Ex-DEICIDE Guitarist JACK OWEN Says It Was 'Tough' Working With GLEN BENTON: 'He Never Cracked My Bubble And I Never Wanted To Get Into His Bubble'

In a new interview with The Growl Podcast, former DEICIDE guitarist Jack Owen was asked what it was like to be in a band with Glen Benton. He said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "It was tough, pretty tough, 'cause he never cracked my bubble and I never wanted to get into his bubble. [Laughs] We're just completely different people, man. I am a total introvert. I just wanna do my work and get done and just keep going. Next album. [Laughs] I don't know if he likes drama or likes to create it — I don't know — but you can tell that we're different people, and it just was not gonna work. [Laughs]"

Jack continued: "I got along with Steve [Asheim, DEICIDE's drummer and main songwriter] great and [former DEICIDE guitarist] Kevin Quirion great. I get along with the Hoffmans [former DEICIDE members Eric and Brian Hoffman]. Somebody was asking me, 'Who do you get along with and who do you don't?' It's, like, I get along with everybody, pretty much, except Glen Benton. [Laughs]

"In an interview, [Glen] was, like, 'I don't even know who that guy Jack is,'" Owen added. "And I think I'm just so simple that you think there's more to me. But I have a cat rescue and I'm either playing music or writing music or listening to music or watching college football or hockey. That's pretty much it."

When host Chad "C.R." Petit noted that some people are "drama driven", Owen concurred. "The Florida metal scene was like that," he said. "It was all drama. Band feuds and just all kinds of crap. 'He said what about me?' It's, like, dude, you're two guys. Who cares? "There was [a lot of] competition. It's, like, couldn't we have a show with MORBID ANGEL, DEICIDE, OBITUARY and CANNIBAL [CORPSE]? No, we can't do that. Why? Everybody's friendly with each other. Oh, no, we're not.

"I'm still the same way [as I always was]," Jack added. "I mean, it would be a great idea [to organize] a Florida death metal tour, like the 'Big Four' [of 1980s thrash metal]."

Less than two years ago, Owen was asked by RichardMetalFan what it was like to share guitar duties with Quirion for Jack's final album with DEICIDE, 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."

Regarding how his split with DEICIDE came about, Jack said: "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 [Benton, DEICIDE frontman], like, 'It is now.' [Laughs] So I literally walked out and ghosted them. [Laughs] Later on, it was like, 'Hey, dude, you're out.'"

One of the founding members of CANNIBAL CORPSE, Owen joined DEICIDE in 2004 and played on four of the latter band's studio albums: "The Stench Of Redemption" (2006),"Till Death Do Us Part" (2008),"To Hell With God" (2011) and the aforementioned "In The Minds Of Evil".

In a 2017 interview with Metal Wani, Asheim stated about Owen's departure from DEICIDE: "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."

In 2017, Owen joined SIX FEET UNDER, the death metal band fronted by his ex-CANNIBAL CORPSE bandmate, singer Chris Barnes.

SIX FEET UNDER's fourteenth studio album, "Killing For Revenge", arrived in May 2024 via Metal Blade Records. A follow-up effort is expected later this year.