In the exclusive interview conducted by UG, Deftones’ guitarist Stephen Carpenter minutely discussed the band’s latest “B-Sides And Rarities” album, talked about his bandmates, music influences and fans. All that you can find below, so don’t waste your time and read on!

Stephen Carpenter: For me I’d say every band you’ve mentioned and many you haven’t have all played a small part musically. Me, us, everyone takes a piece of what they hear and make it a part of themselves. Music is an influence for all.

• Did your music taste change since the release of your first album?

  It changes every time we do a record. Except for the fact that we make music that is loud, soft and everything in between.

• You’ve been releasing an album every three years since 1997 – 2000, 2003, 2006. Is there any marketing decisions behind it or it just takes you three years to prepare new material for an album?

  No marketing desicions, Chino takes a long time.

• What keeps the band going for so many years? Do you get tired of each other?

  We do get tired of each other, but we’re family. Not blood related, just love each other like we are. That’s what keeps it going.

• Inside the band, do you mostly listen to the same music or each of you has individual preferences?

  We each have our own personal pref’s for sure. Many kinds we like the same, but there are differences for sure.

• Is there a band you would agree to be a “warming act” for?

  I’ll play with any band.

• Can you compare the sound of “B-Sides And Rarities” to any of your previous albums?

  No and yes. No, because all the songs are just a compilation of tracks over the years. Yes, because we try to mix it up on each record.

• Most of your fans have been disappointed you didn’t put Depeche Mode’s “To Have And To Hold” on the record. Why you didn’t and how did you choose the songs and video material for “B-sides & Rarities”? What was the main criteria?

  No specific reason for that track to not make it. As for there being any criteria for what made it, I think it was just a matter of time and place. There will be more to come in the future, can’t put it all in one package, it’s to much!

• You say you worked with legendary producer Bob Ezrin on your last album ’cause you wanted “something different”. Seems like everybody enjoyed working with him, except Chino Moreno, who’s been blaming him in all kinds of different things. Ezrin replied, that Moreno “came unprepared, came late, missed days, didn’t show up” during their record sessions in Connecticut. After all, are you satisfied with Ezrin’s work? Moreno really didn’t like his way of working or it was more of a personal conflict?

  Bob said it all as it was. I like Bob, it’s to bad it didn’t work out.

• The CD sleeve of “B-Sides And Rarities” look like Frank Sinatra’s “Best” album or the top of an eternity box and is very different from all your other CD art. Is it due to you being an old and respective band now or the taste of the CD art person?

  Lol. Frank’s “Best” wasn’t the the reason for it. But, Frank, the artist hooked it up!

• What were the other versions of naming the album?

  Chi had the best title. But, it’s lost in the anals of time now.

• Do you read forums on your fans’ web-sites? Do you keep in touch with you fans?

  I don’t read much of anything. I do keep in touch with fans as much as I can. Try imagine talking to thousands of people daily. Wow!

• Your official website Deftones.com hasn’t been updated for quite a while. Are you planning to make a proper official website with interviews, forums, news and such? Meanwhile, what is the best source to keep up with your updates?

  Deftones.com is the main source, also Deftones MySpace is another good source. As for keeping it updated, I don’t have an answer for that.

• In some interviews you say a couple of words about the new album next year and a tour, but nothing certain. What are your plans? Can we hope for the resuming of a band?

  We’re doing the Taste Of Chaos tour early next year. After that, we plan to head east over seas, back to the States, then back over seas, then back to the States, then down under, then a tour of the Americas, after that off to Asia, then back home, then over seas again, then the States, then Canada, then… I don’t know, you get my drift.

• What about your side projects? What are they up to?

  Lol. Thanks Maverick!

• Nowdays there are a lot of shitty music playing around and there are a whole lot of guys, dreaming to play in a band one day. Can you advise any good bands to listen to (besides Deftones, of course)?

  Meshuggah!

• Thank you for your patience!

ChartAttack Exclusive: Producer Bob Ezrin Hits Back At Deftones’ Chino Moreno
Friday August 19, 2005 @ 02:00 PM

In an interview with Deftones and Team Sleep frontman Chino Moreno this week, the
singer talked about problems with legendary Canadian producer , who was behind the
knobs for the Deftones’ upcoming LP.

“If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything, really,” Moreno said
in the article. “There were times when we really got along and I learned a lot of
things from him but there were a lot of times when he’s in his own world where he
thinks he knows what’s best and he doesn’t know what’s best, really. It just wasn’t
fun to do and it wasn’t a fun record to make. The music turned out rad. It’s just
when you’re making a record, especially when you’re working on vocals, I’ve only
worked with a couple of producers and most of the records I’ve done with Terry Date.
The reason we chose Ezrin is because we wanted to do something different, but I
learned that different isn’t always good.”

This wasn’t the first time the singer took shots at the production of the new Deftones
record in the press, but this one hurt a little more from Ezrin’s perspective.

“The only reason I would respond was that it happened to be in Canada in a Canadian
publication and that’s my home turf and that pisses me off,” the producer said over
the phone on Thursday. “This didn’t come out of the blue because he did it once before.
When he was doing some press at the beginning of Team Sleep people said, ‘Have you
finished the album yet?’ He came out and said ‘No I haven’t and the reason why is
because first we tried going to Connecticut to make the record and it was just a
fucking drag. It was a terrible place and finally we’ve come back [to Sacramento] and
it’s all going to be better.’

“And I was furious with that because the reality is that everybody had a great time in
Connecticut and stuff got done, except for Chino, who came unprepared, came late,
missed days, didn’t show up. So maybe from his point of view it was a shitty place to
be, but that wasn’t the fault of the venue, it was because he wasn’t ready. I called
him and I told him, ‘Watch your mouth. Don’t be saying stuff like that.'”

Ezrin said that as far as he knows, the vocals for the Deftones record still aren’t
finished, since Moreno has been playing with Team Sleep since his main band finished
laying down the tracks for their record.

The producer suggests that there might be a rift between Moreno and the rest of the
Deftones because of the singer’s commitments to Team Sleep.

“The other guys in the Deftones are patiently waiting for this album to get finished
so they can get on with their lives and their careers,” Ezrin said. “I think they’re
not happy about the fact that Chino went on the road with his side project before
finishing his primary commitment.

“I hope that the Team Sleep tour has inspired him and that he’s ready to go back and
finish the album — with whoever makes him comfortable. One way or the other, that
album should be finished. It’s great music and the fans of the band and the other
members of the Deftones deserve it.”

Ezrin is a 2004 inductee to the Canadian Music Hall Of Fame and produced Pink Floyd’s
The Wall, as well as records by Alice Cooper, KISS, Nine Inch Nails, Lou Reed and
Jane’s Addiction.

He said that his experience with Moreno during the Deftones sessions was, surprisingly,
unlike anything he’d seen previously.

“To tell you the truth, I’ve never been through something like this before in the many,
many years that I’ve been making records — I’ve never encountered anyone like Chino
Moreno before,” Ezrin said with a laugh. “And to be clear, I really like him. I
think he’s a charming, talented, smart, well-intentioned and very artful guy, but
he’s got a problem with finishing things and he’s a blamer. Basically, Chino’s using
me as an excuse for running out on his band and their album.”

—Noah Love

Chino interviewd by Shehzaad Jiwani
chartattack.com
Wednesday August 17, 2005 @ 09:00 AM

You have a lot of different influences, like Failure and Pinback, and that
space-rock sound comes off with Team Sleep whereas it might not with Deftones.
Do you like that “anything goes” aspect of this band?

CM: I honestly think I can do that with Deftones as well, but in the back of my
mind I know that there are a lot of fans that are specifically into the more
aggressive, heavy stuff. I don’t want to completely alienate fans of that stuff
because I know a lot of our fans like us for our first couple of records which
had a lot more of that, you know. With this project, I don’t have that boundary.
I don’t really have a fan base to make happy, you know, there is no fan base yet,
we’re making one. We just make music that we like to listen to and try to keep it
as genuine as possible.

Do you prefer that over the brainy writing process you have with Deftones?

CM: Yeah. It’s not that I don’t like heavy stuff, because I like heavy music just
as well. It’s just that when you’re on your fifth album with a band, you don’t want
to repeat yourself and you don’t want to make a record just to make other people
happy, you want to make yourself happy, but you don’t want to be too self-indulgent.
There’s a lot of things going through your mind making a record, well, that’s why
the records take so long to make. I just look at it like I want the album to sound
good when I listen to it. I don’t want it to sound dated or anything.

What was it like working with Bob Ezrin for the new Deftones record?

CM: Oh, it was, you know, whatever. I’d rather not. If you don’t have anything nice
to say, don’t say anything, really. There were times when we really got along and I
learned a lot of things from him but there were a lot of times when he’s in his own
world where he thinks he knows what’s best and he doesn’t know what’s best, really.
It just wasn’t fun to do and it wasn’t a fun record to make. The music turned out rad.
It’s just when you’re making a record, especially when you’re working on vocals,
I’ve only worked with a couple of producers and most of the records I’ve done with
Terry Date. The reason we chose Ezrin is because we wanted to do something different,
but I learned that different isn’t always good. If we want to make a different album,
it’s something that we do on our own, not something some producer comes in and says we
should do.

Any idea what the record’s going to sound like?

CM: Yeah, I heard it all, I made it, I know exactly what it’s going to sound like.
Can I explain it? Nah. [laughs] It’s different. We definitely didn’t want to make
the same record, you know what I mean. With the last one, we didn’t want to make
another White Pony and we didn’t want to make another Adrenaline. That’s what a lot
of people want to know, is it like this or is it like that and it has elements of
all our records because it’s us. But I think it’s a broader record. There’s a lot
of other things going on. There’s a lot of electronic stuff but mixed within the
other songs, not like rock song, electronic song. The songs have a lot more parts
and there’s a lot of different things. It was written over a long period of time.
We started it about a year and a half ago. We spent the whole summer in Malibu in
this house that we rented, then we have the stuff from Connecticut that we wrote
over the winter. We have a lot of different stuff. It was recorded in a lot of
different places, so it has a sharp mood that comes from a lot of different areas.
It makes it a bigger, huger record. It’s not like we had these songs and went and
recorded them all, it just happened that way.

Deftones have been planning a b-sides/rarities release for a while. When can we expect that?

CM: I heard it was coming out next month, but then I heard that there were a few
things they weren’t finished with for the DVD stuff. I talked to Abe yesterday and
they’re cutting all of the footage together. There’s a couple songs that I haven’t
sent them yet for the b-sides collection that I’m trying to accumulate. It might be
in the fall. I hope to get it out before summer’s over, but it could be out for early
fall, then the new record comes out early next year.

www.deftonesworld.com

Deftones’ bassist a poetic wordsmith

Chi Cheng will speak to the beat of his literary muse at Press Club

By Chris Macias — Bee Pop Music Critic

Chi Cheng thrives at 3 a.m. It’s the time for the Deftones’ bassist to spin Mahler
on the stereo, uncork some wine and start scribbling poems.

So much for the beastly bass player seen on stage. Cheng’s the kind of rock star
who likes to curl up with Carl Jung’s “Man and His Symbols” on the tour bus. And
when a tasty royalty check comes through, say for the Deftones’ million-selling
“White Pony” album, Cheng will splurge by buying Charles Bukowski’s rare manuscripts.
“I’m the biggest nerd of the band,” he says.

More like the Deftones’ resident beatnik. Cheng will read some of his poetry Monday
at the Press Club, adding a literary slant to a show that features alternative-rock
from Daycare and Mark Curry.

The reading is one way for Cheng to keep busy during this bit of downtime in the
Deftones’ recording schedule. But cranking out poems has felt just as fulfilling to
Cheng as rocking out with the band.

“These other guys I grew up playing with, like (Sonny Mayugba of Daycare) and Mark
Curry, they were just naturally great musicians,” says Cheng, in between sips of
scotch at the Swiss Buda Bar, one of his favorite watering holes. “I always had to
struggle to just keep up with these cats. Writing was always more natural to me.
I’ve always been a poet that’s been in a band, versus being a band guy that wants
to be a poet.”

Cheng started chasing his literary muse back in the late 1980s, when he was a high
school student in Stockton. He attended California State University, Sacramento,
to study creative writing and art, until headbanging with the Deftones became a
full-time gig.

Cheng’s poetry doesn’t wax about dream fulfillment or sunny matters like winning a
Grammy award. His poems are raw and boozy ruminations that are far too edgy to be
reprinted in a family newspaper. The blue language and NC-17 scenarios are even too
much for his family.

“I’ve sometimes had to uninvite people,” he says. “My mom won’t let anyone in the
family go.”

Cheng’s poetry essentially deals with anxieties faced by rock stars and regular folk
alike: love gone wrong, death, spiritual crises. One of his current poems is a
three-part word salad called “The Ghost in the Headlights.”

“The first part is about my brother’s death,” Cheng explains. “The second is about
Jesus coming back to earth, and the third part is about the general eroticism in my
life right now.

“I write about universal pain,” he adds. “Tragedy is more of a muse for me than
anything else. When I’m in a good mood, which is a lot of the time, I don’t feel
like wasting my short duration of me being in a good mood on trying to capture it
in words.”

Some of Cheng’s dense and moody themes aren’t too far from the Deftones’ own musical
heaviness. But Cheng doesn’t operate as a wordsmith within the Deftones, nor does he
want to. All Deftones lyrics are written solely by singer Chino Moreno.

“(Moreno’s) such a good lyricist that I leave it in his court,” says Cheng. “Early on,
I wrote some of the lyrics, and it was cool. We’d write a little bit together. And then
he just matured so much. I don’t think he would feel genuine singing someone else’s
lyrics. It has to be his vision, and I respect that.”

Cheng’s looking forward to upping his profile on the poetry scene. He released a CD of
spoken-word poetry in 2000 (“The Bamboo Parachute”) and has two more CDs of poetry
coming soon. Cheng also was invited recently to read at a poetry festival in the
Netherlands.

But he sure can’t beat that day job with the Deftones.

“Writing is the truest form of art because you know you can’t ever succeed and make
money at it,” says Cheng. “So you just write for the sake of writing. And I love that
about writing. That’s why I’m so unapologetic in my poetry and continue to push the
boundaries.”

www.deftonesworld.com
——————————————————————————–

Deftones singer plans new albums
By Angela Rosas

Right after their October 2004 tour, Sacramento’s own Deftones jumped from the stage
straight into the studio to begin working on their fifth, full length album due to
release this summer.

It has been two years since their self-titled “Deftones,” was released; a worthy cause
but not a huge success. Now the Deftones are giving it another shot. They are going
into the studio prepared, energized, fresh off tour and ready to capture their listeners
with a variety of new sounds.

“We spent a lot of time on our last record, but it wasn’t all work all the time.
We would take a lot of time off,” said Chino Moreno, Deftones lead singer. “This one
has been pretty constant. I think we are really dissecting our songs and trying to
write a little more technical, meaning the song structures and the way we are
approaching our songs.”

“With the ‘White Pony’ album, me and Stephen Carpenter (Deftones guitarist) were butting
heads a lot and it caused a lot of tension. But I think it made for a good album, we
were trying to top each other the whole time. Our mistake with the last album was I
made such a point to not have any conflict with anybody in the band. So our communication
wasn’t strong cause we were avoiding conflict,” Moreno said.

“We are on the same page right now with what we want to do. We are making something
interesting, not just making a record for the sake of making a record,” Moreno said.
“We all want to make something that 10 years from now people will still want to listen to.”

Bob Ezner, Deftones new producer, is much more hands on than their previous producer
Terry Date. Ezner, who has been producing since the 70s, has had a lot of experience
with the technicalities of writing songs and has been working with Deftones on song
structures, something not brought up during past album recordings.

“We never really had any outside opinion, besides the band. This way it will be opened up
a little bit and we have another opinion,” Moreno said. “Which sometimes is good and
sometimes it sucks.”

Besides a change in song structure expect to hear a variety of new sounds. The Deftones
are including key boards, jazz piano and some electronic mixes to their music. “We’re
adding elements of sound that we’ve always been into but never really took the time to
work into our music,” Moreno said.

Look forward to the new Deftones release to be a thinking album, nothing about this is
novelty. Its theme so far, according to Moreno, is loneliness.

“I want to make a record were there is not one second of it that is just there to be
there, I want every single moment of it to be interesting. And that is the most time
consuming thing,” Moreno said.

Deftones release date for their upcoming album is to be announced.

www.deftonesworld.com

www.deftonesworld.com

Deftones Blame Connecticut For Album Delay, Cover Skynyrd
05.31.2005 6:03 AM EDT

Hardcore poet Moreno and his heavyweight Deftones spent the winter in Stamford, Connecticut, with producer Bob Ezrin (Pink Floyd, Jane’s Addiction). It was there — at Ezrin’s studio and abode, the Carriage House — that the band recorded some of the material that will eventually make the final cut on its fifth album.
But something was off with the Deftones while they languished in the bleak, wintry abyss in the richest per-capita state in the union.
“It sucked, dude,” Moreno said. “It was the most depressing thing ever. The recording was good, and we got it done really fast. It was mostly to get all of Abe [Cunningham]’s drum tracks down, and we did some overdubs there, too. But it suuuuucked.”
The Deftones started writing material in their Sacramento, California, hometown a little more than a year and a half ago, then took the fall off to allow Moreno time to work with his side project, Team Sleep. They regrouped in the relative tundra of the East Coast, but longed for warmer climes the whole time, according to Moreno. So the band packed its bags, bid Connecticut adieu and headed home just before Christmas.
“We ended up recording a bunch more songs, and we kind of compiled those with the Connecticut stuff,” he said. The band revisited some of the Ezrin material and tweaked it a bit, delaying the final product … well, a bit. “It’s just like this roller coaster of sounds. There’s really aggressive stuff — super-aggressive stuff — that, like, I don’t think we’ve delved into evil sh– like this before. And then there’s really sad stuff. I don’t know — it’s a Deftones record. We’re trying different things. Frank [Delgado, who handles keyboards and samples] is involved a lot more this time, as far as electronic stuff, and there’s a lot more beat stuff going on.
“It’s a pretty chaotic record,” he continued. “Every time we make a Deftones record, it’s taxing on your brain and body. They’re hard records to make because you seriously have to outdo yourself. We want to outdo ourselves when we make a record; we don’t want to make the same record twice. And we don’t really have any formulas we use, so we just try different sh–. And sometimes good sh– happens, sometimes weird sh– happens.”
The album — which will drop sometime in the fall and be followed by a tour — has not yet been named, Moreno says, although he’s been flirting with Saturday Night Wrist. There still aren’t any song titles pinned down, either. “That’s like my favorite part to do, naming the songs after they’re already kind of done,” he said. “I have just a couple more weeks of work on it.”
Moreno has recorded some vocal tracks, but not all of them; touring with Team Sleep — which he’ll be doing until late August — has put that process on hold. When he resumes work with the Deftones this fall, the rest of Team Sleep will hit the studio again to start working on their sophomore offering. They’ve already written 15 songs for the release, which will be out in late 2006. Moreno also said former Smashing Pumpkins guitarist James Iha has signed to work with Team Sleep on some of their new tunes.
Deftones fans who cannot wait for their new album will take solace in the fact that the band is planning an album of rarities, B-sides and covers later this summer. The compilation will feature the band’s take on the Smiths’ “Please Please Please, Let Me Get What I Want,” which has been available online for years, and a song by Lynyrd Skynyrd, the Southern rockers behind “Free Bird.”
“It’s stuff that we recorded over the years that a lot of people haven’t heard,” Moreno said. “Like, when I was 16, we did this version of ‘Simple Man’ by Lynyrd Skynyrd. I heard it the other day, and it was good. … We remixed everything, and it’s actually a pretty good record. I think it matches up to our last record, or even our new record, as far as the quality of it.”
The comp also includes a Jawbox cover and a DVD of footage “since we started, when we were little kids jumping around,” he said.
The album will commemorate the 10th anniversary of the first Deftones album, Adrenaline. “I grew up listening to all these songs [we covered], so I can hear myself in those songs,” Moreno said. “I used to stand in my backyard with a broomstick, pretending like I was Morrissey.”
The Deftones will seek a little help from their fans for the rarities disc and companion DVD. On the band’s Web site, it’s asking anyone who has taken live photos of the group to submit them for consideration as part of the artwork and packaging.
— Chris Harris
MTV.com