The wait is nearly over. Blacken Open Air – to be held from September 19 to 22 – Australia’s most unique heavy music festival, has dropped its full line-up for 2025, featuring an electrifying mix of international icons, exclusive reunions, and homegrown heavyweights.
This is not a rehashed, derivative or template event, it is a reinvention. We are building on what we’ve done in the past, while reinterpreting the reason for doing it. In 2025, we’ve searched the globe for artists that bring the extreme, the inspiring, the outrageous and the absurd, representing the real diversity of voices in the heavy music space. Not just across Australia and New Zealand, but from America, Europe and Asia as well.
And what better way for you to know what to expect than a personal, up close Q & A session? Today we get to know Scaphis.
BAND NAME: Scaphis
BRIEF HISTORY:
Scaphis was founded in 2014, we released our first album in 2017 and our second in 2022. We played Blacken 2017 and 2018. We’ve supported Bloodbath and supergroup Sinsaenum, toured around Australia and have started work on our third album this year.
LATEST RELEASE: Rituals of Torture and Death
GENRE: Death Metal
WHY PEOPLE SHOULD CHECK YOU OUT AT BLACKEN OPEN AIR:
Our mums say we’re really good, even though they hate “rah rah music”.
THREE THINGS PEOPLE MIGHT NOT KNOW ABOUT THE BAND:
How to pronounce our name, Scaphis is pronounced with a short a, like cat.
We have very silly working titles, the silliest so far was probably “Bing Bong Ting Tong Flip Flop Salad Drop”.
Some of our songs are pure fiction, but others are inspired by real events and medieval torture methods.
1) BLACKEN OPEN AIR 2025 is approaching fast. Are the nerves kicking in yet?
They’ve been kicking in for a few weeks, maybe even since the full lineup dropped.
2) What does it mean to you to be playing at BLACKEN?
It’s a huge honour to be part of Blacken, the crew pour so much love and hard work into this festival, and it’s only gotten bigger and better each time. It’s a fantastic feeling to be heading back now, with so much growth under own own belt, to add our own hearts and souls to the blaze of Blacken.
3) BLACKEN has been called Australia’s most unique music festival. Do you agree?
Without a doubt. It’s like nothing else. It’s a fantastic showcase of heavy music in a stunning landscape, enriched with culture, art, and community. Spyke will tell anyone who’ll listen that Blacken will change their life for the better.
4) Who are you most looking forward to playing with and why?
Honestly, the lineup is so stacked, it’s going to be hard to take a breath. We’re especially stoked to be on with some other Blacken regulars, and mates we’ve played with elsewhere and shared the Blacken stage with in the past who’re here this year with other bands.
5) It’s a long day of music. What will you be doing to make sure you will still be standing come your set time?
Staying hydrated and sleeping late!
6) Give me your Top 3 Festival survival tips.
Bring thermal layers, it’s bloody cold at night in the desert.
Drink some water between beers.
Ear plugs!
7) Which band – other than yourself – do you think will get up to the most mischief on the day?
Maybe Frenzal? They seem to have a reputation to uphold.
8) What song do you think the crowd would want you to play to finish your set?
Belly of the Beast, or Let Me Out.
9) What song are you going to play?
We’ll definitely include Dissected & Fermented, the title track of our last album, which wasn’t even released last time we came to Blacken.
10) What one song would you tell festival goers to listen to of yours if they haven’t heard you play before?
Tower of the Damned, or Blood Eagle.
11) Finally, what plans does your band have for the rest of 2025?
We’re going to knuckle down and work on new material.
