Deicide announced their first record in six years Banished By Sin earlier this year, whose artwork immediately drew controversy. The artwork for Banished By Sin has been accused of being A.I. generated, which has been neither confirmed nor denied by Deicide or their record label Reigning Phoenix Music.
Now in an interview with The Brutally Delicious Podcast, Deicide frontman Glen Benton has addressed the artwork essentially saying he's happy to stir up some shit. Which is in line with the entirety of Deicide and Benton's career, so is anyone surprised?
"Well, people don't understand that the album cover that we did, it was done with Photoshop and with some A.I., but it's a more modern version. It's like Legion — when I did the Legion album cover, computers were still fucking new. Nobody knew anything about three-dimensional artwork or any shit like that. And I was the first person to even fucking fuck with that when I designed the Legion album cover. Now I've been in the computers and all that shit since they all came about. So I may be ahead of a lot of people when it comes to computers. I have two iMacs and MacBook Pro and iPad Pro. So I'm a little versed with the whole computer age and in Photoshop and all that stuff and that.
"I like to do something different and provocative. And I know the whole A.I. thing, everybody's [up in arms about it]… But it was meant to stir. People don't understand. It's a modernization of… It's a sign of the time that we're in. People just can't — their first [reaction] is, like, 'Oh, he's trying to put all of us artists out of work. And I'll be stuck drawing penises in men's bathrooms for the rest of my life.' So everybody's up in arms and thinking that this is the end of the fucking world. And it's really ridiculous, man. It's just a form of art and expression. So I think people should just really stop being ridiculous and accept it for what it is, man. It's a sign of the times."
Benton continued, saying he's not interested in doing the same old Deicide artwork anymore, and would much rather do something modern.
"I don't do the same album artwork over and over and over again, and I don't use these scribble artists to create these logos that you cannot read or make out. I'm just not into that shit. All these wannabe Rembrandts and shit, man. You know what? I design artwork around the whole thing, man. And I don't take other people's feelings or their ideas or I don't sit here and think, 'Well, what's this blue-haired kid in Nebraska gonna think about the album cover?' I do what I do because I like it, and I don't give a shit what anybody else thinks. So if it pisses people off… And it's really more like these bandwagon little shitheads; they all wanna jump on the bandwagon, 'Boohoohoo.'
"But here's the thing, how hypocritical it is, because my art was being stolen [illegally downloaded] and stepped all over in the '90s. Metallica had seen it come and they tried to stop it. But all these wannabe mercenaries for artists and all these idiots out there, they were the same people right there stealing my art back then. So where were all you guys at to defend my art being stolen and taken advantage of?
"So, all I did was just did an album cover, really, that just focused on the whole modernization of the modern time and, really, it's just a reflection of the age that we're in right now. I can't spend my days trying to explain this. I have a saying: I don't try to convince stupid is dumb and I don't try to convince dumb is stupid. So I just let it do its thing and piss people off. I have a great time with it. It's hilarious. Yeah, it is what it is, man. It's meant to stir the shit paddle, and that's what I do."
