Abe Interviewed by Billy Pavone (Natinal Spotlight)
www.deftonesworld.com
—————————————————–
—————————————————–
After the Deftones show at the Celebrity Theater,AZ – November 6th, 1998
L: How long have you been playing drums?
A: Maybe about seventeen years now.
L: What has been your progression of styles?
A: I went through phases and s#!t like I think everybody does. I kind of taught myself
to play by listening to records. When I was little I’d listen to Beatles and s#!t and then
I started getting into s#!t I liked, Hendrix, Cream, and into Metallica.
L: How did you like the show tonight?
A: I thought it was rad. I was kind of tripping cause this is the first time we brought
production, our own sound, our own lights and our own monitors and s#!t. And I guess it
was supposed to be at Mesa Amphitheater but it got moved last minute to here. The s#!t
inside here is all house stuff.
L: Where is home?
A: Sacramento..California.
L: Is that where you are all from?
A: Yeah.
L: Did you guys all meet in high school?
A: Yeah. Well, we’ve just been friends for, even before that, I’ve known Chino (lead singer)
since I was like eleven, and him and Stephen (guitarist) grew up in the same neighborhood,
so they’ve known each other since……., WOW!, (looking up at the sky) that was a fat ass
shooting star,….beautiful. So we were friends…..(drum tech shows him a broken drum pedal).
L: For people that want to start a band, can you give any advice from the mistakes you’ve
made or anything like that?
A: Yeah. We’ve been together ten years now, and we’re learning new s#!t everyday. I think
when you stop learning s#!t is when you start falling off. You got to keep on going and keep
an open mind cause there’s so much crazy shit that can happen in this business, s#!t that I
never even expected. One thing that helps out is having a f@#king good friendship. It basically
it comes down to having a good time . . . Some people just want to get signed right off the
bat, you know? We didn’t get signed until four, five years ago, and we were around for five,
six years before that ever happened. And we didn’t feel we were ready, we were into playing
as much as we could around and just getting out of our town and playing an hour away in
San Francisco or down in LA.
L: What band’s music got you into playing a hard style of drums?
A: Well I was into the more technical shit when I was younger. I used to listen to the Rush
albums and shit, I still love that stuff but it’s like, I started to getting into metal like
Metallica and all these Bay Area bands like Death Angel. I got into Thrash…and Helmet. For
us it was more about energy. Sometimes we might have sloppy shows, but the energy would
make up for all that. We feed off all each other cause we’re homeboys.
L: Do you think you have to sell yourself to people?
A: Nah, f@!k that! All we really have is our music and we do what we do. The label wants us
touring and that’s what we want, and we’re the type of band that needs to tour so it’s cool.
