X-Men ’97 is here, and it has been getting fans excited with the continuation of the ’90s X-Men animated series, especially with some of the voice actors reprising their roles such as Cal Dodd as Wolverine and Lenore Zann as Rogue. Other returning fan-fave characters include Gambit, Jubilee, Storm and Morph. (Check out our interview with Morph voice actor, JP Karliak.) Additionally, you can’t have an X-Men animated show without the classic theme song by Ron Wasserman, who is also the composer of the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers theme song. For the revival series, Marvel Studios brought The Newton Brothers on board to work on the music including recreating the beloved theme song.

You can check out the X-Men ’97 theme song below:

The Newton Brothers are comprised of Andy Grush and Taylor Newton Stewart, and their credits include Universal Pictures’ Five Nights at Freddy’s, Netflix’s The Haunting of Hill House, The Fall of the House of Usher, and more. Since the two have been working together for years, they have evolved to the point where they don’t need to talk to each other every day to understand each other’s music.

“We’ve spent years sort of perfecting this process that’s always sort of evolving, but we’ve gotten into a place where, technically, if we don’t have time to talk in a day, we don’t need to,” Andy Grush tells Nerd Reactor. “I can ascertain everything I need from like, if I’m working on a character that Taylor has been spending most of his time on the theme for, I’ve got that theme on my computer already. Our machines are constantly syncing. So we’re pretty good about keeping track of everything. And especially in this project, there are scenes that abruptly change so quickly, so many times within an episode, so we’d have to be hyper-aware.”

“Like if I’m starting a queue, typically Taylor and I will sort of divide and conquer, but then it all sort of comes together in a bit of a soup,” Grush explained. “I might start a queue. Taylor might finish it. But it’s tricky because we kind of have to pay attention to see if I’m starting to queue and Taylor’s already started the queue before it, I need to see what he’s done so far to make sure I’m not starting in a weird key or that he’s not ending with like a drum break. Then I’m coming in at a different tempo. So we kind of have all that technical stuff kind of locked down. That doesn’t mean it always works once in a while. It’s like, oh, there’s a bit of a train wreck between cues, but you know, it’s all pretty, pretty fixable.”

To make the music of X-Men ’97, the composers use digital workstations from Avid.

“Yeah, so we use Pro Tools and Logic,” Stewart revealed. “We typically do a lot of writing, everything kind of is written in Logic. And then everything gets recorded or sent to Pro Tools. But Andy and I are sharing Logic sessions and Logic files. Andy is definitely really good with color coding and that kind of stuff. But I’m not quite as clean in that fashion. But yeah, we have organized setups and lists and sort of a whole execution of strategies that we use when working together that makes it very easy and you don’t have to think about it. It just kind of naturally happens.”

Wolverine is a favorite character for many fans, and he’s so popular he even was leading his own show with Wolverine and the X-Men and the X-Men spin-offs including Logan, The Wolverine, and X-Men Origins: Wolverine.

“When I was a kid at that time, it was Wolverine,” Stewart said about getting into the X-Men during his youth. “I just love Wolverine. I was like, ‘Oh, this is amazing.’ I thought he was so cool with the claws and he was gruff and misunderstood. But then as you work on the show, and strangely enough as you get older, tastes change and characters change. And it’s it’s been fun to revisit those old characters and especially obviously now working on it, it’s definitely a labor of love.”

Grush’s love for X-Men began when he was a child. He had a paper route in Pasadena delivering the Star News when he was in the seventh/eighth grade. His parents wouldn’t buy comic books for him, so he would ride his bike to the bookstore, which is now a Panda Express.

“So I would go there and read most of them in the store,” Grush said. “And some of them I could buy, and then I would just keep to myself. This would have been like 86/87, so it was like Daredevil, X-Factor, X-Men, The Incredible Hulk, and I got super into it. And then the series came out years later, and that was really exciting because it was just even easier. I didn’t have to read as a kid. I mean, I love reading. But when it came out, I was like, ‘Oh my gosh,’ this is like I’m getting everything fully realized. So it was a really exciting way to be introduced to the show.”

You can check out the full interview below:

About X-Men ’97

Synopsis: Storm and Wolverine try to continue the X-Men. Magneto comes in and wants to step up for Charles Xavier. Sinister comes in to try to end the X-Men once and for all.

The revival series is created by Beau DeMayo and is based on the X-Men created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby.

The voice talents are Jennifer Hale as Jean Grey, Ray Chase as Cyclops, Lenore Zann as Rogue, Call Dodd as Wolverine, George Buza as Beast, J.P. Karliak as Morph, Adrian Hough as Nightcrawler, A.J. LoCascio as Gambit, Alison Sealy-Smith as Storm, Matthew Waterson as Magneto, Holly Chou as Jubilee, Isaac Robinson-Smith as Bishop, and Gui Agustini as Roberto Da Costa.

X-Men ’97 premiered the first two episodes on Disney+ on March 20th, with the eight remaining episodes released weekly.