Ken Owen played drums in Carcass, one of the standout grindcore/death metal bands of the end of 80's. Between 1985 and 1995 he filled the spot behind the drum kit for these UK grind legends.



After the band's split-up around 1996/1997, all of them minus departed guitarist Bill Steer decided to form a new band under the moniker Black Star. But then Owen got seriously ill. In February 1999 he had a brain haemorrhage at home. In an interview Owen recalls:

"[It was] causing pressure on the vein, as they don't have elastic walls like an artery does, leading to the vein rupturing. This pressure occurred as I bent down to stroke Tango the cat, causing me to have a stroke and leave me in a coma. I can't remember how long I was in the coma but it was a few months."

Actually Ken spent 10 months in hospital slowly emerging from a coma. While he was recovering the medics discovered the cause of the haemorrhage - which is basically a vein being fed blood by an artery into the brain. This meant surgery to avoid any recurrence. Ken had the operation in March 2000 and it was completely successful. But he was very ill after surgery with inflammatory problems and was in hospital until February 2001. Two years later, in 2003, Ken Owen reveils in an interview with Earache:

"I'm putting in a lot of work on getting better but the hardest thing is accepting that it needs time as well as work. I'm learning to walk again, I'm using various techniques to improve my short-term memory - with good success, and I'm adapting to some loss of vision. Fatigue is one of the biggest problems, but my stamina has increased enormously, and I've started drumming again [this time on on Roland V drums, ed.] in the last month, which at one time I thought I'd never be able to do."

As a youngster, Ken saw Deen Castronovo and Neil Peart as drumming idols. His motto: drum to your own beat!