The Boys songwriter behind Vought on Ice did the excruciating homework
There is no amount of sonic pain composer Christopher Lennertz won’t endure for his bud of 30 years Eric Kripke, the current showrunner of The Boys. Lennertz previously listened to endless amounts of boy band slop to pen the Super-Sweet single “Rock My Kiss” for season 3 and pushed himself to write the gooiest sentimental track imaginable for Starlight’s pop-star moment, “Never Truly Vanish,” and now he’s back with season 4’s “Let’s Put the Christ Back in Christmas.”
“If there’s anything I can say about The Boys, it’s that we do our research,” Lennertz tells Polygon, with minimal eye twitch.
Former fraternity brothers who embarked together into Hollywood with no money and a high tolerance for Taco Bell, Lennertz and Kripke have formed a mind-meld rapport thanks to years on Supernatural and Revolution. So the writer knew he could deliver minimal instruction for what he wanted for the proposed Vought on Ice sequence in season 4 episode 3, “We’ll Keep the Red Flag Flying Here,” Lennertz says.
“I get literally one short paragraph that says, ‘Homeland and Maeve as ice skaters come out, sing a Vaught-produced song about war on Christmas, there’s a nativity scene and Jesus, and then everybody gets killed.’ And then it says something about ‘putting Christ back in Christmas.’ That’s the whole assignment.”
The dynamic between showrunner and composer is more about vibes. As Lennertz began work on “Let’s Put the Christ Back in Christmas,” he began watching video after video of Ice Capades, Disney on Ice, Frozen on Ice, and any other bit of source material that could inform the finished dance. “I knew I needed sleigh bells and I knew it needed to be fast,” he says. Then the Vought of it all pours in, which Kripke is good for. Around the time Lennertz was matching high notes to laser sounds, his old friend was sending him articles about the latest anti-Christmas fearmongering. Lennertz recalls the news of Candace Cameron Bure’s deal with the Great American Family network, and
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