Deicide's new album Banished By Sin caught some heat online for its seemingly AI-generated artwork. Deicide frontman Glen Benton has addressed the artwork essentially saying he's happy to stir up some shit, while drummer Steve Asheim offered a more in-depth reasoning for the art.
In an interview with Heavy Demons, Asheim said the cover was an intentional throwback to the band's 1990 self-titled cover. Asheim further explained that the Banished By Sin artwork was designed by a jewlery designer associated with Deicide, and that an actual human got paid for creating the cover.
"Well, from what I understand, the label said, 'Hey, we want to get a cover that is reminiscent of the first record,' some kind of medallion or something like that. So, working with… Glen has a guy in — I think he's from Sweden, and he is a jewelry designer, and he's an artist, because, obviously, he has to craft the jewelry, he has to design the artwork for whatever.
"Anyway, so he asked this guy, 'Hey, create a medallion for the artwork for the record. And then we can tie it in with jewelry that we're gonna sell also.' And so that was this guy. So when people get all bent out of shape about how it's A.I. generated, I mean, we had a human artist design this thing. An artist, they use computer software to design it, and whether or not he ran it through some program to clean it up, I don't know. I mean, some people who know more about art than I do seem to have a real problem with it."
Asheim continued, driving home the point that there was an artist behind the cover and a real human actually got paid for it: "Everyone's all up in arms about the whole thing. And I don't really understand why. I mean, I guess I see that point about, 'Hey, an artist who paints could have gotten paid.' Well, you know what? An artist did get paid for this artwork. Our fucking guy.
"I mean, it's not like he's not an artist. So, I don't know what everyone's all up in arms about. I think people just like to have something to bitch about. That's cool. I get it. I like to bitch, too.
"But anyway, that's my take on it. And I think that's pretty cool. I've heard plenty of people bitch about it. I've heard plenty of people say, 'I don't see what the fucking problem is.' Anyway, we made super-huge banners of the artwork for live. So everyone who hates it is really gonna love that."
