesh
Yeah. Right. Right. And so then I put it up on Instagram for a couple of days.
The Athletic NBA Daily
Wolves handle Thunder | Roundball Rock with John Tesh
I'm in the studio and I was recording an orchestral version. Because when I heard that it was coming back in the fall, I went to Nashville, recorded this with a 70-piece orchestra. And I got back and I started tweeting about it and talking about it on Instagram. And I was like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. We don't want anything different, you know? We want the OG version.
The Athletic NBA Daily
Wolves handle Thunder | Roundball Rock with John Tesh
So I'm in the studio and I go, well, let's try this. And so I got Andrew Sinewick, this great guitar player out here, and he did the shredded version, which the reviewers loved. But as you can see from this, you know, for sure, this is from TISM 1, 1990 for sure. He picked that mix. This is the NBA NBC 1990 finals. And he's doing his own announcement, right?
The Athletic NBA Daily
Wolves handle Thunder | Roundball Rock with John Tesh
Tonight, game one between the Utah Jazz and the Chicago Bulls. And then everybody, 90%, 95% of people picked the 1990 version. And then this guy at the bottom, I would go with either one. The guitars definitely rock on, but the OG 1990 version holds a special place to many of us sports fans. So that's what the fans are saying. So I don't know what NBC is going to do.
The Athletic NBA Daily
Wolves handle Thunder | Roundball Rock with John Tesh
And they may vary it, but the OG version, if they don't go with that, I'm telling you, there's like 1,500 comments in two days from people picking the OG version.
The Athletic NBA Daily
Wolves handle Thunder | Roundball Rock with John Tesh
Yeah, I mean, it wouldn't surprise me if that's the way that NBC wanted to go, because, again, this is a song that when we hear it, that's what we think about. We think about basketball, but basketball even. Right. Well, we don't. I would love to keep you all day, but we won't. I was hoping that you could just play us out with round ball rock if you didn't.
The Athletic NBA Daily
Wolves handle Thunder | Roundball Rock with John Tesh
Sure. sure i have to show you one more thing though oh and uh and this is um i put a video up and it was just a you know orchestral version of a little bit of uh of of the of the theme and i said uh what theme comes to mind when you uh when you hear this so so there it is right there what's the first nba team that comes to mind when you hear this song
The Athletic NBA Daily
Wolves handle Thunder | Roundball Rock with John Tesh
Okay. So, uh, there's the bulls, the bulls, and then can't wait for this to come back to NBC. So a lot of people, I mean, people pick the sons, they picked all kinds of different teams, but there, uh, and we did this other test on, on Instagram and said, you know, how we're, um, if you have a minute here, um, given I did this thing where we found the original animation, um,
The Athletic NBA Daily
Wolves handle Thunder | Roundball Rock with John Tesh
of the NBA theme, right? And we asked the question, where were you, how old were you in 1990 when the original NBA theme with the state-of-the-art animation and round ball rock debuts? I'll play a little bit of that. Because he's the magic. Oh, I got it now. Sorry, I didn't get it right away.
The Athletic NBA Daily
Wolves handle Thunder | Roundball Rock with John Tesh
And they're being good sports about it, too. Look at this. Of course. And these pictures flying around like that, that took like four days of rendering.
The Athletic NBA Daily
Wolves handle Thunder | Roundball Rock with John Tesh
Yeah. It's amazing, though. This was it, man. Yeah. Yeah. And now it's all it's coming back.
The Athletic NBA Daily
Wolves handle Thunder | Roundball Rock with John Tesh
Coming back on NBC. And, you know, there are a fair amount of people because we've been we've been actually talking to them on Instagram. And there are a fair amount of people who just want this to come back just like this.
The Athletic NBA Daily
Wolves handle Thunder | Roundball Rock with John Tesh
Yeah. Well, I mean, you got to listen to the fans, you know, and I totally missed it. I wasted a whole bunch of money doing another recording. All right, do you want me to play this thing? Let's do it. I would love it if you played us out.
The Athletic NBA Daily
Wolves handle Thunder | Roundball Rock with John Tesh
You're going to help me fulfill a dream here.
The Athletic NBA Daily
Wolves handle Thunder | Roundball Rock with John Tesh
Listen, you guys have been a lot of fun. You know, I love talking about this and I appreciate it.
The Athletic NBA Daily
Wolves handle Thunder | Roundball Rock with John Tesh
Yeah. I mean, again, it's a hugely contested race there in the play. And so, I mean, but two teams that are actually competitive are going to just completely miss the playoffs altogether. And it's just a matter of which two teams is going to be speaking of teams.
The Athletic NBA Daily
Wolves handle Thunder | Roundball Rock with John Tesh
He's been able to get some shots up for them, too, when Kyrie's not not out on the floor. And that's going to be important for them, especially because Kyrie just he's not a guy that's been the most durable. So, you know, you can't ride him 40 minutes a night like you can with some other guys. We talked about the Warriors. We teased the big win. They get a win over the Rockets 105 to 98.
The Athletic NBA Daily
Wolves handle Thunder | Roundball Rock with John Tesh
This is game four of Jimmy Butler. Warriors are three and one now since Jimmy Butler got there. Did this just solve all their problems?
The Athletic NBA Daily
Wolves handle Thunder | Roundball Rock with John Tesh
Yeah, the Minnesota Timberwolves, they've been kind of having a rough go of it lately, just up and down all season long. Just can't figure things out. They just got a big win. They beat the Thunder. Huge win. Yeah, 116-101. And this was the Thunder's biggest loss of the season, sends them to 10 losses. They're now 44-10. Same record as the Cleveland Cavaliers heading into the break.
The Athletic NBA Daily
Wolves handle Thunder | Roundball Rock with John Tesh
And, you know, Zena, I'm just starting to think about, okay, what does the second half of the season look like? You know, obviously the Thunder and the Cavs both had amazing first halves. Which team do you feel like is set up to make a run in the second half and make a run, you know, 65, 68 wins by the time we get to the playoffs?
The Athletic NBA Daily
Wolves handle Thunder | Roundball Rock with John Tesh
Zena postgame after the Warriors there in the office at NBC. Zena, how's it going? How was the game?
The Athletic NBA Daily
Wolves handle Thunder | Roundball Rock with John Tesh
Yeah, I think Cleveland should be set up to maintain what they've been doing. But like I said, you know, you mentioned Chet. They had him basically at midseason back into this team. They're coming into full health. I don't know if that winds up being the finals. I'm not going to complain.
The Athletic NBA Daily
Wolves handle Thunder | Roundball Rock with John Tesh
you know, uh, the two best teams from the regular season, if they wind up meeting the finals, I think it'd be pretty fun. Uh, before we go to break and go to John Tesh, um, which again, it's just incredible. It was, it was amazing. Um, I got goosebumps multiple times, embarrassingly, maybe.
The Athletic NBA Daily
Wolves handle Thunder | Roundball Rock with John Tesh
The Clippers, the Utah Jazz is just like, everyone break out your new players against us. Try out your new toys. The Clippers were in Utah. They just signed Ben Simmons, who was a buyout from the Brooklyn Nets. He made his debut. They went to overtime and Norm Powell had 41 points. James Harden had 32.
The Athletic NBA Daily
Wolves handle Thunder | Roundball Rock with John Tesh
But Zena, I want to talk to you about Ben Simmons because Ben Simmons actually had a really nice basketball game. 12 points off the bench, eight rebounds, six assists, three steals a block. And I will just say this. They closed regulation with Ben Simmons on the court. He had been playing well. They kept him out there. I think that that was a really great move by Ty Lue.
The Athletic NBA Daily
Wolves handle Thunder | Roundball Rock with John Tesh
Of course, you get into overtime. You want to get some scoring out there. But I actually liked the wrinkle of having a small ball five out there running the floor with those guys. I think the Clippers got a little bit more dangerous.
The Athletic NBA Daily
Wolves handle Thunder | Roundball Rock with John Tesh
Well, we'll get to that in a second because we got to talk about the Jimmy Butler experience. But we got some news right before we went to record tonight. Dallas Mavericks center Daniel Gafford is going to be out for about six weeks. He suffered a grade three right injury.
The Athletic NBA Daily
Wolves handle Thunder | Roundball Rock with John Tesh
It was fun to watch him be disruptive on the wing for a team that's actually pretty good around him. Yeah, so I'm excited for Ben Simmons to come back. The scariest bunny around the basket layup that you're ever going to watch in your life, but we're all rooting for Ben Simmons. That's right. Guys, stick around after the break.
The Athletic NBA Daily
Wolves handle Thunder | Roundball Rock with John Tesh
S and I had a chance to talk to John Tesh, and yeah, he's going to play round ball rock. It is a very special day here at the Athletic NBA Daily. It's special for me personally. It's special for the show. I think it hopefully is special for NBA fans. You know our guests from, you know, making Michael Jordan's theme song, the old round ball rock NBA on NBC theme.
The Athletic NBA Daily
Wolves handle Thunder | Roundball Rock with John Tesh
John Tesh, welcome to the Athletic NBA Daily. Thank you for joining us. Thank you for making that song.
The Athletic NBA Daily
Wolves handle Thunder | Roundball Rock with John Tesh
I'm a big fan. I should I should tell you that the athletic shows up on my Apple news feed. And so that's where I get all of my sports news. That's awesome. That's good to hear.
The Athletic NBA Daily
Wolves handle Thunder | Roundball Rock with John Tesh
Hey, the NBA is back on NBC. Roundball Rock is coming back. I would like to start at the beginning because I grew up with this song. Again, some of my favorite sports memories in life. Roundball Rock is the theme song for that. Michael Jordan's theme song, as if he was Superman, is Roundball Rock in my head.
The Athletic NBA Daily
Wolves handle Thunder | Roundball Rock with John Tesh
So how did you come up with this song in the first place that just nails what the sport of basketball is all about?
The Athletic NBA Daily
Wolves handle Thunder | Roundball Rock with John Tesh
mcl sprain um you know we saw him leave that game the other day xena obviously the mavericks are kind of having a rough run of it since the luka don't just trade and even before that you know they lost derrick lively and he we don't know exactly when he's going to be back anthony davis looks like he's going to be out for at least a month and now no gafford so just no centers for this team and somehow they still won the game last night um and without kyrie irving so
The Athletic NBA Daily
Wolves handle Thunder | Roundball Rock with John Tesh
Well, the first thing to know is that I had grown up as a musician on Long Island. And then I was playing music, recording music in the 1980s while I was still working on news and things like that. And I got a job at CBS Sports doing sporting events that nobody else wanted to do. You know, ski flying and Mr. Universe. And I mean, figure skating was fantastic.
The Athletic NBA Daily
Wolves handle Thunder | Roundball Rock with John Tesh
And I landed on the Tour de France with a guy named David Michaels, Al Michaels' brother, who's this tremendous producer. And I'd never met him before. He goes, hey, John, I know you're a musician and a writer. Let's do this MTV style. Let's do the Tour de France. And we'll use music and stuff. I said, well, I've got some... I've got a bar and I've got a piano. I've got some synthesizers.
The Athletic NBA Daily
Wolves handle Thunder | Roundball Rock with John Tesh
Good morning and welcome to the NBA Daily. Coming up, more bad news for the Mavericks. The Thunder lost their 10th game and the Warriors picked up a big win heading into the All-Star break. And somehow, unbelievably, our special guest John Tesh is going to play round ball rock. Good morning, everybody. Good morning, Zena. Actually, good night, Zena.
The Athletic NBA Daily
Wolves handle Thunder | Roundball Rock with John Tesh
I'm geeking out. That was me all day doing that stuff, right? And then since I'm in the sports world, knowing producers and stuff like that, I heard through the sports grapevine that... that NBC had gotten the coverage, right? And this is 1989, 1990, and that they were looking for a theme. And this story is online, you know, in a bunch of different places.
The Athletic NBA Daily
Wolves handle Thunder | Roundball Rock with John Tesh
And so I was just in the middle of the night in Magève, France, still covering the Tour de France. I'm thinking, what would it sound like? What would a sports team sound like? First of all, I'm up against everybody, John Williams and Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard, all those guys.
The Athletic NBA Daily
Wolves handle Thunder | Roundball Rock with John Tesh
But what Eversol wanted to do and Terry O'Neill is they just wanted to put it out to people and say, hey, we'll consider anything. And so I got this theme idea in the middle of night, two o'clock in the morning, and I called my answering machine, which was in New York at the time, and I left a message for myself at 2 a.m.
The Athletic NBA Daily
Wolves handle Thunder | Roundball Rock with John Tesh
And when I tell this story on stage, people are like, you know, I tell a story about how I call my answering machine and left a message for myself. And they all laugh because they've all done that. They've all said, I'm going to pick up a quart of milk and all the rest of that stuff. And so I still have... This is actually the answering... I have the answering machine. You have it?
The Athletic NBA Daily
Wolves handle Thunder | Roundball Rock with John Tesh
And here's the answering machine message. I have the answering machine message because I carry it around with me and I play it on stage. So I played this...
The Athletic NBA Daily
Wolves handle Thunder | Roundball Rock with John Tesh
like you know years ago on a pbs special this is the original answering machine message that i left when i was in majeur france and i called uh i called my answering machine in new york and you can see how close it is to what ended up being the michael jordan theme yeah this is a message for me about the nba theme here's an idea it goes like this
The Athletic NBA Daily
Wolves handle Thunder | Roundball Rock with John Tesh
Yeah, so it was... And then, you know, just sitting at the piano, you know, it was basically just... I just took the answering machine and just went, you know... And then just, you know, it's the second section, which is...
The Athletic NBA Daily
Wolves handle Thunder | Roundball Rock with John Tesh
But but having watched sports and then been in it and been in the control room and Brent Musburger was there and all the rest of those guys, you know, understanding that the theme can be two parts. Right. Right. Like two fanfares. But then there has to be a place for Marv to talk over. And this was a lot of this was something it was like an inside thing.
The Athletic NBA Daily
Wolves handle Thunder | Roundball Rock with John Tesh
So so I wrote this section, which was basically, you know. So there's not much melody. It's just like, you know, brought to you by, you know, like that kind of thing.
The Athletic NBA Daily
Wolves handle Thunder | Roundball Rock with John Tesh
Yes, yes, yes. And then there was, you know, at the end, there had to be something that built up at the end. And that was basically, you know, the whole orchestra playing like, you know,
The Athletic NBA Daily
Wolves handle Thunder | Roundball Rock with John Tesh
On one hand, listen, this is bad news for their prospects heading into the playoffs. This is a team that's trying to get themselves out of the play-in. And I think at full health, they probably felt like they still had a good chance to compete come playoff time. But, Zena, they're still somehow pulling these wins out, and it's just desperation basketball. You can't root against them.
The Athletic NBA Daily
Wolves handle Thunder | Roundball Rock with John Tesh
This is awesome. Right? It's like an epic. Those parts, I knew that from working in sports that it had to have all those parts. But to be honest, I had no idea that it would even work, that they'd pick it. And when they did pick the theme and it played for 10, 11 years or something like that, it was just another theme, right?
The Athletic NBA Daily
Wolves handle Thunder | Roundball Rock with John Tesh
And this really didn't become, I don't think it really became popular until it was off the air for a while. I don't even know how that happened.
The Athletic NBA Daily
Wolves handle Thunder | Roundball Rock with John Tesh
I mean, nostalgia, right? It goes away, like the NBA. And also, again, Michael Jordan disappeared as well, right? The NBA left NBC and went into this next era, and they changed music. They didn't have Michael Jordan. I think that the two coincide maybe a little bit more than a lot of people realize. But for me, every time I hear that song, that's who I'm thinking about. Yeah.