‘Music guy’ keeps Thrashers on beat

Other teams might taste victory. The Thrashers hear it.

It pulses through the locker room after a game at volumes so intense you’d swear you were standing next to the speakers at a 20,000-fan concert. The hard-driving electronic dance music announces to anyone within 30 feet of the locker room door that 20 very happy hockey players are inside celebrating another win.

For the Thrashers, who have won four consecutive games, it’s literally music to their ears.

The techno song is “Russian Private Jet,” by Basshunter, a 20-something Swede. But the recording doesn’t come from the music collection of Swedish defensemen Niclas Havelid or Tobias Enstrom or Swedish goalie Johan Hedberg.

“I’m the music guy,” Canadian center Jason Williams said. “I just kind of run on what everybody else likes. I try to keep everybody happy.

“I enjoy everything from classic rock to country to your hip-hop, your techno stuff. A friend of mine, a DJ from Vegas, sent me some stuff. I’m just trying to get the guys pumped up.”

One listen on YouTube and you’ll know that the “bass” in “Basshunter” refers to low-frequency sounds, not large-mouthed fish. Traditional jock anthems such as Queen’s “We are the Champions,” Bachman-Turner Overdrive’s “Takin’ Care of Business” and James Brown’s “I Got You (I Feel Good)” are so 20th century compared with the Thrashers’ victory song.

Williams, 28, signed with the Thrashers as a free agent over the summer and didn’t hesitate to take charge of the music, just as he had in previous NHL stints with Detroit and Chicago. There was no vote.

“He didn’t ask or anything. The first day he came here, he started messing with the stereo,” goalie Kari Lehtonen said. “So far, so good. It’s a lot better than Marc Savard had a couple of years ago when he was playing here.”

The victory song never changes, but the other musical selections do. They span the genres, from Avril Lavigne to George Strait. Like mismatched college roommates, the Thrashers have learned to tolerate each other’s tastes. Even Eric Boulton’s.

“I’m not a big fan of country,” Ilya Kovalchuk said, “but Boultsy loves it. Sometimes you have to put some country music on, too.”

“When I feel like playing it, I just go turn it on,” Boulton said. “I get some complaints. I don’t listen to them.”

If you led the team in on-ice fights, you’d get your way, too.

Actually, everybody seems to get some input, with one very notable exception.

“I’m not a big rap fan, so I don’t like that, and I don’t like the manufactured European techno music,” coach John Anderson said. “But here’s the thing, it’s not my choice. I just want them to be comfortable with whatever they want.

“I just wish they wouldn’t play it so loud that we have to close our coaches’ [locker room] door so we’re able to think or breathe.”

NEXT FOR THRASHERS

> Who: vs. Hurricanes

> When: 7:30 p.m. Friday

> TV; radio: None; 680 AM