Can you hear what the Rock is singing? Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson dreamed of becoming a country star when he was a teenager, but his professional music career technically dates back to “It Doesn’t Matter,” the 2000 Wyclef Jean track where he provided some
shouted catchphrases. Johnson broke out his sturdy singing voice and guitar strumming on talk shows here and there over the years, but his real musical breakthrough was 2016’s Moana, where, in character as the demigod Maui, he sang the Lin-Manuel Miranda-penned “You’re Welcome” — which scored 1.8 billion streams on YouTube alone.
But Johnson is most proud of his newest musical venture, the heartstring-tugging “Your Dad,” a track he co-wrote with Iam Tongi, the Hawaiian singer who won American Idol in 2023. (We’re debuting the song’s video, above.) The song is a highlight of the just-released Moana: Voices Across the Ocean, a companion album to the recent live-action version of Moana. Johnson executive-produced the album with his wife, Lauren Hashian, alongside Tiana Nonosina Liufau and Kayla Fa’amaligi, who also choreographed the film and helped ensure its cultural accuracy.
Johnson jumped on a Zoom with Rolling Stone to talk about the new song, fatherhood, his teenage adventures in Nashville — and why he’s getting serious about pursuing music.
Anyone who really knows you knows that you can sing.
Well, thank you, man, for saying that. That’s a very nice compliment. I appreciate it. I always like to say I sing from the heart — and I sing in keys that don’t exist [laughs]. So it’s a good combo. Growing up, in our family, and generally in Polynesian families, there is a lot of singing and there’s a lot of ceremonial dancing and things like that. So it was kind of in the ether as I was growing up.
At a very early age, my deep influences were Sam Cooke, Elvis, George Jones, Merle Haggard, even Johnny Paycheck. Guys like that who just were on top of their genres, and also Willie Nelson, who, as a matter of fact, gave me my first guitar. You know the Trigger guitar he has? The historic one? I guess Martin only made 100 of those, and as a birthday gift, ’cause I was such a huge fan, he gave me one of those. I mean, I play like dog shit compared to him, but it’s still a cool gift. Anyway, that’s my musical start.
How much songwriting had you done in your life before this song?
Not a lot. I wrote a little bit with Tech N9ne on that track we did, “Face Off” [in 2020]. He helped me put that structure together, because I love hip-hop — and country, and blues. He’d say, “Put this here, say this like this, triple it up like that.” And it was like a master class, ’cause he’s one of the kings. And then honestly, not that much.
So if I can give you a little background of this song — for this album that we did, my wife Lauren and I produced it with our other two producers, Tiana and Kayla. And the idea was, “Hey, we’d love for you to be on this album. Can you contribute and sing a song?” And I thought about it, and then I thought, “God, I don’t know what I can sing here.” And I said, “I feel like I’d love to partner up with somebody who can help me write and put something together.” So I called Iam Tongi and I said, “Hey brother, do you have anything in mind that maybe it’s already in your brain, in your heart, that we could make mine?” And he said, “Yeah, I think I do.”
What did he send you?
He called me back two days later. He sent me a song. It was called “My Dad,” and I heard it and got very emotional and I was crying, because it’s a song that he wrote singing to his young kids that he doesn’t have yet — he’s getting married in a couple of months — about his dad that passed away. And he’s telling his kids, “Oh, your grandfather was amazing.” And then the other part of the song is then he sings to his dad, who’s in heaven. He tells his dad, “Hey, I’m gonna tell them that you moved mountains, and you fought giants.” I have chills.
I heard the song, and I called him, and I said, “I love you for sending this to me, but I’m not ready to sing this to my dad. I just can’t.” I have a complicated relationship with my dad. My dad also passed away a few years ago. It’s complicated sometimes, right?
So how did it become your song?
I said, “But Iam, I love the idea of this song, and if you can walk down this road with me, can we rewrite it and I could sing it to my daughters? Just as their dad.” And there was a great line in there about, “A deeper love than I never knew. You took my heart, and you pulled me through,” in the second verse.
It just all comes together when it’s meant to, on a cellular level. And as you know with Iam, not only obviously incredibly accomplished already with American Idol, but also he sings from the soul, and he writes from the soul, and he’s so young. It’s crazy. So the original was, “My Dad.” And I said, “What if it was ‘Your Dad?'”
That line about “pulling me through” — when you’re a dad, career stuff that might have gotten to you beforehand affects you differently, right? You have something else to focus on. It changes the way you deal with everything.
Oh, man. It’s like the great emotional recalibrator for us as dads, right? Man, when we’re around our daughters, you realize, “Oh, this is the stuff that’s really important. The other stuff is important, but it’s not that important to get tied up over in your guts about.”
You’ve been part of hits before — the Moana soundtrack, and going back to Wyclef in 2000. But one of your original ambitions was to be a singer. Is it time to dig deeper into music?
I’m exploring that now, and I appreciate you asking that. As you roll along in life, I’ve been real fortunate to be part of some really cool projects, and love it. But music has always been such an anchor for me, and very specifically in genres that I love, like country music, traditional country music. And we’re exploring that now.
I’ve reached this point in my life and in my career where, honestly, Brian, when I wake up in the morning, I swing my legs out of bed, and whatever the thing is that I’m doing, I wanna feel like I’m just running towards it. And the most gratifying things we do are when it’s for us, because we have enough pressure to deliver for so many other entities.
The things we do, we must do them for ourselves, and then we must feel it in here, behind our ribcage. But they’re also always connected to some sort of commerce. You make films, especially the big four-quadrant movies, you want them to do well. But this song, for me, is just a song to my daughters. Where there’s no pressure of an expectation to deliver something that, “Well, how are the sales, and how’s the box office? And how’s the streams?” It’s just from me to them.
Was this album your wife’s idea?
Yeah. It was, man. It’s been so gratifying, and we’ve never done that before, where we’re working on this thing and it’s the same north star. She’s so talented. I got to see this side of her as a producer, as executive producer and writer. And her pen game is so strong. Her dad was the drummer of Boston. Remember that rock group Boston? His name was Sib Hashian. So she comes already with a reverence and respect for music, you know?
Back in the first Moana, when the music had blown up, she said, “Hey, I wonder if we should do some sort of inspired-by album.” Then Moana 2 came a few years ago, and she said, “Oh, remember that idea?” I said, “That’s a great idea. We should do that.” And then we started talking about live action, and she said, “I think the timing now is perfect ’cause we’ve already had Beyoncé with Lion King, Kendrick with Black Panther.” And I had dinner with Disney execs, and immediately it was a very fast yes.
You realize what a special moment this is for Polynesian culture and Polynesian artists. These Polynesian artists who we have are well known within the genre, but on a global scale, not well known. Their voices are beautiful. On our album, there’s a track called “Family Tree,” and it’s from a guy named Stan Walker, who won Australian Idol. That was the very first song that was sent in to Lauren and I, and our producers, Tiana and Kayla. And he sings from his guts. So they all understood the assignment, like, “Oh, this isn’t about a TikTok dance or a cool hook. This is our culture.”
I’m curious what it’s like to sit in front of a microphone and record a song just as Dwayne. You’re no stranger to the studio, but usually as an actor. Is that scary at all?
It wasn’t scary, Brian. It was freeing. You give one big exhale, and you just thank the universe for this gift. I’ve had so much fun playing Maui or doing the Wyclef song. But there is characterization in these. There’s a performance in all of these. But to just go in and stripped away any big production — no big live band, just him and his guitar. And me in quiet, in the studios, and Lauren was there, and I was looking at pictures of my daughters. Oh, it was the best.
When you said you’re exploring music, what form might that exploration take?
Maybe something in just the old-school soul genre, with some country flavor. I love old-school soul. Sam Cooke. From Sam Cooke, again, to Merle Haggard. That’s how I grew up. And those were my strong influences from my dad. My dad was a pro wrestler, and we lived on the road, and I lived in the backseat of the car, ’cause we just drove. And every night a different city. And so that’s all he would listen to. So my thought is, “Oh, man, I wanna go and write and sing and explore the things that I love.”
You spent some time in Nashville as a teenager, didn’t you?
When we were in Hawaii when I was 15, we were evicted in 1987 from our little one-room apartment. But we couldn’t stay on the island, ’cause we had no money and no place to live. So I was sent to Nashville, ’cause my dad was in Nashville at that time. I was supposed to live with my dad, but that situation didn’t happen, ’cause it just didn’t happen [laughs].
So anyway, I wound up living with a guy who was a stranger in a motel, and who’s become one of my best friends still today. His name is Downtown Bruno. We had no money. He was broke. I was broke. He was nice enough to let me live in his little motel room. And we didn’t have a car, but we’d go down to Lower Broad in Nashville, and that was heaven for me because I had loved country music. And there’s Tootsie’s, and there’s the Ryman Auditorium, and there’s the Ernest Tubb Record Shop. And we didn’t have any money, but if you keep going down Lower Broad, that’s where all the really shitty dive bars are. We’d hang out in them. I was 15.
So how did you get from there to trying to sing?
Across the street from this motel was a country grocery store called Piggly Wiggly. And they’re still there. So I was inside Piggly Wiggly, and I was stealing shit, like Hostess donuts. I was like, “We’re gonna eat one way or the other.” And I’m 15, so I’m putting stuff in my pockets, and as I’m doing that like an idiot, I was just singing. And I was singing “Old Habits,” which is a Hank Jr. song. “Old habits… I kicked the habit of smoking back some time ago.” Singing, like a fucking idiot.
And this woman comes around and she looks at me, and she kinda startled me. I thought, “Oh, man. I’m caught. I’m busted.” And she goes, “Were you singing?” And I went, “Yeah.” And she goes, “Oh, I just had to come around to see who was singing.” She goes, “Are you a singer?” I went, “No.” Now mind you, I’m 15. I’m 6’4″. I’m 220. I have a Tom Selleck mustache already. I look like I’m 58. And she goes, “You should look into singing.” And I went, “Yeah?” And she goes, “Do you live here?” I was like, “Well, I just got to town a couple weeks ago.” She goes, “You should go down to Broad Street. That’s where you can go get a gig.”
Did you go?
I’d walk up and down these bars and I would go into these places. No guitar, nothing. Didn’t even know how to play. And I’d say, “Hey, I’m looking for a job.” They’d say, “Oh, what do you sing?” And I said, “Well, I could sing…” And I just started, I’ll sing “Old Habits” to them. I sang a Merle song like, oh, what is it? “Memories and drinks don’t mix too well…”
“Misery and Gin,” I think that’s the one.
Yeah, yeah. “Misery and Gin.” Oh, it’s the best. “Here I am again, mixing drinks.” And they would say, “How old are you?” And I was like, “15.” And they go, “Oh, you’re too young. You can’t even be in here.” Then I learned my lesson, and then a couple of bars later I was like, “Oh, I’m 22.” And they’re like, “Hmm, can we see your license?” I said, “Well, I don’t have a license.” Then it’s, “All right, get out.”
So I never got a gig. That’s my point, man. I’m gonna go find a dive bar down on Broad Street, and that’s where I’m gonna begin my singing career.
I guess open mics would be tough at this point.
I’ll go in costume and full prosthetics.
Count me in for that country-with-soul-elements album.
Sounds all right, right? There feels like there could be something there.
You could do a whole duets album, if you wanted to, and I bet people would be happy to do it with you.
Oh, that would be a cool idea. I have such reverence and respect for all music, but especially in Nashville. Because of how I came up there, and you see all these artists coming up. So I wanna approach this project, whatever it’s gonna be, with that level of respect. Like you said, if it’s an all duets, but just where, hey, here’s my heart and my love, and here’s how deep my country roots go. It’s like, oh, I’d be honored to sing with you guys, you know?
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