Jack Owen has been a legend in death metal since the late ‘80s when he became one of the founding members of Cannibal Corpse. He stayed with them until 2004 when he left and joined Deicide, staying with them for 12 years before leaving them in 2016, before he eventually ended up reuniting with fellow Cannibal Corpse founding member Chris Barnes in his new band Six Feet Under. But why exactly did he exit Deicide?
According to a recent interview with RichardMetalFan that was reported on by Metal Injection, Owen claimed that he left due to a dispute about writing credits with drummer Steve Asheim. Owen accused Asheim of changing just a few notes in a song to gain writing credits, which supposedly led to Owen leaving and flat out ghosting his band like a vapid 20-year-old on a dating app.
“Oh, it was a problem with new stuff I was writing. I walked into practice and Steve 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, like, ‘It is now.’ So I literally walked out and ghosted them. [Laughs] Later on, it was like, ‘Hey, dude, you’re out.’”
While that’s certainly a funny story, it’s a little hard to believe that one dispute over writing credits was enough to end a 12-year collaboration. As Blabbermouth pointed out, Asheim gave a slightly different version of the story in a 2017 interview with Metal Wani:
“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.”
That story is notably less funny, but it’s as hard to believe as Owen’s version, as it still claims that one dispute over writing was enough for Owen to walk out on a band that he had played with for 12 years. Is it possible that the conflict between Asheim and Owen was far more complicated than what a few quippy soundbites from interviews can really convey? Yes, that’s almost certainly the case.
Six Feet Under’s new album Killing for Revenge is out May 10 from Metal Blade Records.