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Abe Cunningham Drums

Chino Moreno Vocals/Guitar on half of White pony

Chi Cheng Bass

Frank Delgado Turntables

Stephan Carpenter Guitar

This biography comes from an Swedish TV-Interview with Chino and Abe, from January 1998.

This is the first 2 minutes of the 10 minutes interview.

(Chino) -While we started out, I think Abe and I were about 16. We had been friends for years, even since Junior High School. And I had known Stephen also since I was 11-12 years old. But I knew Stephen from my neighbourhood. And Abe from my school.

I introduced him (Abe) to Stephen. One day We took the Bus over there to his House. And he had a bunch of equipment in his Garage And they started playing together.

It must have been maybe like three months later, I was talking to Abe at School, and he said, and Stephen wanted me to come down and try so sing. Just because we used to hang out. I didnīt know how to sing or anything, but it was, just You know, maybe I was interested to try it, what ever.

So I went. And it was pretty terrible in the beginning, but it was cool.

(Abe) We were all friends, trying to have a good time. I mean, we always had a good time doing it.

(Chino) Then probably about 6 months later, we got Chi in the band. And kind of started making songs.

And everything was going pretty good. We started playing shows locally around town. And after a couple of years we were started to to taking trips out like the Bay Area, San Francisco, then further down to L.A.

I think it was about 3 or 4 years we had been playing locally around there. We were playing one show in Los Angeles, and somebody, who knew somebody, who knew somebody from Maverick Records.
Different Record Labels, they were all started coming out...

Maverick flew us down to L.A, just to play in a little rehearsal place. Probably as big as this room. We played like 3 songs for them, and they said they wanted to sign us right away.




The following can be found on deftones.com, just thought it belonged here too

With "White Pony," their third Maverick album, Deftones have made a record as erotic as it is brutal, as dynamic as it is hushed, as relentless as it is gentle, as hooky as it is experimental, and as lush as it is tight. Firmly grip your nerves and prepare for the defining sonic rush -- this "White Pony" offers an emotional ride, with great rewards for those who survive it.

"I see boundaries more clearly now than I used to," says singer Chino Moreno. "I'm better at toying with people cerebrally than I was a few years ago. I'm better at fucking with your head."

Back in 1995, we met Deftones with "Adrenaline," a combustible compound of razor-blade riffs, rumble, rage, and rap-ish delivery. The record, besides selling a half-million copies, laid the foundation for the heavy movement that followed and continues today. Even then, we heard hints that this was not a band concerned with traditions or bothered by musical borders. Around the tempestuous bursts of hardcore were passages of eerie quiet and vulnerability. There was something pretty in the skirmish of feedback and cymbal wash, a mermaid surfacing in a mossy swamp. Chino knew from the get-go that nothing enduring is ever obvious and so opted not so much to outright tell a story, but rather cloak it in imagery for your imagination to undress. As he sang in that album's "7 Words," "You and me are here alone, face flat along the edge of the glass."

"I get letters from kids talking about how a certain song affected them or comforted them," Chino says. "Their idea of what it means is completely different from what I was feeling, but I would never tell them that. If something affects you at all, it's good."

Two years, countless packed houses, and one major riot in Arizona later, the guys delivered "Around The Fur." No less ferocious than its predecessor, the album was pure passion and well evolved beyond the standby whisper-to-scream trick. Deftones spread to both extremes, seeking the logical limits of guitar savagery while flirting with a Gothic or New Wave sense of spook and haunting sparseness. Chino was more aware of himself and better able to translate what obsessed or enraptured him into his words. "There's still blood in your hair and I've got the bruise of the year but there's something about her long shady eyes," he sang in "Mascara."

Rock and alternative radio played "Be Quiet And Drive (Far Away)," and MTV played the video for "My Own Summer (Shove It)," a creepy clip (and apt analogy) showing the band playing atop floating cages while hungry sharks circled below. Ceaseless road work followed, including stints on both Warped and Ozzfest. Somehow in there they found time to cut a mesmerizing version of Depeche Mode's "To Have And To Hold" for an album saluting the synth-pop progenitors. When they played Detroit with Black Sabbath on Valentine's Day, 1999, they were unfazed when all their gear was stolen in a van robbery. "Around The Fur" went Gold. Eventually, Deftones returned to Sacramento and began the soul mining and arrangement experiments that would become "White Pony."

By this time, the neo-hardcore sound the band had been so instrumental in pioneering was the toast of our nation. Countless acts ran to the proven formulas, but the Deftones saw no need to revisit the past in creating "White Pony," only a need to satisfy themselves.

"We've never talked about it, about finding a 'Deftones sound,'" says bassist Chi Cheng. "We don't want to find a certain sound, and settling on a certain sound is not a good thing. I think that's why our albums keep progressing, because we're going with what we feel is right at that moment, not what we think we're supposed to do."

Co-produced by the band and Terry Date (who did both of their prior efforts), "White Pony" was cut at Sausalito, CA's legendary Plant Recording Studios and at Larrabee Sound in Hollywood. The process was not speedy, but the results, musically and emotionally, are stunning. Stephen Carpenter's wall of wash and wail stretches from here to the cosmos; Chi's bass falls like a ten ton anchor; Abe Cunningham's drums are beaten senseless; and Frank Delgado dots the landscape with found sounds and needle drops while Chino unleashes surreal tirades and unloads his cargo of uncertainty and longing.

A siren riff opens "Feiticeira" ("a game show I read about in Brazil. If you win, you get to drink milk from the host's navel. Somehow it evolved into a pretend scenario about being kidnapped," Chino explains), and you're off on a volatile, visceral journey. Stops include a blood raw hail of bullets ("Elite"), a warm slab of murderous love ("Knife Prty"), and one ascending and ambling album closer ("Pink Maggit") that manages to be simultaneously infectious, progressive, expansive, and claustrophobic.

Tool frontman Maynard James Keenan co-wrote and volleys vocals with Chino on "Passenger," an aphrodisiacal road trip of echoes and twinkling keys punctuated by explosive choruses.

"It's about being the passenger in a car with a girl who's taking you around the world, literally, sexually, in a whirlwind of time," Chino says. "I can barely tell where I end and Maynard begins."

Chino's hallmark abstractions paint even richer pictures than before. They float from his mouth when he hushes, and fly from it when he howls, and in both cases, they're something for the deepest corner of your mind to untangle. In "RX Queen" he sings, "We'll fly farther cause you're my girl. And that's all right if you sting me, I won't mind. We'll stop to rest on the moon and we'll make a fire."

Of Chino's challenging, visual sense of lyricism, Cheng asks, "What's good about listening to a song and knowing exactly -- to the word -- what the singer is talking about? It's like a good painting or a good book. I never ask Chino what something means, I want to know what it means to me."

Midway through "White Pony," you'll encounter the most beautiful thing Deftones have ever done - a song called "Teenager." Built of swirling loops, dripping, trip-hop beats, and a delicately plucked guitar, the song flickers like so many midnight stars on a night of sad nostalgia for the innocence of high school love. Chino's voice floats and climbs softly around the interwoven textures of a track that will surprise you in the best way.

"I love to look back at times like that," Chino says. "That was when you could take a true, deep breath. You didn't have anything to worry about except 'does this girl like me?' That was as intense as it got back then."

"White Pony" has nothing to do with trends or cliques or market surveys, and everything to do with five guys' unswerving commitment to follow where their hearts and heads take them, be it somewhere abrasive, angry, seductive or scary. Deftones have an unquestionable passion for music, for the release you feel in booming drums, screeching feedback, and gut-born screams and the headspace created by moments of stillness. If you can't feel that desire and intensity on every second of this album, you're numb beyond repair.




Here are some cool facts

Deftones are from Sacrameto, CA. They formed in the late eighties playing mostly cover tunes of bands like Danzig and Metallica. They started making up some of their own stuff, with a funk metal sound similiar to Primus and Danzig. They eventually developed the sound they have now; moody melodic vocals mixed with thrashy, heavy music. They have released 3 albums - Adrenaline, Around the Fur, and White Pony, and have toured all over the world.

The original line up included Chino, Stef, Abe, and bass player Dominic. Abe left the band to join Phallacy, a strange sounding, jazzy, funky band. "Abe and I used to sit in class listening to Phalucy on my walkman and idolizing 'em," said Chino (in 1993). "I'm not surprised he left." Dominic played drums for Deftones for a while but also left for Phallucy. The vacancies in Deftones were soon filled by John Taylor on drums and Chi Cheng on bass. Later, John left and Abe became full time drummer. And after that, Frank Delgado became their DJ. They developed a large fan base in Sac at the local Cattle Club, then expanded to the Bay Area, where they later signed with Maverick records.

Stephen started with a punk band in '86. "Four Mexicans. We were all skaters. We were so bad, we didn't know we had to tune to each other, we just played. I'd been playing two weeks and we just started jammin'. I was like, yeah I'm in a real band" Stephen said in 1993,"If we ever get signed, I want to set up the whole band in the back yard around 1:00 a.m. and just blam"

The band's first big gig was with Psychefunkapus and Blue Velvet

They have released six videos, 7words, Bored, My Own Summer (Shove it), Be Quiet and Drive (Far Away), Change (In the House of Flies), and back to school. 7 Words was filmed at Cattle Club and features Shaun from Far, Bored was filmed around Sac and Chino's house and features a member of the Socialistics, members of Willhaven, and Chino's wife and son. Shove it was really expensive, and Be Quiet was heavily controlled by the label. Change is the band playing a 3 day party. Back to school was shot at a school with all fans in the video