About Deftones
Deftones is an American alternative metal band formed in Sacramento, California in 1988. They were formed by frontman Chino Moreno, lead guitarist Stephen Carpenter and drummer Abe Cunningham, with bassist Chi Cheng and keyboardist and turntablist Frank Delgado joining the line-up in 1990 and 1999, respectively. The band's experimental nature has led some critics to describe them as "the Radiohead of metal".
After the line-up settled in 1993, the band secured a recording contract with Maverick Records, and subsequently released their debut album Adrenaline in 1995. Extensive touring and word-of-mouth promotion of the album helped Deftones garner a dedicated fan base. Their second album Around the Fur , reached chart positions along with its singles, and became the band's first to receive certification from the RIAA.
The band found even further success with their third album White Pony , which marked a transition from their earlier, more aggressive sound into a more experimental direction. Its lead single "Change " is the band's most commercially successful single, and the track "Elite" won a Grammy Award for Best Metal Performance; it was also the band's first of three albums to be certified platinum in the United States. Their self-titled fourth album was released in 2003. While the group's critical success continued, sales proved to be lackluster compared to White Pony. Deftones' fifth studio effort, Saturday Night Wrist , received similar praise, although the album's production was marred by creative tensions and personal issues within the band, some of which influenced its material.
In 2008, while Deftones were working on an album tentatively titled Eros, Cheng was involved in a traffic collision. As a result, he was left in a minimally conscious state until his death in 2013 of cardiac arrest. After Cheng's accident, Deftones halted production on Eros and recruited Quicksand bassist Sergio Vega until his departure in early 2021. The band released the critically celebrated Diamond Eyes in 2010 and embarked on a triple-headline tour with Alice in Chains and Mastodon throughout North America. Their seventh and eighth albums, Koi No Yokan and Gore respectively, saw the band continue to move in an increasingly experimental direction and were released to critical acclaim. Their latest album, Ohms , received significant critical praise for its return to the band's heavier sound.
When Stephen Carpenter was 15 years old, he was hit by a car while skateboarding. Confined to a wheelchair for several months, he began teaching himself to play guitar by playing along to songs by thrash metal bands such as Anthrax, Stormtroopers of Death, and Metallica. A long-circulated myth alleged that the driver paid Carpenter a cash settlement that allowed the band to purchase equipment, but Abe Cunningham commented in a 2007 interview that the story about the settlement was false.
Carpenter, Cunningham and Chino Moreno were childhood friends. All three went to C. K. McClatchy High School in Sacramento and remained friends through the city's skateboarding scene. Carpenter was a fan of heavy metal, and Moreno was interested in hardcore punk bands such as Bad Brains and post-punk and new wave bands such as Depeche Mode and the Cure. When Moreno found out that Carpenter played guitar, he set up a jam session with Cunningham, who played drums, and the three began playing regularly in Carpenter's garage around 1988. They recruited bassist Dominic Garcia some time after, and the band became a four-piece. When Cunningham left Deftones to join Phallucy, another band from Sacramento, Garcia switched to drums. Chi Cheng joined to play bass, and the band recorded a four-track demo soon afterwards. John Taylor replaced Garcia on drums in 1991, until Cunningham's return in 1993. Within two years, the band began playing club shows and later expanded their gigging territory to San Francisco and Los Angeles, where they played shows alongside bands such as Korn. While closing for another band in L.A., after the majority of the audience had left, the band impressed a Maverick Records representative. They were signed to the label after performing three of their songs for Freddy DeMann and Guy Oseary.
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