| Band: | Scalpture |
| Release: | Landkrieg |
| Genre: | Death Metal |
| Country: | Germany (NRW) |
| Release Date: | 7th of March, 2025 |
| Released via | Testimony Records |
To everyone who actively follows Transcended Music Blog, it probably doesn’t come a surprise that I got together with Scalpture’s Felix in order to form a new label. During the process of setting up this label and even before, the communication between us increased heavily, thus leading to an exchange of overtly long voice mails. This definitely impacted the aspects we talked about when communicating.
Because of that, the perspective for example when having talked about the upcoming tour of Scalpture and Carnal Tomb slightly shifted. When the focus of an interview like this had been about Scalpture’s latest release Landkrieg specifically in the past, the interest now moved towards talking about how setting up a tour like that, playing the shows and surviving this tour life worked out. This is why we took some time to sit down and discuss what this Scalpture and Carnal Tomb tour surrounding the release of the 4th full-length Landkrieg was like.
Interview with Felix from Scalpture
Hello there, dear Scalpture. I’m very glad to have the talks with you as well although it took me some time to get started. How are you doing?
Hi Roman, really glad we’re finally doing this! I’ve been putting it off long enough and now I’m actually excited to sit down and answer everything. We’re doing great! Although, I have to say – I (and I think the others too) feel a bit drained when it comes to stuff like answering interviews and that kind of thing. Everything after the release has been amazing, for sure, but it’s also been quite exhausting in its own way. But yeah, long story short: we’re doing great!
It’s been two months since the release of your current full-length “Landkrieg.” This has been some time to reflect as well – how do you feel about your fourth full-length now?
Well, since I took forever to get back to this, we’re already in July 2025 now – Landkrieg came out in March. And honestly, I think as a band, before, during, and after the release, we’ve had the best time we’ve ever had. That really comes down to the album itself, and the music we created together. It was a huge effort. I always just say: it was a lot of work – which it really was. But it was work with friends, and work among friends. And in the best case, that kind of work is actually fun most of the time.
I don’t listen to the album daily now or anything like that, of course. It’s more about the songs we’re playing live – those are the ones that stick with me now. That’s when you realize: yeah, it’s cool that we wrote those. Cool that they’re on this album. Feels great to have them in the set now and bring them to life on stage. That changes over time, too. It was the same with the earlier albums – sometimes you kind of forget about them for a while, and then you come back and listen to a song you haven’t heard in ages. Everyone has their personal favorites, and it’s always interesting to see which ones kind of rise to the top over time. Sometimes the tracks you loved at first don’t hit you the same anymore, and others you didn’t pay much attention to become your new favorites. That’s always a fun thing to experience.
Right now, I don’t really listen to the record much at all – unless it’s to prep for a show. But I’m still incredibly proud of it, and I know the others are too. It’s just our best album so far – even if that’s a bit of a cliché to say. But it really is.
There was quite a fest on the release day of Landkrieg regarding its release show in Münster. Coming together with Keitzer, Terra Builder and Deathrite, I need to ask first of all – how did this line-up come together?
So Benni – the drummer from Terra Builder – he actually helped us out for three shows a while back when Moritz, our drummer, couldn’t make it. That’s how we got in touch more closely, and ever since then it was like, “Hey, maybe we’ll do something together again sometime.”
When we had our release date set, I knew he had a connection to that venue, so it just made perfect sense to have Terra Builder play – which they did. Benni then brought Keitzer into the mix. We share the same booker with them, so that just naturally fit, too.
And Deathrite – we asked them ourselves. That’s a band we’ve been following forever, and we think they’re just fantastic. They’ve really evolved over the years and never stayed in one place musically. So we were super happy that they supported us that night. Also, obviously, you want to make sure the place is packed – and Deathrite definitely draw people. Great musicians, great people, and super easy to deal with when it came to booking and everything.In the end, it was really our lineup – something we put together ourselves. Of course, there are tons of other bands from our region or even our hometown that we could’ve invited. You could easily fill a whole festival with bands we like and are in touch with on a friendly basis. But this lineup just came together in a way that felt right for that night. And yeah, it turned out to be a really special evening.
Same question goes for the location. I have to be honest that I was not aware of the Rare Guitar in Münster. As far as I was able to find out, you played that location before already. Did you know right from the start to locate your release show at this venue?
Exactly – we had actually played with Terra Builder once before. That came about through Moritz, our drummer, who had a connection to Benni, their drummer. And I think it was Terra Builder who invited us to that show.
For me personally, that was kind of my first proper glimpse into the Münster scene. I can’t remember exactly – either I was already living in Münster back then or I moved there shortly after. I’m honestly too lazy to check the exact timeline right now.
But that gig really stuck with us in the best possible way. It kind of felt like the closing chapter of a little gig cycle we had going on back then – a run of shows that happened over several weekends after we released our third album. That period was when we really started to grow together as a band. It finally felt like everything clicked: the full lineup was there, everyone was all in, everyone had the same drive. And somehow that show in Münster felt like the perfect… well, not final show of that phase, but one of the last ones before we shifted our focus to writing the new album.So going back to that same place to kind of “kick off” the Landkrieg era with the release show – that just felt right. It made perfect sense to return there.
Just a few weeks after the release show, you headed off on tour for 16 days straight, which is quite a marathon. Before going into detail, though – planning an entire tour with Berlin Death Metal combo Carnal Tomb. How did you get together?
Again, it was our shared booker – Husky, who, as many know, also plays drums for Asphyx. He had already added us to his roster, and not long after that, Carnal Tomb joined as well. At some point, I reached out to him like, “Hey, we’ve got Easter break coming up, we’d actually have time – think we could try to put together a few shows?”
So I went to Husky with that idea, and he just immediately threw a tour together. And he also brought up Carnal Tomb right away, and it was instantly like: yes, 100%, absolutely. I’ve been following them for a really long time – amazing band, amazing people. But I think we’ll get more into that in a bit.
So yeah, it just made total sense for Husky to suggest Carnal Tomb – and we were all in from the second he mentioned them.
Recapturing the fact that you played 16 dates straight, which means that you were in charge of setting up 15 gigs for this entire tour. How did you manage to do so? Was there any trouble finding space for every show or was it all smooth and good?
All the thanks here go to our booker, Husky – who I already mentioned earlier. He was the one who actually booked the entire tour. And honestly, for small bands like us, that’s not something you can take for granted. It’s not like people are lining up to do that kind of work for underground acts.
With some promoters, you get a fixed fee, with others it’s a door deal, and yeah – of course a cut of that goes to the booker, which is totally fair. But in the end, that’s not a huge amount of money, and still he put in a massive amount of work and energy to make this happen – getting both bands onto stages every single night for two weeks straight. That’s huge. So yeah, all credit goes to Husky. Marc from Carnal Tomb and I tried to help out in the background as much as we could.
Marc put in an insane amount of work on the design side – all the flyers, visuals, social media posts – everything you saw online basically. I definitely chipped in where I could too. But yeah, organizing a tour is a massive task, whether it’s a small DIY thing or a full-blown Nightliner production. It’s just a huge amount of work. And we’re honestly really thankful we got to be part of it.
Most evidently, a tour has a start and an end. Let’s first of all take a look at the most positive side of this entire setup. How did you enjoy the first show on the 11th of April in Switzerland when you embarked on this journey?
So the first show was in Switzerland – it was this one-day festival in a really beautiful, big, professional venue. Asphyx, Grave, and Vader were also on the bill, so yeah – it was well attended and really well organized.
What stuck with me was that they had set us up with a band apartment. That kind of caught us off guard in a good way – like, of course you expect some kind of accommodation, but we didn’t expect a proper apartment just for us. That was such a positive surprise, just having a space to crash after the show.
It was definitely a nice way to kick things off – even though starting a tour in Switzerland meant driving all the way through Germany first. That was a long drive, super exhausting right from the start. But of course we were all hyped, full of adrenaline, super excited. And then you get there, and there’s so much going on – the buzz, the chaos – it was just a great way to begin.
On the way there, and especially the next day after the gig, it definitely started to hit us. It got pretty late, and while we didn’t exactly go crazy with drinking or anything, you’re still amped up and your brain just doesn’t shut off. So sleeping wasn’t great. And then – boom – next morning, you’ve got a drive from Switzerland to Chemnitz ahead of you. That was the moment I thought, “Wow, if this is how we’re starting… how the hell are we gonna survive this whole thing?”
But – we made it!
Considering the fact of entering the stage every single evening for 16 days straight, these initial emotions probably changed at some spot. How did you feel… let’s say… after having played Hamburg (show #11) ?
It’s funny you picked Hamburg – that one really stuck with us. Originally, that date was actually supposed to be a day off. Or rather, it kind of had to be a day off, because there just wasn’t a show booked for that day. Then this gig popped up, and we were like, “Alright, let’s do it.” Which meant – no break at all, not even one day off the entire tour.
So we arrived in Hamburg, and I think the weather was actually pretty nice. But the drive had been long and tiring, and there was this feeling like, “Man, it would’ve been really nice to just have a day to chill today,” especially since we still had to drive to Berlin that night to stay on schedule. So yeah – I wouldn’t say we were super optimistic going into that one. Maybe we didn’t all talk about it out loud, but at least I definitely had some doubts.
But then you get there and you see the venue, and the organizers are super friendly, and it’s actually decently attended – I think it was Easter Monday, right? And then it just turns out to be a killer show. We had so much fun that all the tiredness and doubts just vanished.That was also the moment where we realized: okay, we’re definitely getting worn out, but we’re still pushing through. And somehow, after that show, things actually just kept getting better. We really pulled ourselves together and kept going – and then, yeah, a couple of real highlights were still waiting for us later on.
If we talk about 16 shows we talk about a lot of room for problems that might come up even though planning turned out nice. Did you experience troubles on any of those days?
Nine people in one van. Five of us from Scalpture, four from Carnal Tomb. Apart from Marc, who I had already been in touch with quite a bit while planning the tour – and who I kinda knew from before – the rest of the Carnal Tomb guys were completely new to me. And some of the other Scalpture members had even less contact with them before the tour. So at first, it was a bit like: “Alright… who are these people?”
But man, they turned out to be the most chill and pleasant people we could’ve ever hoped to share our first proper tour with. They already had some touring experience – they’d done another run just a few months earlier – and it was just super easy and relaxed being around them.
If there were any tensions at all, they were more within Scalpture – here and there – just the usual stuff when you’re figuring out how to function together in that kind of setup. But we found a way to deal with that pretty quickly. Our singer Thorsten actually started this little ritual – on some days, just the five of us from Scalpture would sit down and take a minute to check in, like, “Hey, how are we actually doing right now?”
At first, I’ll admit, I kinda rolled my eyes at it – like, what is this, group therapy? Are we supposed to talk about our feelings now? But honestly, it helped us a lot. Gave everyone space to say what was bugging them – or what felt good – and that just brought us closer together and made us stronger as a group. It was our little therapy circle, and it really worked.
The fact that there was no drama, no egos, no big arguments – that says a lot. All nine of us pulled in the same direction and made sure everyone got through it. Sure, everyone had a low moment here and there. But then you just did whatever you needed to get back on track – even if it was just taking thirty minutes to walk alone through whatever town you were in, or grabbing your food at catering and sitting at a different table for a bit, just to breathe. That usually did the trick. And every single time, you’d get pulled right back into the group – everyone was super supportive.
It really was an amazing experience. Just realizing how well things can work, even with people you didn’t know before. And honestly, the same goes for the promoters, the local crews, and of course the audiences – they were all part of what helped us push through.
Oh, and just to add something to the last question – I don’t think I actually answered it the way it was originally asked. From an organizational point of view, we really didn’t have many issues at all. I mean, sure – the drives were long, and sometimes we’d arrive, unload, and go straight into soundcheck, which is definitely exhausting.
There was one situation where a hostel was somehow overbooked or something like that, and for a short moment we basically had no place to stay that night. But Liran from Carnal Tomb reacted super quickly and booked us a hotel right away. The promoters fed us and made sure we got through the night, let’s put it that way – and later they also covered the extra costs.
So honestly – nothing bad happened. We had a great van that never broke down. All the gear – guitars, amps, cabs, drums – everything held up. Looking back, I really can’t think of anything that went seriously wrong. Other than the usual traffic jams and long drives, there was nothing that truly fell apart or got messed up.
No major disasters – which is kind of amazing, really.
Now still being hot after having played that many shows – would you share some advice for tour playing or tour planning for younger bands that might help to find an easy introduction into that subject matter?
Well, I think once you’re around our age – mid-thirties – you should probably try to stay away from alcohol as much as possible on tour. I mean, if you’re in your early twenties, none of that really matters yet. Just make sure your driver is in a state to drive, and then you can probably do whatever the hell you want.
Of course, a bit of preparation helps – sitting down calmly beforehand and going, “Alright, do I have enough cables? Enough guitar-strings? Do I have a backup plan if something breaks?” That kind of stuff. But honestly, I think it’s also easy to go overboard with all the prepping. At some point, you just have to jump in and do it.
There are tons of checklists and advice online for what to bring on tour, so that’s all out there if you need it. But what really matters is: make sure you get along with each other as human beings. No assholes in the van, please. Ideally, everyone takes turns driving, everything’s shared fairly, and if there’s a problem – just talk about it.If you can manage that, you’ll be fine.
When of course pointing at the fact that all of you still have work and family life apart from playing in a band – do you think there is a perfect number of shows for a tour that’d be okay for everyone involved?
I think that’s actually something we’ve taken away as a learning from this tour – a little less would probably be better.
My ideal tour would start on a Friday, run through the weekend, and then wrap up with the last show on the following Saturday. And somewhere in the middle, you’d have a day off. That, to me, sounds like a perfect setup.
Driving maybe three to four hundred kilometers between shows would also be quite manageable. I think that kind of tour could actually work well in the future – especially without needing to take ten or fifteen days off from work. Because in the end, you do pay for that with vacation days, with time you don’t get to spend resting or recovering.And that can definitely take a toll.
Leaving behind negative associations of tour life I have to ask – was there a show – or a set of shows – that you enjoyed the most?
There were definitely a few highlights. First one that comes to mind is Stuttgart at Schwarzer Keiler. That show totally took us by surprise. I think it was a Tuesday or Wednesday or something like that – and it was packed. People were super into it, bought a ton of merch, and just went wild – for both Carnal Tomb and us. That was one of those moments where we thought, “Yes – this is what touring feels like.” It was absolutely fantastic.
Then later that week, we played Frankfurt at Ponyhof – and it was the same thing. People went completely nuts. We absolutely have to go back there. That one was a total surprise too, in the best way possible.
And for us in Scalpture, another big one was our show in Bochum at Die Trompete – kind of a little hometown gig. And we were honestly super proud that it was packed and that the crowd really showed up and went for it. And even better – people were also right up front for Carnal Tomb, which was awesome.So yeah, I think those are my top three shows from the tour. In the end, it really comes down to whether people are into it. That’s the most important thing.
The entire tour took place with Carnal Tomb, a band with which you now also share a label. This is one of the most evident cuts that happened between Feldwärts and Landkrieg. How did your label switch from FDA Records to Testimony Records happen? Were you actively looking for different labels or was this a “natural” progression?
I think for us it was just a natural progression. We had fulfilled our contract with FDA with the third album, and after that, we simply started putting out some feelers.
Of course, you want to get a sense of what the conditions are like at other labels that might be interested. You negotiate a bit and then go with whatever feels like the best fit for you.
And for us, Testimony Records turned out to be the perfect new home – for a bunch of different reasons. They’ve become a really great partner, and we’re super happy to have them on our side now.
The current state of Testimony Records with distribution via SPKR Media probably brings forth quite a different situation as was possible at FDA Records. How do you yourself experience the new label for example when comparing to FDA?
Working with Thomas has been great – he’s a fantastic label manager who’s answered all my questions and concerns with a lot of patience.
And yeah, as you mentioned, Testimony Records is backed by a slightly bigger distributor or publisher, which you definitely notice when it comes to things like pressing quantities. There are simply different possibilities available on that level.
Also, our entire back catalogue was re-released through them – and both we and the label put a lot of care, love, and effort into that. That was really cool to see.
So yeah, if you want to compare Testimony to FDA, I’d say the main difference comes down to size and the kind of resources that are available. Everything else still feels personal and very supportive.
Together with the release of Landkrieg, Testimony Records also repressed all of your former releases and released those as well. Did you have any trouble with that move regarding the rights of your former releases?
Even as a smaller band, you still end up signing contracts – and you do need to be a bit careful with that. Sometimes it’s worth having someone take a look or getting a second opinion, just to make sure everything is fair and done properly.
So yeah, we definitely had to pay attention to a few things, and there were some conversations around it. But that’s just how it goes – and ideally, you deal with it behind the scenes without turning it into a big public drama.
And that’s exactly how it went for us. Everything worked out fine in the end.
Another quite evident factor of Feldwärts and Landkrieg is the fact that you returned to Hellforge Studio for recording and Lawrence Mackrory for mastering. Are there any specific elements that you favored about this combination?
Marco from Hellforge Studio is basically our sixth band member during the entire pre-production, the actual recording process, and even beyond that. It really feels like that – there’s so much back-and-forth between him and me especially, even before we set foot in the studio.
We try to figure out: what are our wishes and expectations? What are we capable of? What’s realistic, what isn’t? What does he want from the process? What are our reference points? What do we want it to sound like? Where do we want to pick up from the last record?
There are literally thousands of questions that come up at that stage – and Marco is the one asking them, pushing us to reflect and really set a direction for the new album.
Then you enter this insanely intense recording phase where you spend 10 to 12 hours a day in the studio, working on the songs, side by side. And yeah, you definitely go through some rough patches during that time.
And after all that, there’s the mixing phase – when you’re excited to finally hear the first versions, give feedback, but also have to be careful not to get stuck in endless revision loops.
And then there’s Lawrence – kind of the seventh pair of ears, and a completely neutral one at that. He hasn’t been part of the process until that point. He gets the mix, maybe with a little bit of direction, but basically it’s like: “Alright, now you give this album the final 5% you think it needs – so it works across all systems and gets that extra bit of polish.”
For us, the most important steps are pre-production, recording, and mixing. Mastering is like the final pinch of salt on a dish. And we still believe it makes the most sense to have totally fresh ears handle that part. I didn’t give Lawrence much input – I just want him to do his thing. And he does it really well.So yeah, that’s why we didn’t change anything about that combo for Landkrieg – it just works.
You also again decided to choose Eliran Kantor for the duties of artwork design, who was also in charge of the cover of Feldwärts. How can we imagine what shaping your visual ideas by an artist such as Kantinor is like? How often did you need to return the artwork with further notices to be satisfied with the final product?
So, pretty early on – I think right after the release of our third album Feldwärts – we got together at my place to celebrate. It got late, we got drunk, and at some point we started throwing around ideas for what might come next.
And that’s when some vague concepts already came up – like, a beautiful landscape where something terrible is happening. That stuck with us. And pretty quickly, it was clear to all of us: let’s work with Eliran again. No question.
We developed the idea a bit further, looked at a few directions left and right, asked ourselves if we really wanted to go that route. At some point, I put together a document and pitched the whole concept to Eliran in pretty detailed form – and he actually stuck pretty close to that vision.
But then came the hard part: we realized that one element in the image – actually the most important one – just didn’t feel right. The idea behind it was a bit too overthought somehow, and the execution wasn’t really working for us.
That made the whole process really painful and long. We had to keep coming back to Eliran again and again like, “No, sorry – can we change this? Try it like that? Actually, maybe go back to the earlier version…” It dragged on for quite a while, and at some point the pressure was building, because the album was basically ready, and we were just waiting on the artwork.
But the delay was really on our end – we didn’t know what we wanted until way too late in the process. Luckily, Eliran was professional and super understanding, and in the end he made it all work for us.I definitely lost a few nights of sleep over this cover – it was one of the hardest parts of the whole Landkrieg process for me. But in the end, the result turned out fantastic again – and that’s what matters.
Since you signed a two album deal at Testimony Records and probably already consider first ideas for the follow-up – would you change any of your decisions setting up the release of Landkrieg from what you know now?
Honestly, that’s still too vague for me to really put into words right now.
There are definitely things I’d like to approach differently next time – ideas that are floating around in my head – but these are all things we still need to talk about as a band. Everyone needs to be on board, and we need to figure out together what direction we actually want to take.
Right now we’re still in that stage of exploring what we want, what might come next, and where we’re headed. It’s all just vague ideas and gut feelings at this point – and I can’t really articulate them properly yet. Not even for myself.So yeah, as of now, yes – I do want to do some things differently. But I can’t really put that into concrete words just yet.
After your tour with Carnal Tomb, one of the most prominent highlights is probably you playing Tolminator in Slovenia. How did you grab off this opportunity and how do you feel about that?
Again, all the credit here goes to our booker, Husky. At some point, the offer came in: “Do you guys want to play Tolminator?” And we said yes immediately.
Now, in just under two weeks, we’ve got a few days in Slovenia coming up – in the middle of summer. Some of us are combining it with a little vacation, because yeah, it’s a bit of a trek to get there. But we’re super excited.
We actually visited the festival once before as regular guests. And now we’re coming back to play there – which is kind of a beautiful full-circle moment. That’s exactly how you hope things develop over time.
So yeah – this one also came together thanks to Husky’s booking work.
Apart from this big show and your tour, what are your future plans for the rest of 2025. Are they precise already?
For now, it’s really just about playing some shows – but not too many. Mostly weekend stuff – maybe a Friday and Saturday combo here and there. But from my perspective, we’re taking things a bit slower for the time being.
Personally, I want to rediscover the joy of songwriting – just sitting down without pressure and seeing what happens. That’s kind of my plan at the moment. No concrete goals, no studio dates locked in that we’re working toward.Right now I just want less pressure and more enjoyment – playing a few shows here and there and hopefully finding my way back into writing songs again. But doing it because I want to, not because I have to.
Right now I just want less pressure and more enjoyment – playing a few shows here and there and hopefully finding my way back into writing songs again. But doing it because I want to, not because I have to.
Thank you so much for taking your time answering these questions. As usual at my interviews, the final words shall belong to you!
Thanks so much Roman – for taking the time and putting together such thoughtful questions. It really shows that you’ve spent time with our music and genuinely wanted to hear what we had to say.
For me, this was a great chance to reflect on a few things. I honestly hadn’t thought about the fourth album in a while – and this gave me a reason to look back on the tour, too. It was a really cool opportunity to take stock of everything, and to feel some gratitude again for all the amazing stuff that’s happened along the way.
So yeah, thank you for giving me this space to ramble on and work through some of this in my head. It really meant a lot.
Please keep doing what you’re doing – you’re such a valuable part of this scene, and I’m really happy we get to be a part of it too.
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