SIX FEET UNDER, BUT ONLY TWO MEMBERS DEEP

Bassist Terry Butler and drummer Greg Gall have both quit Six Feet Under. Butler told Blabbermouth that he’s off to join Obituary full-time (he’s been playing with them since last year), but no word on where Gall will seek employment. Butler makes it sound like everything ended in a happy place, but I’m always suspicious when multiple band members split at once.

Whatever. Butler and Gall were, along with Chris Barnes, both original members of the band (guitarist Steve Swanson joined in ’98, replacing, coincidentally, ex-Obitchuarian Allen West), but I feel like it really shouldn’t be that hard to fill their shoes; Six Feet Under’s brand of death n’ roll is so easy to write that, once upon a time, a tribute band was able to imitate their sound with enough skill to get Barnes to actually join the group. And Barnes has already revealed that he and Swanson have been working with a new writing partner for the past four months. I dunno who it is (it would be awesome if it was Chimaira’s Rob Arnold, who I think is a big Six Feet Under fan, but that seems unlikely given his commitments to both Cleveland’s Finest and The Elite), but I’m of the opinion that Barnes should just make nice with those Torture Killer dudes now and get them to be the new guys in Six Feet Under.

ANYWAY, here’s a fittingly romantic song by which to remember Butler and Gall — “Remains of You.” True story: for a long time, I thought Barnes was singing “I took my nuts to your head,” not “I took an axe to your head.” I still think my lyric is superior.

-AR