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Deftones: Crash And Turn
Posted by Rob Ortenzi on 12-Jan-07 @ 05:46 PM|
Over the course of nearly two decades and five albums, DEFTONES have pushed the parameters of hard rock, as well as the expectations of fans and critics alike. The only thing they couldn't get over? Themselves. Story: Brian O'Neill In Metallica's documentary Some Kind Of Monster, the near-breakup of a successful rock band was displayed for the entire world to see. Their case was unique in many respects: Cameras, psychologists and peripheral ex-bandmates turned it all into a three-ring circus. While almost every band goes through such turmoil at one point or another, every great band runs that psychic gauntlet more often. Clearly, Deftones are firmly ensconced in the latter camp. The period-which the members unanimously refer to as "The Dark Days"-began with the making of their 2003 eponymous titled album, a confusing, depressing release that did not live up to the commercial success of its predecessor, the platinum-selling White Pony. After its completion, Deftones-singer Chino Moreno, bassist Chi Cheng, guitarist Stephan Carpenter, DJ/synth op Frank Delgado and drummer Abe Cunningham-were in tacit agreement that the disc was underwhelming, and they didn't tour much to support it. In an Idol Worship interview with Failure's Ken Andrews in AP 203, Moreno cited that the tension he and Carpenter seemingly created for each other in the studio backfired, ending with the singer acquiescing to most of the guitarist's whims. At that time, Moreno was devoting more time to Team Sleep, his decidedly quieter side project, whose debut disc was finally released last year. The memory of those days seems even further in the past as the band roll into Germaine Amphitheater, the outdoor venue hosting the Columbus. Ohio, date of this year's Family Values Tour. Moreno is lounging in the front of the band's impeccably neat tour bus while Foo Fighters play silently on the television. The other members are milling about the venue; Carpenter, who has been playing golf nearly every morning on this tour will not be participating in the interview. (The very concept of the 9 a.m. tee time is so very non-rock, but he takes his game seriously. Carpenter's been recognized as the planet's top-scorer in EA's Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2005 game.) "I think we got out of that record what we put into [it]," Moreno says, reflecting on Deftones. "That's the most apparent thing about it. It was really done in a scattered manner; it was thrown together in certain ways. It was bad times for all of us, personally. I think that everybody besides me at that point was going through a divorce. If I look back on the record, I'm proud of it. There are some good songs on it, but the biggest thing is [that] it sounds dreary. There's a lot of depression in that album." When it came time to record Saturday Night Wrist, the fifth installment in the band's canon, the quintet had to write songs and navigate through personal and interpersonal issues. After working with Terry Date on all their records, producer Bob Ezrin--best known for his work with such '70s rock icons as KISS, Alice Cooper and Pink Floyd--was brought in to get the band out of the "comfort zone." While the rest of the band felt rejuvenated by the progress they were making in the studio, Moreno, inexplicably, stopped. "It just didn't seem that it was going the right way," he explains. "It seemed like we were just making a record because we had to, just for the sake of doing it. To me, it didn't seem like there was any big purpose behind it, and I just started to get really disinterested. We were already a year into it and everybody wanted me to finish up the vocals that I was doing with the music that we had." He soon found himself pitted against almost everyone in the Deftones organization. "It started from the record label, but then the band started backing everybody up," he continues. "I tried to explain to them that I wanted this record to get done more than anyone. I was the one racking my brain every day in the studio all day long, going over millions of ideas trying to get it where I knew it could be. I wanted it to get done, too, but I knew that it really wasn't right the way it sounded. Finally, I decided that I didn't want the record to come out the way it was coming out and if that was the case, then I was just going to walk away from it." So Moreno did. At a time when the Deftones record was supposed to have already been completed, the singer left the sessions to tour with his side project Team Sleep, whose debut disc was released in May 2005. Everyone, from his bandmates to his management to the label, was patently furious. "I wanted to kill the fucker," bassist Cheng says later, the frustration of those times still apparent in his tone. "I'm not going to lie. He knows it. In the big picture, he probably had to get away in order to finish the album, but it didn't seem that way to me at the time." "I could see it wasn't that he wasn't committed," says DJ Delgado, a bit more sympathetically to Moreno's point of view. "I knew that he wasn't in a zone. I can honestly say that I never lost faith that he would do it--just probably not in the timely fashion that we needed." Meanwhile, the Team Sleep tour was, for Moreno, pure escapism. He was able to make music in a less-stressful environment with another group of old friends. He even went so far as to change his cell-phone number to avoid what was quickly becoming a major issue within the Deftones camp. "When I left, we didn't talk. I didn't talk with anybody, really," he nods. "I did play guitar on the whole [Team Sleep] album and the singing was more sporadic. The guys in Team Sleep are, like, my friends from home, so I was able to escape." Despite his working holiday with Team Sleep, Moreno was still harboring feelings of resentment. At the time he left for the tour, he felt betrayed by the others, wishing they had attuned to his creative headspace rather than forcing him to rush through his parts to avoid missing a window in their label's release schedule. And despite the confusion of his bandmates, they didn't do much of anything outside of waiting for their friend. Although the other four were cautiously optimistic that Moreno would address things when he returned, there was the constant reminder that Deftones might be over when he got back. "I think at times we definitely contemplated it," recalls Delgado, "but we knew that we had to come back to at least see where we all stood. We didn't have to make any rash decisions." For the rest of the story, pick up AP 221 below... |
