As a kid growing up in Sacramento, Chino Moreno had some eclectic musical tastes that few others seemed to share. The future Deftones singer was a fan of both metal and Morrissey, of Bad Brains and Depeche Mode. But if his musical impulses seemed all over the place for a high school teen in the Eighties, they would matter a lot in what was yet to come.
“I thought I was kind of weird because I listened to goth music and Rush at the same time,” Moreno remembers with a laugh.
That sensibility has long been an essential piece of Deftones’ sound, setting Moreno’s deeply emotional, alternately ethereal and biting vocals against the band’s waves of thunder and atmosphere. Alongside guitarist Stephen Carpenter, drummer Abe Cunningham and sampler-keyboardist Frank Delgado, Moreno has helped create one of the most distinctive sounds in hard rock and metal.
The latest missive from the band is private music (their first album with bassist Fred Sablan), 11 songs again constructed from evocative walls of sound, opening to the pummel of “my mind is a mountain,” all crushing guitars, beats and Moreno’s vocals of light and dark. Later, “i think about you all the time” emerges from a romantic reverie, while “~metal dream” lives up to its name with overlapping vocals, colliding noise and melody.
The eclecticism that informed Moreno as a young fan has also been at the foundation of the band’s annual festival, Dia De Los Deftones. Now in its sixth year, the deftly curated event has hosted everyone from death-metal Olympians Gojira to hyperpop mavericks 100 gecs to rap superstar Megan Thee Stallion.
“When we put our wish list together at the beginning, we usually start doing it like a month after the festival’s done to plan for the next year,” Moreno says of assembling each lineup. “It could be anything [including the] outlandish — like I had Morrissey and all kinds of other stuff in there, knowing it’s probably not gonna happen.”
That said, from these wish lists, many of Moreno’s dream Dia De Los Deftones acts have happened — or will happen. For 2025, the day-long gathering returns to San Diego on November 1st with a characteristically diverse and dynamic mix of performers: Clipse, 2hollis, Rico Nasty, Deafheaven, Régulo Caro, Ecca Vandal, Glare and UNIVERSITY.
After more than three decades in action, and experiencing festivals from Ozzfest to Coachella, Moreno and the band have learned a few things about putting on a good show. Looking fit in sunglasses, faded brown T-shirt and a graying black goatee, Moreno spoke with Revolver about the festival and new Deftones album as he relaxed in the sunshine of his back patio outside of Portland, Oregon, his home since 2019 (after some years in Bend, Oregon). He also spoke of the value of creative tension among his fellow Deftones bandmates, and the ongoing benefits of leaving alcohol behind.
Krystie Lee Archer-Shirley
It sounds like the band spent some time making private music.
CHINO MORENO It was a good two and a half years. We obviously didn’t work that whole time. We would meet up maybe once every few months and work for a week, and then everybody would go home and look at what we had. We did stretch it out and it was good that way. At this point in our career, it allows us to enjoy the process as opposed to feeling completely pressured by it. Some pressure’s good to kind of push ourselves along. But as far as feeling like we have to get a record out in order to go on tour? It’s been great that with our catalog and how long we’ve been doing this, we’ve allowed ourselves to just do it at our leisure, for lack of a better term.
In the past, you’ve talked about how creative tension can lead to something positive. Is that still part of the formula, or have you found other ways to get to the same place?
I think there’s always a little bit of tension there. I don’t want to say that it dictates what we do musically, but it definitely takes some part of it. That’s kind of what makes our music what it is.
We all tug in different directions at times, but that’s what makes the balance of what comes out in the end product. A lot of times, Stephen will get angry at Abe. He’ll write something that’s very derivative of what he likes to listen to, which is heavy, and guitar riffs. He really wants Abe to lean into that double bass [drumming], and match every kind of rhythm that he’s playing for that precise technical metal stuff, which is great. But Abe has never played like that. And I think the fact that Abe plays how he plays over what Stephen plays, that makes us sound like us, you know? And that happens with the way I sing over what Stephen plays. We don’t always agree on things, but in the long term, that balance is what makes us work.
At the same time, you’ve all said very complimentary things about each other as artists, so that respect always seems to be there regardless.
Totally. That’s respect of each other’s craft, but our friendship’s very important. I’ve known Stephen since I was 10 years old, and he’s always been very stubborn. It’s part of his personality and it’s part of why I love him. We all do little things that drive each other crazy, but we’ve been friends this long already, so if we really didn’t like each other, we would’ve stopped many decades ago.
What does the band’s long relationships bring to the table?
It’s hard to say because it’s just been part of my life. These are my childhood friends. We gravitated towards each other because of music and skateboarding and things that we were into at the time. And as you grow up, life sort of happens, and then everybody starts living their lives separately in a way. But when we get together for these little spurts for the creative part of it, it’s really cool because it’s the closest we can get to being kids again. It goes back to that time of how it was to be in Stephen’s garage.
And just the music matters at this point. We sit around, we talk a lot, and bullshit a lot amongst the creative part of it, but it doesn’t feel like a job. It feels like I’m hanging out with my friends again. And because we all live in different cities, when it’s time to meet up, it’s kind of exciting again. It’s like, “Oh, I get to go hang out with my friends and be creative.” It’s still work at times. We’re all very grateful that after so many years we actually have the opportunity to do it, and that people care.
One thing that’s happened in recent years is a new generation of people seem to have discovered Deftones in a big way. How do you explain that?
Honestly, that’s one of those things that boggles the record label on down to us. We don’t really know. Obviously, social media has been a big thing, but not a social media thing on our part. I think the band does have a TikTok, but no one posts on it. It’s not like we are feeding TikTok, “Hey, check this out.” It’s all people finding [Deftones] from their feed and then memes and shit like that — shit that’s beyond me, because I’m an old Gen X-er with Facebook. I do have an Instagram, but that’s just private with my friends and family. We’re not really on social media promoting ourselves so much, especially not individually.
What do the words “private music” mean for you?
It didn’t start off as anything too wild. It was literally a folder on my desktop where I was collecting all the ideas we were working on. There is a record by Tangerine Dream called The Private Music of Tangerine Dream. It’s not my favorite Tangerine Dream record, but I really love that title. So I kind of flirted with that at first: The Private Music of Deftones. And I thought, Eh, it’s a little too pretentious, a little too long. Well, what about just private music?
I sent it to the rest of the guys. I never feel comfortable just naming the album myself, or naming the batch of songs. I’m always really self-conscious about it because there’ve been times where I’ve suggested a title to an album and no one liked it. The [2003] self-titled record I wanted to call Lovers. And Stephen was like, “No way. That’s the dumbest name I ever heard.” I ran out of ideas and we needed a name. So we just ended up with self-titled. I just sent private music to everybody, and right away everybody got back: “Love it.”
In retrospect, there can definitely be other connotations drawn to it. It’s like this very elite, special thing that belongs to us, and you’re led into something special by being a part of the album experience. But honestly, it was just a folder on my laptop.
Jimmy Fontaine
The record was worked on in Joshua Tree, Malibu, L.A. and Nashville. In other cases, like your second album, Around the Fur, the band stayed in one place to start and finish an album. How does having different locations and spending all that time lead to what private music became?
There’s something special about each thing. With [1997’s] Around the Fur, that was written and recorded in Seattle at Studio Litho, which is Stone [Gossard] from Pearl Jam’s studio. We did that really quick. There was something about catching lightning in a bottle with that record. Still to this day, it’s one of my favorites — if not my favorite record — of ours. It’s this unbridled energy that we captured in that moment. That record definitely stood the test of time. And I love it for that.
I think we’re a little spoiled now. We all like to be home, so being in one place for four months would probably not be the most comfortable thing for any of us. At the age we are now, even touring, we try not to tour over a month at a time until we take a break. But as far as being in different places, I think there’s something neat about that, too. Some of the songs on the new record were literally inspired by a morning swim on Zuma Beach [in Malibu]. I came back from swimming and sat down with my guitar and came up with the song “i think about you all the time.” It was literally just a moment in time that wouldn’t have happened if I would’ve been locked away in a studio somewhere else, perhaps. The Joshua Tree sessions, I feel like those songs capture us being in the desert in July, hot as shit. I think every place helped shape the songs and gives the album a little bit more dynamic ebb and flow.
Have your ideas and feelings about how you approach vocals and lyrics evolved over time?
In the beginning it was really bad because I was very self-conscious and I didn’t even write a lot of lyrics. On the [1995] Adrenaline record, I would say maybe half didn’t have lyrics. I just scatted stuff while I was recording it. When I look back, I was just self-conscious that I didn’t think I could write lyrics. It definitely has evolved since then. But I still enjoy not being so literal. I don’t like when things are so spelled out with most of the music I listen to.
I was watching this Billy Joel documentary the other day, and his lyrics are very straightforward. And I was thinking there’s something neat about that, the fact that he’s telling these stories and they equate to what’s going on in his life at the time. But I’m really the opposite of that. I don’t like to tell a straight-ahead story. I hear the music, the music gives a vibe off, and then I sort of run with that vibe and splash paint over it.
“my mind is a mountain,” for instance, is definitely a song that refers to self-confidence and the title was actually taken from a children’s book that I hadn’t read. It popped up in an ad or something, and I was like, “I just love that title.” After the song was done, I wanted to see what this book is about. And the book was actually written for kids to teach them about their emotions and how there’s ups and downs, and it’s OK to have emotions — which is something that I’ve been working on as I entered into sobriety a few years ago. I started taking these classes and one of the classes was teaching you that it’s the most natural thing to have spikes and emotions in all directions. It’s all about learning how to deal with them and then being empowered by that as opposed to just being a victim of that.
Clemente Ruiz
Considering your sobriety, do you feel like you’re in a healthier place now than you’ve been in the past?
Most definitely. As far as like mental health stuff, there’s no fix. You don’t go to therapy once and they tell you how to not feel a certain way. You’ve still got to work through stuff, but doing it with a clear head definitely is like, whoa, it’s a game changer. It’s one of those things where you just say, “Why didn’t I try this a long time ago?”
You’re known for being airborne onstage a lot of the time. How has sobriety affected you there?
That’s probably the first thing that I noticed. After a good half a year of sobriety, all of a sudden I felt like my youth coming back a little bit. Just all around, it’s been better for sure.
Eric Scire
For Dia De Los Deftones, you could probably be just as successful if you did an all-metal festival or an all-goth festival. Why is having an eclectic mix important to you?
We’re fans of lots of different music. When I was in high school, I thought I was kind of weird because I listen to goth music and Rush at the same time. Now it seems like you’re not judged as much for liking a variety of things.
Last year, Deftones played Coachella. You’ve probably learned a lot from being at different festivals, from Ozzfest on, about what you like and don’t like. Have those experiences played into what you’re doing now with your own festival?
That’s a good question. Playing a festival is definitely different from doing our own shows.
Obviously, I gravitate towards doing our own shows: You’re playing to your crowd and you’re playing the set that you want to play, and you maybe lean into deeper cuts. When playing something like Coachella or Lollapalooza, it’s almost like a mini-commercial. You have an hour set, and for a lot of the people it could be their first time seeing us, so you lean on the “greatest hits.” It’s this little 50-minute, hour commercial of what our band is.
What’s cool about our festival is that it’s our festival and we get to curate it. I equate it to making a mixtape, but with live groups, bringing different genres together. It is a balancing act, but when it works out, it’s great. We’re never going to make everybody happy. There’s still going to be people that complain, like, “Why isn’t this band playing?”
But honestly, it’s very gratifying to see that you could bring all these people together from different music. I remember last year we had two of the stages that were overlapping at the time. IDLES were just starting, and Paris Texas were playing. I was up in the stadium dressing room area where you could see everything. And I saw a full crowd over there just bouncing to Paris Texas, and at the same time, the full [field] watching IDLES.
It’s just a good feeling to see people appreciate it the same way we do.