Fireballs, several headless Marie Antoinettes, billowing red smoke, the Conciergerie, guitars, and double bass.

Gojira singer and guitarist Joe Duplantier can count himself part of the most vivid and jarring moments in Olympic Opening Ceremony history, and the journey to create that scene was as fascinating as it was impactful.

Duplantier, 47, and his French bandmates have been part of Gojira, a heavy metal band which was called Godzilla upon formation in 1996 until a legal need to change it in 2001. They've since been nominated for three Grammy Awards and played a concert responsible for the loudest sound emitted at the Stade de France.

Some (me) have called it their favorite all-time Olympic moment, and Duplantier's interview with Rolling Stone on how it all came together is worth your time.

The performance of "Ah! Ça Ira" was a massive challenge and came with pressure and weight. After all, the Conciergerie was where Marie Antoinette was imprisoned, tried, and sentenced before her eventual execution.

Duplantier performed on an open balcony and says he was only able to spend about 10 minutes there prior to the actual event. And he spent zero of those 10 minutes playing guitar in his safety harness. The band members could not see each other through the smoke, and there's also the matter of 300 or so other musicians in an orchestra who had a total of one day to rehearse together.

Oh, and the rain.

"I knew I was not going to freeze but I gotta say, I don’t know how high this thing was — 30 meters, 100 feet high — with the rain, it was really, really weird," Duplantier said. "And we had to be up there after doing makeup and hair with all the stuff and the costumes and the harnesses and the guitar — “Am I gonna be able to play?” — we had to wait 15 long minutes over there ready to go live in the rain before performing. So it felt like such an epic challenge for all of us. The classical cellos and instruments were wet. We had to try to protect them and the electronic equipment we play with. We had our crew with us, thank God. They were all hidden, but they weren’t far, right behind the walls, trying to make sure that everything worked together."

“Ah! Ça Ira” is the name of the song performed by Gojira, and came to popularity during the French Revolution. The key phrase comes from American polymath Benjamin Franklin, who was known to say the phrase as, "It'll all work out" during the American Revolutionary War.

Duplantier, whose band takes on many social causes, was sure to take the original lyrics and spin them in a more non-violent manner of uplift.

"It’s a very long and archaic song with a bunch of lyrics," Duplantier said. "I got to write the lyrics of my part. So what I did was try to pinpoint the parts of the song that were actually positive that could not be an invitation to violence and riots and beheading people, but more, 'It will be OK,' literally. So that’s the angle that I chose to take."

"Literally, what I say is, 'Let us rejoice because good times will come without fear of fire or flame.' It’s a message of hope for the world in these troubled times with all these wars going on and interesting 'leaders' taking over everywhere in the world. There’s kind of a weird vibe going on in the world. And I think people need to hear, “It’ll be OK,” especially the youth, when they hear about global warming and the gloomy clouds that are on the horizon. We can change our future. We can be the change. It’s never too late to make things right.

"The revolution is individual. If people decide to be more compassionate, and make the right decisions for themselves, things can be OK."