JACK OWEN Says He Had A 'Rough Time' Trying To Write Music For DEICIDE: 'I Always Viewed Them As Kind Of A SLAYER-Influenced Band'

In a new interview with Finland's Chaoszine, former DEICIDE and current SIX FEET UNDER guitarist Jack Owen spoke about the differences between writing music for each of the two bands. He said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "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 added: "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."

Back in March 2024, Owen was asked by RichardMetalFan what it was like to share guitar duties with Kevin 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 [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.' [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 latest album, "Next To Die", came out on April 24 via Metal Blade Records. The LP, produced by Owen and Barnes and mixed and mastered by Mark Lewis of MRL Studios in Nashville, follows 2024's "Killing For Revenge". It's the third record that Barnes and Owen have created together since reuniting in 2017.