"So God bless you all
For the song you saved us
For the hearts you break, every time you moan
And God bless you all on the earth..."
-- Chino Moreno, Minerva
The Deftones are a prog-metal band from Sacramento, California, formed in 1988. Chino Moreno (Deftones' future vocalist and occasional guitarist) was walking past a garage and saw a teenager playing guitar, who turned out to be future Deftones guitarist Steven Carpenter. His cousin met him, and told Chino about him. They went to meet each other, and there and then they formed what would soon be called The Deftones. They would later recruit Abe Cunningham as a drummer and play shows. After Steven got hit by a drunk driver, he managed to get a large cash sum to spend on the best equipment money could buy. Deftones began playing locally shortly thereafter, and going through several different bass players, before finding a permanent bassist in the form of herb-lover Chi Cheng.
The band had trouble in securing a local fanbase, as the music scene in Sacramento was lacking in any real rock bands. So they instead traveled around the rest of California, playing gigs in Los Angeles, San Francisco Bay Area, and Reno. Finally, after 4 years of demo swapping and constantly playing gigs (as well as shuffling multiple day jobs), the band got their record deal at Maverick Records. They released their first album, Adrenaline, an underground heavy-metal classic fusing rap-styled, soaring vocals and crushing guitars and drums, in 1995. Their album managed to sell around 200,000 copies by word of mouth and constant touring with fellow-underground metallers Korn, industrial-metalists White Zombie as well as a plethora of others, as well as three national headlining tours and a stint at the Ozzfest.
The Deftones soon managed to secure a track on the soundtrack for The Crow: City of Angels, called Teething. They also managed to include Can't Even Breathe on the soundtrack to Escape From L..A.. The band then released their sophomore effort Around The Fur in 1997, which eventually reached gold status. The inclusion of turntablist Frank Delgado expanded the simplistic metal sounds as depicted on Adrenaline, and Chino tried not to rap so much. And with it came two radio hits, Be Quiet and Drive (Far Away) and the heavy metal classic My Own Summer (shove it) (which also found it's way onto The Matrix soundtrack). In between touring and working on new material, The quintet release a 7-track live EP, simple titled Live.
After their third LP release White Pony (an undisputed metal classic) in 2000, Deftones were regarded as one of the most important alternative rock acts of the 90s. White Pony went on to reach Platinum, debuting at number 3 in the Billboards. Their popularity was strengthened more so by the hit singles Digital Bath, Change (in the house of flies) and Back To School, with heavy rotation on MTV. The band were at the top of their game now, and a lot of people wondered how they could beat White Pony. But they did it, and their self-titled masterpiece (released in 2003) furthered the band's sound into much more experimental realms, more so than White Pony. Harsher and heavier than their last offering, it also managed to be their most emotional and epic yet, from the soft, electronica-lead Lucky You to the absolute carnage of When Girls Telephone Boys. The band had created their finest work yet. What follows will surely be mesmerizing.
As a side-note, vocalist Chino Moreno is currently experimenting with a side-project called Team Sleep, who contributed a track to The Matrix Reloaded soundtrack.
Currently, the Deftones are:
Currently, the Deftones have released the following LPs:
"Louder than war. Uplifting like a drug. The best band in a genre of one."
http://www.deftones.com