Guitarist Jack Owen has opened up about how differently the writing process flows for him in Six Feet Under compared to his years in Deicide — and by his own account, the gap couldn’t be wider.
Speaking with Finland’s Chaoszine, the former Deicide man laid out why the material never quite clicked for him during his time in the Florida death metal institution.
“Yeah, it kind of went from 0% [when I was in Deicide] to 100% [now that I am in Six Feet Under]. I was blocked by myself in Deicide, and by the time I kind of came up with a formula for writing nonstop, I was kind of done with the band. So, there was that. And I always viewed them as kind of a Slayer-influenced band, so I was trying to write that, and sometimes things that I would write for Deicide really didn’t sound like where the band was going. It really didn’t sound like the first couple of albums; it was something totally different,” he said (as transcribed by Blabbermouth).
He didn’t sugarcoat how much of a slog it became. “Yeah, it was a rough time for me writing [when I was in Deicide], and the lack of touring, and I just had to walk away at some point,” Owen added.
That eventual departure, he’s explained before, came down to a clash over writing credit. Recounting the split in a 2024 interview with “RichardMetalFan“, Owen described the moment things fell apart:
“Oh, it was a problem with new stuff I was writing. I walked into practice and Steve [Asheim, Deicide‘s drummer and main songwriter] had re-recorded it and changed notes here and there for three or four songs that I had. It was stupid at the time. But he’s, like, ‘Hey, I changed the notes so I get writing credit.’ And I’m, like, ‘That’s not how the songs go, though.’ And Glen‘s [Benton, Deicide frontman], like, ‘It is now.’ So I literally walked out and ghosted them. Later on, it was like, ‘Hey, dude, you’re out.'”
Deicide‘s side of the story has always been a touch less dramatic. Drummer Steve Asheim offered his own version in a 2017 interview Metal Wani, framing it as a creative disagreement rather than a blow-up: “We were just kind of writing the record, and we were going over the songs. Me and Glen, we were, like, ‘We wanna redo the songs.’ It’s like we had completed them — about nine or twelve, whatever how many songs. They were all right, but we weren’t really psyched about them. So we decided to rewrite them. And Jack didn’t really like it. And he kind of left one day and just never came back. So that was that.” Frontman Glen Benton has since said the band holds no hard feelings toward Owen.
Despite the friction, Owen has spoken warmly of his old writing partner from that era. Reflecting on sharing guitar duties with Kevin Quirion on his final Deicide album, 2013’s In The Minds Of Evil, he said: “Kevin‘s awesome. He is a guy that would do anything for you. And he is so motivated as far as writing and contributing and helping out on the road with anything… But, yeah, Kevin is awesome. He wrote killer stuff on there — very thrashy, but me and him worked well together. There’s a lot of co-writing on there between me and him.”
A founding member of Cannibal Corpse, Owen joined Deicide in 2004 and appeared on four of the band’s albums: The Stench Of Redemption (2006), Till Death Do Us Part (2008), To Hell With God (2011) and In The Minds Of Evil. In 2017, he linked back up with his former Cannibal Corpse bandmate, singer Chris Barnes, in Six Feet Under.
That partnership continues to pay off. Six Feet Under‘s latest album, Next To Die — the band’s 15th — arrived on April 24 via Metal Blade Records. Produced by Owen and Barnes and mixed and mastered by Mark Lewis at MRL Studios in Nashville, it follows 2024’s Killing For Revenge and marks the third record the pair have made together since reuniting.
