Le-Koro Band: Artist Feature – Kristián Jablonický

Gathered friends, welcome to yet another post by the Le-Koro Band!

This week, I heard a rumbling sound from deep underground and went to investigate. Within a cavern of heavy metal ore, atop of a throne of stone rat skulls, sat an imposing figure wreathed in shadow, whose dark-red clothes billowed in an imperceptible wind. He played a low-stringed instrument with fingers dexterous as lighting and a sound that shook the cavern walls and made my heartlight rattle in my chest. Surely, this was a servant of Makuta ready to tear the land asunder!

I screamed out in surprise, and suddenly he stopped. Now, stepping out into the light, I recognized Kristián Jablonický! He had collaborated with us in the Le-Koro Band many a time before, all the way back in 2022 on Ide’s Journey: Act 1 with his composition of “Confrontation” and in 2023 with “Consequences of War,” both heavily featuring the motif of The Hunter, but this time he was practicing the riff to a song by the Neal Morse Band, “Fighting with Destiny.” We had originally covered the song together for 2024’s “Ide’s Journey: Act 2, Disc 2,” but he was prepping for its remaster as a single this year! 

He graciously helped me to my feet, and we had a lovely conversation about metal music, its various subgenres, composing dark and complicated riffs, and the benefits of being a part of many different bands.

So, gathered friends, and honored guest…

When were you first introduced to the world of BIONICLE®? What was your first set?

I’ve been familiar with Bionicle for pretty much as long as I can remember thanks to my older brother – he already had a few sets by the time I gained object permanence lol. When I grew a little bit older, we shared the sets we had, so I could get my hands on sets that have been released when I was like 1 year old. But yeah, the first set that I kinda remember asking my mother to buy me was probably Toa Metru Whenua. Now that I think about it, his design is how I like my guitars nowadays – dark and pointy.

What instruments do you play? How did you learn and develop your skills? And how did you eventually begin making music yourself?

Right now, I’m pretty comfortable with playing the bass and a little bit of guitar. I’d love to learn how to do vocals as well but I’m not there yet. Around 7 years ago I had too much free time on my hands, and I started getting into more heavy subgenres of metal, which lead to me wanting to pick up the bass and see if I like it. At first, I didn’t have any plans on being any good at it, but after some time I really got into it. Seeing crazy bass playthroughs of technical death metal songs where people did crazy tapping on 6 string basses really inspired me to pick up a 6 string and learn those songs. So yeah, I watched a lot of online YouTube tutorials, had a few online lessons with some bassists I really look up to and spent quite a bit of time trying to play difficult riffs.

What inspired me to write and release music ties this whole thing back to Bionicle. Long things short, a guy on Reddit pretty much jokingly said that he would like to form a Bionicle death metal band, and to me that seemed like a great opportunity to get into the whole music recording/releasing thing. It didn’t work out with that particular guy, but it motivated me to search for other bandmates online, which eventually worked wonders for me.

For the other musicians in the audience, what does your specific rig look like for performing and recording? (Guitar/Amps/Pedals/interface/software)

I’m not a huge gear or instrument nerd to be honest, so I’ll take this question in a bit different direction. But in short, I get somewhat cheap instruments that suit my needs (extended range, black, pointy) and plug them into a Focusrite Scarlett interface and use the Reaper DAW. Since with most of my releases I had someone else cook the guitar and bass tone for me, this is about all I need to have a great tone on a great sounding record.

For basses, I got myself a solid 6 string bass (ESP LTD B-206), and the cheapest 6 string fretless bass I could find. What I’d say is, the most important thing about a bass is how you set up its action (the distance between the frets and the strings). If you set it as low as possible (meaning if you were to set it lower, the first few frets would buzz and the notes would have like no sustain at all), the bass will sound and play a lot better. I used to totally ignore this advice when I started playing, so please don’t be like me, and set your action low lol. If you play aggressively and smack the strings against the frets, it makes the attack of all notes more impactful. To further help with this, I use a Darkglass microtubes X7 distortion pedal. To make my tone even more stupidly aggressive, I also use the free VST “JS Ravager” compressor on the clean signal. Lastly, a super important thing when recording final takes – I have to have fresh strings. Fresh strings amplify all the stupidity described above by quite a bit. Since I’m cheap I only restring when I’m recording final takes.

When it comes to guitars, I’m pretty clueless lol. I got myself a 7 string with fanned frets (Ibanez RGMS7) to make it clear that I am indeed a nerd. I got it second hand, from a guy that got it second hand, from a guy that dropped on the ground. At least I’m not so cautious about scratching it, since it already had a nice crack in the body around the volume knob. I use free VSTs “Amped Roots” and “STL Amp Hub” for my demos / self-mixed stuff.

Who are some of your musical influences?

I’m pretty sure that whether I know it or not, most of the music I listen to influences me to some degree. But to give you a more interesting answer, I sometimes try to rip off some aspect of a band or artist that I don’t usually enjoy for the most part, but I try to spin it in a direction that is near and dear to my heart. The chorus of “Double Kill” (a song by my Among Us slam band, Butcher the Impostor) was for example my attempt to rip off a Slovakian rapper. I’m certain I totally failed at doing so, but at least I get to pretend that I’m cool and I don’t listen to silly metal music exclusively 😎.

In your opinion, what power does metal have as a music genre that might not exist in other genres? 

I’d say that there is something unique and charming about all the music genres out there. I was into rock since I was pretty young. Bionicle promotional music such as Cryoshell and Daughtry’s “Crashed” had some influence on that for sure. Since then, I just keep getting into more and more heavy/stupid genres of rock/metal.

Some things that I enjoy about metal are for example the album covers (especially the detailed ones depicting a boss fight looking scenery), self-awareness of the musicians and listeners (most people get that listening to shower drain sounding vocals is a tad silly), and the feeling of being a tiny fish in a somewhat small pond. I got real creative with the last one.

You’ve become very skilled at playing metal music, but there are so many different kinds of sub-genres! For the uninitiated, what can you tell us about some of their differences? Which sub-genres are your favorites and why?  

Thank you very much! To tie this back to my previous answer, metalheads arguing about subgenres on all occasions they get has to be one of my least favorite aspects of metal lol. But to name a few, I’m into the following genres and songs I’d recommend you to check out if you’re interested to hear more:

You’ve been a part of many bands in just the recent past! Archetype of Destruction (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXk5IXxtDo4), Swelling Repulsion (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hzno86u7PqU), Butcher the Imposter (https://linktr.ee/butchertheimpostor), A Pretext to Human Suffering (https://linktr.ee/apthscult), collaborating with musicians from all around the world! How have you managed such connections and maintained such prolific music output over the years?

I got super fortunate by joining A Pretext to Human Suffering by responding to a Reddit post of the guy that formed the band. Very quickly I realized that he knows his stuff and I need to stick around with him and learn about all the processes necessary for recording and releasing music. After the experience I got in that band I got a bit delusional and formed Archetype of Destruction, where I again got super fortunate by meeting really cool and talented people. So yeah, all the band members of all the bands on Reddit and simply got lucky by connecting with such great folks.

A follow-up: where are you located, and does that make collaboration difficult with international musicians, or is distance a trivial issue to overcome?

I’m from Slovakia, which is right in the middle of Europe. So far, I’ve never really wanted to perform music live, so the distance thing wasn’t really an issue. The only downside is that most of the musicians I collaborate with are from the USA, which means that the time zone difference is quite significant. But still, we manage to hop on a voice call every now and then. And yeah, when it comes to playing live shows it is something that one day I’d like to try out, but I’m not really hurrying to make it happen just yet.

Slovakia! For our American audiences, what did the Bionicle community look like half-way across the globe for you? And how did you eventually find your way over to joining the Le-Koro Band and 810NICLE Day?

Bionicle was pretty big here. I can imagine that school walkways and playgrounds were filled with children playing around with such bangers as Bionicle sets, Beyblades, Pokémon cards and all that good stuff.
I found out about the whole 810NICLE day and Le-Koro Band via the very person interviewing me. They hopped on a discord server that I joined to shamelessly promote my music, and I found out there about the efforts of the Le-Koro band. It intrigued me so I stuck around and got to contribute a bit which is very neat.

Pivoting over to your amazing contributions to the Le-Koro Band, specifically your songs “Confrontation” and “Consequences of War” for The Hunter, what’s your process behind writing death metal music? What’s the first step?

The way I tend to write music is that I just try to write a main riff or a chorus – something unique that isn’t quite like anything I wrote before. For Consequences of War, I really wanted to write a chorus riff that incorporates a lot of tapping for example, so I messed around on the guitar and eventually wrote the very first riff. Once I have a solid and unique chorus, I just kinda wait a few days or weeks. If I keep having the riff stuck in my head, or I play the riff often when I pick up the guitar, I know that it’s worth turning into a full song. “Consequences of War” was initially written with my band Archetype of Destruction in mind, but it felt a bit too different and bright in mood, so I figured it would be the best to repurpose it for something different.

“The Confrontation” underwent a similar process. I messed around on the guitar until I wrote the intro riff, or rather sequence of chords. Then I kept adding on variations and layers to that chord progression until I fully fleshed out the chorus, then I added the remaining riffs to glue the song together.

It seems the sky is the limit when it comes to the form of riffs or the structure of a death metal song. Are there any rules to follow for someone looking to write in that sub-genre?

I pretty much follow the same steps as described in the previous answer when writing all the songs. I try to avoid abrupt tempo changes and stuff like that to keep the song feeling like one song, rather than a riff salad. I never really try to write a song in a specific subgenre – it’s all just my following the rules I set myself based on identifying things that I like when listening to the music I like.

What is the most difficult part of writing music for you? What’s the easiest? The most rewarding?

The most difficult thing for me is coming up with new chorus/main riff ideas that are not similar to choruses I wrote before. With each song I write I feel like the range of options I have gets smaller, and thus writing gets more difficult for me. The easiest thing is following the flow and writing/creating the bridges between sections for the rest of the song, once a chorus and at least one other “important” riff is written.

The most rewarding is having other band members contribute their part – listening to drum parts made by a skilled drummer that wrote those specifically for my silly song demos will never be not cool to me. The same thing goes for vocals and mixing later in the process. Just seeing other great people do their thing and elevate something that I wrote to a much greater height is awesome.

What are some of your other songs or musical projects that you’re most proud of?

Honestly, I’m super proud of all the things you’ve listed and linked before. I tried to come up with a more expanded answer to that question, but I’m really glad with how all the music I got to release turned out.

What other talents do you have that you’ve fostered besides making music?

Butcher the Impostor is my little playground for dipping my toes into uncharted waters. Besides doing the usual guitar and bass writing/recording, I also wrote the lyrics and tracked the vocals for it. I also made all the artwork for that band – it’s obviously silly and not very good, but I wanted to check out the world of digital painting for a while, and I could use that band as a testing ground for that. I also got to mix the newest single we dropped recently called “Welcome to the Susmageddon.” It’s far from a great mix, but once again it proved to be a great experience for me. Lastly, I also printed collectable cards featuring the artworks that I bundled together with the CDs I sold – I wanted to see how much it would cost if I ever wanted to make and print a trading card game. The answer is yes.

Outside of music and music related stuff, I was always mainly into gaming and videogames. The last 2 years I spent a solid chunk of my creative free time not devoted to music, but to game development. I’m working on a mobile game in Unity game engine, and it’s a whole lot of fun. Sadly, it’s still pretty early in development. If the development speed matches Archetype of Destruction’s music release tempo, the game might not be out by the time I retire 😎.

Do you think you’d collaborate with the Le-Koro Band again?

Absolutely, I’d love to. Although I can imagine that most people just roll their eyes when they listen to the super creative Le-Koro releases and are met with chromatic caveman guitar music in the middle of the track list.

Ah, I beg to differ! Your tracks are often folks’ favorite ones of the whole album!
So, it’s with a warm heart that I say, thanks again sharing your creativity with us! What’s next for you, individually?

Thanks for having me! When it comes to music, we’ll most likely work on more Swelling Repulsion soon, but there’s still a long way ahead of us. Archetype of Destruction is dropping the Bionicle influences, but we’re nearing the release of a full-length album. I wrote some of the songs on that bad boy 4 years ago and did the final guitar and bass tracking 2 year ago now. So yeah, the album has been brewing for quite some while now and I’m super stoked to be able to soon release it to the world. With Butcher the Impostor we may do some more silly sussy slams when the inspiration comes, but there are no ambitious plans currently.

Besides that, I have the whole Unity game development to keep me busy and excited.

Wonderful! We can’t wait to see what you make next!
If you’d like to follow Kristián as they take the world of metal music by storm, check out his Instagram, which has links to his other projects: @kristian_jablonicky
Until next time: Unity! Duty! Destiny!
If you’d like to join the band, follow the linktree below (https://linktr.ee/lekoroband), and feel free to reach out to chat in the comments, or wherever you find us!
Tune in next time for another single release and the next episode of “Tree Talks!”

–Sanso

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