Nergal wants a pedal. KHDK is up for the challenge. The unholy LCFR pedal is born.
LCFR is now SOLD OUT.
I've always loved Behemoth. Later in life, I realized it's more than a Biblical monster: it's also a kick-ass band.
I knew one day we would work together. The introduction was made by my longtime friend, Alex Becker, who suggested to Nergal that KHDK could be the right house for boxing up his tone.
Ever the fearless maniac, Nergal was down
For me, there is nothing quite like the process of approaching a blank canvas and creating a brand new pedal.
It's exhilarating, nerve-wracking, diarrhea-inducingly overwhelming, and breathtakingly exciting - all at the same time.
Luckily, I had the best partner in crime: Nergal is nothing if not a man who pushes the envelope and since he and Behemoth are strongly visual, I knew that the LCFR pedal would be an absolute standout piece.
To match Nergal's stylistic vision, we rolled out the black carpet for the LCFR
Nergal's head designer, Bartek, worked with us every step of the way, iterating Nergal's vision and delivering the final LCFR art.
The challenge: translating the artwork onto the pedal enclosure
We experimented with a buttload of styles of print and in the end, we settled on silkscreening each box by hand over the deep black matt powder coat.
The silk-screening technique is superior to digital print because it gives a more intricate print with a glossy effect that draws the eye in. It's seriously epic with the bronze detailing.
Pretty much everybody who has seen the pedal thus far has experienced light to moderate cornea damage from such an esthetically intense experience!
Hand-numbered by Nergal with a signed Certificate of Authenticity
At this point, the lead designer, Bartek, went basically insane and decided to create each individual box sticker and Certificate of Authenticity on handmade fricking paper.
Bartek went all in like it's 1450 and it's nobody's business and used letterpress -- so each LCFR pedal now comes with a totally unique Certificate.
(This isn't like the paper mache I made from chewed-up napkins as a kid: this is high-grade Les papiér that you handle with white gloves and call it Sir.)
Nergal then sealed the deal by signing each Certificate and had it not been for a deadline, they probably would have sealed the box with their own blood and thrown in a black goat or something.
333 pieces only (because any more would be lethal)
Because of the sheer madness of production and the amount of hands-on work that goes into each pedal, we capped this run of the LCFR pedal at 333 pieces.
Yes, it's only half the Beast.
Antonin Salva doing magic in his weird-ass garage
Obviously, all of this would be nothing without the guts of the pedal. That's where KHDK's chief tone wizard comes in wielding a soldering iron and chanting.
As usual, Antonin needed little to no direction: his brain holds the exact imprint of Behemoth's tone which he then regurgitated onto some unsuspecting cables, bending them to his will and into the LCFR circuit.
An early LCFR prototype with stylishly pink knobs
Nergal finalized the LCFR in the studio while working on the new Behemoth record
We had the perfect testing ground: Nergal used and abused the LCFR at Behemoth's studio while working on the new record. This earned the LCFR the final seal of approval. The seal then died due to excessive exposure to awesomeness.
The LCFR tone is one of the key components of the signature Behemoth tone. The sound in Nergal's mind was an overdrive for his high-gain amp to tighten his tone and make his sound aggressive and radical.
That's the story and I'm sticking to it, OK now I just unstuck myself.
Now go do some fucking yoga.