Deftones Beauty and Brutality

Photo by Frank Maddocks

Published Apr 26, 2016

There were probably only, like, five of us in a three-mile radius that skateboarded," he'll tell Flavir Magazine in 1996.

I had a lot of different types of friends. I never fell into one clique."

Similarly, Moreno never settles on one type of music, instead listening to everything from punk rock and the Beastie Boys to Morrissey, the Cure and Depeche Mode. "

We were able to figure ourselves out in a smaller city; it wasn't like we came out and we were terrible in the beginning, and people knew us for being terrible. We were actually able to have some sort of artist development on our own, slow kind of pace, which helped us figure all that stuff out in the early days."

The band were really young," Cunningham will tell Modern Drummer in 1997. "We'd been playing most of those songs for quite a while, and we were just so happy to be making a record that we didn't really think a whole lot about making the songs better."

"I still don't think we really had that great a vision of what we were trying to do at that time," Moreno will tell Spin. He records all his vocals live, with the band in the room.

I feel like that's one of our best records," Moreno will tell Spin. "The fact that we even got a chance to make a second record is just like, 'Let's just do this and really engulf ourselves in it.' I feel like we totally captured that time in our youth." He's lukewarm on the cover though, which features a photo of a girl in a bikini.

At that point, nothing had been written and we were, for the first time, writing a lot in the studio," Cunningham will tell Rock Sound. Carpenter had previously moved from Sacramento to Los Angeles, leaving the rest of the band behind. Consequently, Moreno starts writing on guitar with Cunningham for the first time.

"That was the start of a huge animosity and tension between him and Steph that's been well-publicized over the years." Cunningham will tell Rock Sound.

It's completed by the end of the year, in Los Angeles, first at the Plant Studios (where Fleetwood Mac made Rumors), and then finally, in a mansion in the Hollywood Hills.

White Pony

marks a turning point for the band's sound: Delgado becomes a full-fledged member, and with Moreno playing rhythm guitar, it's the first time Deftones are able to effectively merge all their disparate influences. Critics take note, highlighting it as a bright light in the increasingly dumbed-down, but incredibly popular world of rap-rock and nu-metal.

"We really took our time with that record. We knew we wanted to do something a little more experimental," Moreno will tell Rock Sound. However, not everyone is pleased with the new direction. "

"pretty much since Adrenaline we'd been fighting an uphill battle with some of our old-school fans who just love us for the aggressive part of our band. I've always had this issue with trying to steer left of what's expected…It's sort of a natural instinct now that I can't even help."

"

I remember them sitting me down and pointing out to me that Papa Roach and Linkin Park had sold six million albums while we hadn't sold a tenth of that," Moreno will tell Rock Sound. "To me, they were saying they wanted some rap-rock, and at the time I was already way over making music like that. They kept hounding me about it, so I was like 'Watch this…' because formulaic songs are so easy to write."

"Back to School (Mini Maggit)" is written and recorded in a day. The label hires music video director Paul Hunter, fresh off of Eminem's "The Way I Am," to direct a video. "

When a record company gets behind you like that, it's hard to say no, because the years prior, they wouldn't give us the time of day." The album is later reissued with "Back to School" now listed as the album's first track, displeasing the band.

One of the bad things that came from White Pony was the fact that we were successful and we really took our time and spent too much money," Moreno will tell Spin. "We took that mindset to the next level with the self-titled record. And we really struggled with our work ethic and that record took us almost two years to make, double the time of White Pony."

Maverick is keen to have the band duplicate their previous success with more hits.

The music was coming together very slow, and it wasn't that great — a lot of meandering, a lot of jammy sort of stuff."

Recording sessions are put on hold as band members consider the future, including starting over under a different name. Ultimately they opt to soldier on, recruiting Sergio Vega to step in on bass. He makes his debut with the band in April, 2009 at the Bamboozle Left music festival. That same month,

When Chi had his accident, we were probably another six months away or something from finishing [Eros]," Moreno will tell Spin. Yet its release continues to be an albatross around the band's neck.

There was this whole reconnecting of everything that had been missing for the last ten years or so."

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He left this world with me singing songs he liked in his ear. He fought the good fight. You stood by him sending love daily. He knew that he was very loved and never alone." Writing on behalf of the band on the group's Facebook page, Carpenter says,

"That could have been any day. That could have been any album. It could have happened on every record we've ever recorded," the guitarist tells Team Rock.

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