Who composed Rock the Dragon?

[Tian]

I've tried on and off for years but haven't been able to find any contact details for Jeremy Sweet, social media included.

So if anyone does find a way to track Jeremy Sweet down please do so. Hopefully this mystery will one day be solved.

Have you tried to contact Inon Zur? He has worked along with Jeremy in some Power Rangers seasons. I can't guarantee he might know about Jeremy's whereabouts but it would be worth trying.

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

Have you tried to contact Inon Zur? He has worked along with Jeremy in some Power Rangers seasons. I can't guarantee he might know about Jeremy's whereabouts but it would be worth trying.

No, as a Power Rangers noob I've never even heard of him but will try if his email is publicly available.

The problem with finding Jeremy Sweet on social media is that there's various individuals with that name and so little is known about the Jeremy Sweet who worked for Saban on Dragon Ball Z, Power Rangers, etc. If he had a LinkedIn it would be easier as people list their work experience so you have that confirmation beforehand your reaching out to the right person, although even then I don't think it's known what he has done since the 90s.

[Kakacarrottop]

Old thread I know, but thought I'd post as I have an update, however minor.

I took it upon myself to email Ron Wasserman and ask if he knew Jeremy Sweet. I figured even though Ron composed the score at home if anyone knew Jeremy personally it would be him by dint of their mutual association with Saban. I also said he could pass on my email for Jeremy to reach out to me if he could confirm whether or not he sang Rock the Dragon.

Turns out Ron Wasserman did know Jeremy Sweet but hasn't spoken to him since the 90s, although he too is interested in knowing did Jeremy sing the song. He advised me to try Facebook to locate Jeremy. I've tried on and off for years but haven't been able to find any contact details for Jeremy Sweet, social media included.

So if anyone does find a way to track Jeremy Sweet down please do so. Hopefully this mystery will one day be solved.

His middle name begins with A since he is listed in the credits of some shows as Jeremy A. Sweet.

In the end, we might never get actual conformation from him. For all we know, he could have signed some NDAs since everything he ever composed for Saban was legally credited to Shuki and Haim. On Dragon Ball wiki a few years ago, a page was created for Jeremy Sweet and a person with the user name JeremySweet tried to blank the page, which strongly supports the theory that he may not be willing to talk about his involvement in the show.

[Kakacarrottop]

Old thread I know, but thought I'd post as I have an update, however minor.

I took it upon myself to email Ron Wasserman and ask if he knew Jeremy Sweet. I figured even though Ron composed the score at home if anyone knew Jeremy personally it would be him by dint of their mutual association with Saban. I also said he could pass on my email for Jeremy to reach out to me if he could confirm whether or not he sang Rock the Dragon.

Turns out Ron Wasserman did know Jeremy Sweet but hasn't spoken to him since the 90s, although he too is interested in knowing did Jeremy sing the song. He advised me to try Facebook to locate Jeremy. I've tried on and off for years but haven't been able to find any contact details for Jeremy Sweet, social media included.

So if anyone does find a way to track Jeremy Sweet down please do so. Hopefully this mystery will one day be solved.

His middle name begins with A since he is listed in the credits of some shows as Jeremy A. Sweet.

In the end, we might never get actual conformation from him. For all we know, he could have signed some NDAs since everything he ever composed for Saban was legally credited to Shuki and Haim

I just checked his profile at BMI's music publishing database and his full name is Jeremy Adam Sweet. Judging from his credits on there, he still seems to be working as a composer.

Here it is:
https://repertoire.bmi.com/Search/Catal ... %253d%253d

By the way, on BMI Dragon Ball Z's opening theme is listed as being written by Shuki Levy, Haim Saban and Cheryl Saban (Haim's wife), and Funimation is listed as the publisher.

https://repertoire.bmi.com/Search/Searc ... h_Type=all

This means that whenever the song gets licensed 50% of the royalties probably go to the people from Saban and the other half goes to Funimation. This explains why Rock the Dragon was never used in the Westwood dub, and why Funimation was still able to use it for the third season dub

[dragonballhero]

If anyone DOES find out more about the origins of Rock the Dragon (be it from the Fukanagas, Jeremy Sweet, Ron Wasserman, etc.) could they please ask them the following questions?

1. Were there ever intended to be more lyrics to the song, or is what we got all that was meant to be there?

2. What's the story behind the extended version found in Budokai 1's intro? Was that some newly-made version of the song, or was that recorded in 1996, and they just never had any use for it until 2002?

3. Does FUNimation (or... Crunchyroll, I guess?) hold the rights to the song today? Like, if they wanted to, they COULD use Rock the Dragon anytime they want, they just CHOOSE to not bother with it?

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

This means that whenever the song gets licensed 50% of the royalties probably go to the people from Saban and the other half goes to Funimation. This explains why Rock the Dragon was never used in the Westwood dub, and why Funimation was still able to use it for the third season dub

It also explains why after the Westwood dub premiered the UK airings used its intro for the Saban dub episodes on reruns and why YTV almost never used it. The UK ocassionally used Rock the Dragon for the Westwood episodes, but I say that was more of a technical error or slipup because they also sometimes used the YTV OP for Blue Water Dragon Ball. The Westwood dub has long been known to be a cheaper alternative to Funimation's dub so it stands to reason Cartoon Network would have worked around paying royalties to Funimation any way they could.

If anyone DOES find out more about the origins of Rock the Dragon (be it from the Fukanagas, Jeremy Sweet, Ron Wasserman, etc.) could they please ask them the following questions?

1. Were there ever intended to be more lyrics to the song, or is what we got all that was meant to be there?

2. What's the story behind the extended version found in Budokai 1's intro? Was that some newly-made version of the song, or was that recorded in 1996, and they just never had any use for it until 2002?

3. Does FUNimation (or... Crunchyroll, I guess?) hold the rights to the song today? Like, if they wanted to, they COULD use Rock the Dragon anytime they want, they just CHOOSE to not bother with it?

Thanks for the questions, if I manage to reach out to Jeremy Sweet I'll be sure to ask them.

[MasenkoHA]

3. Does FUNimation (or... Crunchyroll, I guess?) hold the rights to the song today? Like, if they wanted to, they COULD use Rock the Dragon anytime they want, they just CHOOSE to not bother with it?

Funimation did use it for the original release of the Captain Ginyu and Frieza saga. They also released Rock the Dragon boxset with the song fully intact.

Gen Fukanaga even said the decision to replace the Kikuchi score was a Funimation decision not a Saban decision because they would get royalties for original music. Whatever the deal with Saban Entertainment was Funimation did own the rights to the Wasserman background score and Rock the Dragon.

[Kakacarrottop]

3. Does FUNimation (or... Crunchyroll, I guess?) hold the rights to the song today? Like, if they wanted to, they COULD use Rock the Dragon anytime they want, they just CHOOSE to not bother with it?

Funimation did use it for the original release of the Captain Ginyu and Frieza saga. They also released Rock the Dragon boxset with the song fully intact.

Gen Fukanaga even said the decision to replace the Kikuchi score was a Funimation decision not a Saban decision because they would get royalties for original music. Whatever the deal with Saban Entertainment was Funimation did own the rights to the Wasserman background score and Rock the Dragon.

If Funimation was entirely in control of the royalties then Ron Wasserman would be properly credited as the composer of the Dragon Ball Z underscore on BMI, instead of Shuki Levy & Haim Saban and his wife. By the late 1990s it was known that Haim Saban (and probably Shuki Levy too) weren't actually composing music anymore like in the 80s, and were just hiring a bunch of salaried ghostwriters to steal royalties from.

https://groups.google.com/g/rec.music.m ... fvUJ?pli=1

This 1998 article explains the royalty fraud scheme that was happening at Saban in the 90s, and has quotes from Ron Wasserman and a bunch of unnamed composers. One of them was working for Saban in 1998 and said that Shuki Levy and Haim Saban credited themselves for his music on a recent show, even though they didn't write a single note of it. The article revealed that all composers at Saban were told that they wouldn't receive royalties for their work, and that they signed contracts agreeing to these conditions.

Ron Wasserman had already departed Saban when he started composing for Dragon Ball Z, and said in a 2014 interview with Marvel.com that they paid him on an episode by episode basis to score the show, which meant that it was still a situation where he was getting paid upfront money to give up the royalties to his music.

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

Whatever the deal with Saban Entertainment was Funimation did own the rights to the Wasserman background score and Rock the Dragon.

It's possible while Funimation did own the rights to that content a large portion of the profits were not going to them. I suspect part of the reason for moving everything inhouse during season 3 is Funimation wanted complete control of their product and got sick of dealing with middlemen.

There was no need for Barry Watson to constantly fly to Vancouver, the show was in great hands at Ocean Studios (which was already in the audio business for 20 years when Funimation started up, albeit initially being used for musicians, including some notable ones like Bryan Adams and Roy Orbison) with talented actors as well as Sarah-Anne Dafoe and Karl Willems who would have done a fine job directing without additional supervision, although Funimation likely wanted to ensure their creative vision for the series was met. Ocean also had great editing facilities (their Kai cut for Nicktoons was well done, as were the YTV airings of the inhouse dub, which omitted such glaring errors as "Don't piss off the God of love" with the appropriate TV-safe lines, adjusted the SFX and things like that) and likely access to translators who could have done a better job writing dub scripts and subtitles. Rika Takahashi (who going by the name likely at least had Japanese heritage and knew the language quite well, if not already being fluent) did subs for the Pioneer movies, which were just as good, if not better than what Steve Simmons did. Hell once the Blue Water dubs came around we saw what Ocean were capable of when left to their own devices, as their GT dub is highly accurate and the original Dragon Ball dub even went out of its way to fix issues whenever it referenced Funimation's scripts.

I'd argue the uncut Pioneer movies showed how great English dubbed Dragon Ball could be when Funimation were completely hands off. Hell Barry Watson even said in a 1998 interview the plan was for Pioneer to do a second uncut track for the TV series, so had Funimation allowed these other companies to help them more in the first place we could have had the series dubbed in the style of those 3 movies. Such a missed opportunity. I understand Funimation wanting to have independence as a company but they were obviously inexperienced at the time and I believe it would have benefitted them immensely to take more time to learn from those that were already established in the industry.

While releasing the Rock the Dragon DVD set seemed counter-productive considering the efforts Funimation made to help fans forget the Saban dub existed it does make sense part of the reason for making it was because by this point Pioneer's license had expired and Funimation wanted to milk those episodes and movies one last time without having to share any of the money made with a competing distributor.

[MasenkoHA]

Whatever the deal with Saban Entertainment was Funimation did own the rights to the Wasserman background score and Rock the Dragon.

It's possible while Funimation did own the rights to that content a large portion of the profits were not going to them. I suspect part of the reason for moving everything inhouse during season 3 is Funimation wanted complete control of their product and got sick of dealing with middlemen.

Oh yeah Funimation definitely wanted more of the pie. It made no sense for Funimation to cut ties with Pioneer as a home video distributor other than more money for them doing it themselves (and they went the cheapest route possible just using screengrabs as covers until GT).

I'm sure Saban got a sizeable profit for "composing" the music but Funimation did own the rights to and had the option to continue to use it.

[Jord]

I liked a lot of the screengrab covers. They picked good frames and looking at the covers you can directly pick out which episodes it contains. I prefer them over the "fancy" GT singles actually.

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

I liked a lot of the screengrab covers. They picked good frames and looking at the covers you can directly pick out which episodes it contains. I prefer them over the "fancy" GT singles actually.

I'm fine with the screengrabs, and like a lot of the image choices, but they were very clearly yet another way for Funimation to be cheap, like everything else that went downhill after the move inhouse.

It's ironic despite Funimation butchering GT to death they actually put more effort into its singles with designing their own covers and providing a 100% faithful presentation of both the dub and Japanese version (i.e. both have the correct OPs, EDs, recaps, next episode previews, title cards, etc). The Z singles are missing content and even feature censorship for the dub track on a supposedly uncut DVD release (in the flashback scene of kid Goku taking a bath the water is more opaque).

[MasenkoHA]

I liked a lot of the screengrab covers. They picked good frames and looking at the covers you can directly pick out which episodes it contains. I prefer them over the "fancy" GT singles actually.

I'm fine with the screengrabs, and like a lot of the image choices, but they were very clearly yet another way for Funimation to be cheap, like everything else that went downhill after the move inhouse.

Right, even if you like the screengrabs, they're still an example of Funimation going the cheap route. Even Funimation seemed to realize how tacky it was since the DB saga sets, GT, and UUE did custom covers.

It's ironic despite Funimation butchering GT to death they actually put more effort into its singles with designing their own covers and providing a 100% faithful presentation of both the dub and Japanese version (i.e. both have the correct OPs, EDs, recaps, next episode previews, title cards, etc).

A lot of that is less Funimation putting in more effort and more Toei giving them better material to work with. If Toei gives them the wrong OP/ED and no episode preview (or as the case appeared to be footage of the NEP but no audio) they're kind of stuck with it. With GT Toei gave them all the correct OP/ED and the NEP with audio. DB and DBZ weren't so lucky.

[YoungDefender]

On the same note can anyone shed light on the Canadian/Westwood opening theme? As I recall even the Saban episodes in Canada aired with the Canadian opening, which confusingly also contains the lyrics "Rock the Dragon" somewhere in the middle.

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

On the same note can anyone shed light on the Canadian/Westwood opening theme? As I recall even the Saban episodes in Canada aired with the Canadian opening, which confusingly also contains the lyrics "Rock the Dragon" somewhere in the middle.

I believe its the "Dragon, Dragon Ball, Dragon Ball Zeeee" opening you got in Canada.

I have a friend who enquired about that but no one seems to remember why it was made. It is well known that Funimation charged a bomb for their dub (both Saban and inhouse) back in the late 90s and early 2000s, so Ocean must have created that new opening to reduce the cost of licensing. The Canadian OP was composed by Tom Keenlyside who owned Ocean's sound library Anitunes, so they likely had a royalty-free license to air it.

[YoungDefender]

On the same note can anyone shed light on the Canadian/Westwood opening theme? As I recall even the Saban episodes in Canada aired with the Canadian opening, which confusingly also contains the lyrics "Rock the Dragon" somewhere in the middle.

I believe its the "Dragon, Dragon Ball, Dragon Ball Zeeee" opening you got in Canada.

I have a friend who enquired about that but no one seems to remember why it was made. It is well known that Funimation charged a bomb for their dub (both Saban and inhouse) back in the late 90s and early 2000s, so Ocean must have created that new opening to reduce the cost of licensing. The Canadian OP was composed by Tom Keenlyside who owned Ocean's sound library Anitunes, so they likely had a royalty-free license to air it.

Yes that's it, although I could swear at some point in that version they also say "Rock the Draaaaaagon. Dragon Ball Zeeee".

Thanks for the info! The outro/ending theme for this version for this version was so well done and addictive that over 20 years later I still hum to it randomly out of nowhere.

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

Yes that's it, although I could swear at some point in that version they also say "Rock the Draaaaaagon. Dragon Ball Zeeee".

Yes, they did. I agree though, it's still a fun song after all these years.

[TheGreatness25]

I could've sworn it was a Linkin Park song!

But in all seriousness, I'm amazed that an extended version was used for Budokai, which in the very least, gave us a clean version without voiceover/sound effects in the background.