Ever wonder what happened to Craig Owens?

In 2010, Craig Owens was the star of the scene. Having led Chiodos to become one of the biggest post-hardcore bands around, before leaving them to form supergroup Destroy Rebuild Until God Shows (aka D.R.U.G.S.), the Michigan native was constantly found in the pages of rock magazines and was a mainstay of scene blogs.

His name, his face and his music were everywhere. Owens even found himself featured in celebrity gossip columns following a rumoured relationship with Ashlee Simpson, the pop star ex-wife of Fall Out Boy’s Pete Wentz.

He had the world at his feet, but 10 years later, Craig Owens has completely dropped off the radar.

Turbulence followed Owens wherever he went. Following early success with the albums All's Well That Ends Well and Bone Palace Ballet: Grand Coda, his split from Chiodos didn’t appear harmonious, the band’s statement at the time describing them as having “let Craig Owens go,” amid rumored tension between the two parties. It probably didn’t help matters that Owens had spent much of his time in Chiodos working on other projects, with the Sound of Animals Fighting, Cinematic Sunrise and Isles & Glaciers all launched during Owens’ first stint with the band.

However, D.R.U.G.S., Owens’ next project, was a brief success. Their self-titled debut album opened with first week sales of 14,000, which, while modest in comparison to the scene’s biggest bands, was by no means a failure (Chiodos’ comeback album with Owens, 2015’s Devil, did 18,000 its first week). Receiving critical acclaim for their LP, the band also headlined the AP tour with Black Veil Brides and bagged a summer-long main stage slot on Warped Tour in 2011.

Like with Chiodos, though, Owens’ bandmates eventually decided to part ways with him, the remaining members of D.R.U.G.S. — Matt Good, Nick Martin and Aaron Stern —declaring their departure from the supergroup the day after Chiodos teased Owens’ return to his original band.

Things had gotten very messy.

An underwhelming Chiodos reconciliation was short-lived and the band split in 2016, the year after final album Devil’s release. At the time, Owens described to Billboard how the post-hardcore group “simply couldn’t stay afloat.”

Fast-forward to 2020, and despite an Instagram account that makes it look like he’s very much still a scene vocalist, Owens is now releasing R&B music under the moniker badxchannels. He’s also put out solo pop material and had a brief stint vlogging on badxchannels’ YouTube account. It’s all rather random.

He’s obviously a very talented singer and, as a songwriter, has helped spawn a couple of classic post-hardcore records, but a penchant for drama and a seeming lack of focus has led to Craig Owens’ career being one of unfulfilled potential.

We’d be stoked to see the former Chiodos and D.R.U.G.S. man make a return to heavy music, but for the time being, it seems as though his attention lies far away from the scene.

25 Scene Albums Turning 10 in 2020

25 Scene Albums Turning 10 in 2020

 

More From Note To Scene