the Deftones

1998 is over half way over, and throughout the duration of the year-to-date, Deftones have been working hard.

Touring almost constantly since the band's second album, Around the Fur, hit the racks earlier this year, this quartet from Sacramento has really made their mark on the world with music that seems to channel every emotion though an explosive mix of thundering rhythms and hard edged melodies provided by guitarist Stephen Carpenter, bassist Chi Cheng and drummer Abe Cunningham. Together, this combination of sounds creates the perfect backdrop for the voice and words of the group's lead vocalist, Chino Moreno.

The world was first introduced to Deftones three years ago with the release of Adrenaline, the group's first major label release (Maverick Recordings) and first full length album. The record created an almost instant grass roots support for the band, and through steady touring, Deftones have managed to build themselves a healthy fan base of fervent followers.

Take the group's appearance at the first Warped Tour back in 1995: Even at an early stage in the band's life, they managed to cram a huge amount of people—an equal amount of fans and curious newcomers—into a small side-stage area, a dust bowl accommodating no more than three hundred people. The place exploded into a massive pit, the security was overwhelmed and, needless to say, a good time was had by all. The audience was worked into a complete and total frenzy by the stop-and-start, aggressive, emotional soundtrack that Deftones laid out for the frothing crowd, and the day's subsequent appearances paled in comparison to the show's seconds set on the side stage.

"Our music is a lot more energetic live," says vocalist Moreno, who recently returned home to Sacramento after four months on the road with the band touring through Europe, Australia and Japan. "It's obviously a lot louder, and we're all up there, playing together and feeding off each other's energy. I mean, if you've been to our shows, you know the energy level is always way up. It's kinda like a feeding frenzy. We feed off of each other, and I think the crowd picks up on that and they feed off of us, and we feed right back off of them. It escalates. As soon as the show starts, it starts to build right then and there, and by the end of the show it's mayhem."

Deftones shows are also reliant on how the band feels, as the music is driven by the emotion behind it, and on any given night Moreno could take his part of the show in any direction, adlibbing the lyrics, the sound of the vocals and the feeling behind them.

"There's a lot of adlibbing that I personally do, especially with the material on the new record," admits Moreno, who plays the roll of the rock front man very well, interacting with the crowd at shows and keeping honesty at the forefront of his projections. "With Around the Fur, we wrote and recorded most of the songs in four months, so we never really got to play them live before we recorded them. Everything's really basic on the record, so live, I can get kinda caught up in it and get a lot crazier with the words and adlibbing. It's actually really fun 'cause it keeps the songs fresh."

As the band grows, Moreno says he is noticing different kinds of people gravitating towards their sound, and it makes him feel good that his music is speaking to different kinds of people. Much of Deftones' success in appealing to a wide variety of people, says Moreno, is due to the band's regular touring schedule.

"[Our fan base] is starting to get a lot more diverse," says Moreno. "I mean, every band starts out with their fans being their friends and it develops from there. We attracted a lot of the metal people right away, but it's really starting to open up. I see a lot of girls out in the crowd now, and kids from other scenes, like punk rockers. I think it has to do a lot with the different tours we've done. We've toured with so many different styles of bands and when ever we can do that, I think that we attract a different audience and it seems like people who like all kinds of different music can get something out of it."

Deftones make it easy to get something from their music. On the surface, the band is big metal for the '90s, but dig little deeper and you'll find strong song writing, solid technical work and intelligently crafted music that touches all kinds of bases. Recently, the band added a touring DJ to their line up, and according to Moreno, DJ Frank Delgado adds something completely new to the group's music.

"He's not doing what you'd expect from a DJ; he's not scratching or playing voice samples, he adds a bit of ambience to the music," says Moreno. "There's about seven songs that he does stuff on at our live show, and he pretty much just adds weird sounds. It's basically like another instrument, and it thickens up the sound. He does a lot of low end stuff and he does a lot of spacey kind of sounds. More than anything, though, he adds ambience. It's not hip-hop, which is what a lot of people are mixing in these days. It's not that I hate that, but I think it's sorta' played out to have somebody scratching every time there's a break in the song."

And though Deftones have been referred to as a group that mixes hip-hop into what they do (such references also often liken Deftones' music to that of bands like Korn and Rage Against the Machine, bands that each have their own sound, separate and different from Deftones'), Moreno feels that his band doesn't draw from hip-hop culture in the least.

"I wouldn't call us hip-hop at all. I mean, hip-hop is a whole lifestyle, it's an image that that's in everything related to it. I don't think there's any of that imagery in any of our music. Also, I wouldn't even consider anything I do rapping. It's just, like, rhythmic singing."

Deftones' touring schedule is what keeps them in people's faces, and seeing as how commercial rock radio is still too tame for Deftones' music, it is the band's touring schedule that has made its name nation-wide. Not only does playing live offer the group an opportunity to toy with their music, it is what has gotten them to where they are today. Besides, Moreno has reservations about being all over the radio and being a huge commercial success.

"I think all the records we've sold and all the fans we've made come mostly from us just being out there and having people see us live. After that, I think it's a bonus when they hear us on the radio," explains Moreno. "I think everything we've gotten, we built on touring. Now, radio can obviously help a little bit, but if we start to become really big on the radio, I could see people getting turned off by it. I think our fans feel a certain connection with our music—it feels more personal because we're not always on the television or always on the radio. We are always growing but that's a real gradual process, and I think that's why, in five years, we'll still be putting out records that people will still buy, instead of burning out."

Deftones' music is strong, powerful, loud and emotional, and a big part of this is the vocal style of Moreno. His voice can hover at low levels, almost whining at times and whispering at others, and then explode into a frenzy of screaming and gut-rooted melodic singing that packs a mean punch. Still, despite the strong feeling behind the music, Moreno says that playing is not necessarily hugely cathartic for him.

"It's not so much that I have a ton of things I have to get off my chest, it's just that, instead of having a journal or something like that to write in, I write down words and put them to music. It's something that feels comfortable, and it's always felt that way," says Moreno. "[Deftones] don't really have a message, we just write about how we feel, and everyone in the band is so open-minded. That's where we come from. It does feel good to go on stage and vent a little bit, but it's not like I have to do this or I wouldn't know what to do with myself."

Part of that open-mindedness and willingness to write heartfelt music comes from growing up, both as people and as a band. In the time that lapsed between Adrenaline and Around the Fur, Deftones toured a lot and took some time off to write and record new music. Moreno feels that the time was invaluable as a period of learning, growing and coming together for the band, and that evolution can be heard on Around the Fur. The music is more intelligent, not as angry, and employs a little more personality and a lot less blind power.

"I think we've gotten a lot better since the first record, and I think we still have a lot farther to go. But I also think that, just from touring so much, we've grown a lot closer as a band and we just work really well together now," says Moreno. "Everyone knows where each other is at and we don't get the uneasiness that we used to get in the early days. It was that unsure feeling, like, 'what are we gonna do?' Now we've got a lot more confidence in each other and ourselves. But like I said, I think we still have along way to go, and I hope that our records will always continue to progress and get better. I think that's the sign of a growing band."

Deftones growing sound is not what you could call Metal Lite, despite its powerful emotional nature. This is heavy music that takes interludes of exploration into quieter areas of the music. However, quieter doesn't mean necessarily mean soft and easy, and even during periods of decline in volume and intensity, there is often an unspoken tension. This feeling, combined with the candid and honest subject nature of the lyrics has earned Moreno and Deftones the tag, "Sensitive Guy's Heavy Metal," and even though it sound's goofy at first read, Moreno is surprisingly not adverse to the label, admitting that he is, in fact, a sensitive person.

"I slowly realized that's the kind of person that I am and that's the kind of music that I like," says Moreno, who is a fan of '80s music and a huge fan of PJ Harvey. He feels Harvey's music blasts through a broad range of emotional highs and lows at the drop of a hat, and that's a dynamic he tries to emulate, especially since he's grown up a little. "When we first started the band, Stephen our guitar player had totally grown up on heavy music, so our music was always heavy-based stuff. I kind of felt like I had to go along with it and be angry. A lot of those songs on the first record I wrote when I was 16 or 17 years old, and I think that in general, when you're younger you're a lot more angry. I think that a lot of kids feel that the world is against them, so I think I had a lot of that in me. But as I got older, I kind of mellowed out a lot and realized that anger doesn't really get you anywhere. You can't just walk around angry all the time. I am still a moody person, but I think I should act, sing and come across the way I actually feel. I think I am a sensitive person, and I think it keeps the music interesting and not just one-dimensional."

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