How 'The Righteous Gemstones' turned a heavy metal song into a season-long guessing game

The third season of "The Righteous Gemstones" both starts and ends with scenes of joyful mayhem caused by a monster truck known as the Redeemer.

A gift to a young Jesse Gemstone, the truck becomes an ostentatious symbol of the elaborate life he was born into. It also serves as a destructive (yet surprisingly resilient) plot device and a fiery way to tie the sprawling Gemstone family together.

And, as any viewer knows, it also has a sick heavy metal theme song, which just plays for a few seconds every time the Redeemer is on screen. Finally, after a season of guessing and furious Googling, the season finale aired on July 30, and we now have the full seven-minute version of the song — and we know who created the heavy metal masterpiece.

Brent Larson, 49, a songwriter based in Chicago, has written for other movies and shows under pseudonyms, including "Red Oaks" on Amazon Prime and the film "Prince Avalanche," a previous project from "Gemstones" executive producer David Gordon Green.

For "Redeemer," Larson decided to use his own name for the first time.

“The whole idea of writing the theme song to a monster truck called the 'Redeemer’ is inherently ridiculous,” Larson tells TODAY.com. But the trick to making it work was to take it seriously.

Larson has a long-running passion for '80s bands that he admits might be considered "questionable" or "third-tier" these days. Professionally, he decided to switch gears and pursue more of an indie rock sound as the heavy metal style he loved fell out of favor.

Outside of work, though, he was still creating goofy metal songs to make his friends laugh. That led to him writing an '80s power ballad (under the name Gary Stonehart) called "Bad Connection" that Paul Rudd and Emile Hirsch drunkenly belt out in "Prince Avalanche." So when the "Gemstones" team needed a theme song for a kickass monster truck, they knew who to call.

"I wanted it to sound kind of tough and muscular," he explains. He also wanted to draw on his own unabashed love for bands like White Snake, Def Leppard, Britny Fox and Cinderella to convey an earnest appreciation for that style of songwriting that can only come from a true fan.

"It would be almost too easy just to write something that's funny. There's got to be some heart in it," Larson says. "You really have to care about it in order to sell it." Similarly, Larson knew that if he just focused on the bravado aspect of a giant monster truck that would be "indefensible," he says, and contrary to the tone of the show.

Larson did receive some direction from producers. For instance, he was told to make the song long so that editors could pick and choose different parts of the song to use throughout the season. That didn't end up happening — that chorus was just too catchy — but it now leaves listeners with seven minutes of dynamic verses as well as a sick guitar solo.

As a fan of the genre, he didn't need to do too much research on the sound. But Larson took care to research and work some monster truck and racing terms — like "drop the hammer" — into the lyrics, which he also wrote himself.

Of course, there’s also plenty of Robert Plant and Ronnie James Dio in the soaring vocal chorus, he says. (Yes, he's seen the Reddit threads comparing his performance to Dio, Stryper and Scorpions and takes them all as the highest compliments.)

And there are, in fact, four different versions of the "Redeemer" song on the official "Gemstones" Season Three soundtrack, including Larson's original as well as an acoustic version, a country version performed by The Holland Brothers and an instrumental sting created by the show's composer to fit a specific scene's needs.

For Larson, seeing his work in the show is the culmination of a lifelong passion for heavy music and silly projects he did simply because they were fun, as well a reminder to "just do it for the love of it," he says.

"I was banging my head against the wall trying to play this punk, indie rock stuff and I had really no success with it," Larson recalls.

Instead, it was the "dumb metal songs" he made for his friends that led him to him being on "The Righteous Gemstones" soundtrack. In fact, "Redeemer" is the very first song on the album.

Living out his rockstar dreams on a laptop at his dining room table is a little different than how he'd imagined it when he was a kid first learning to play the guitar. But it feels right — maybe even righteous — that "Redeemer" is Larson's moment to drive into the spotlight.

This article was originally published on TODAY.com