In recent years, Deftones have experienced a huge surge in popularity, welcoming a new generation of fans via TikTok while playing their biggest headline shows. Up next? Sacramento’s finest release their stunning 10th album. Chino and Abe talk K! through everything from their new bassist, to children’s books, sobriety and turning painful parts of their past into positives…
Chino Moreno is deep into explaining his point when it happens.
“I don’t think where we are right now is something we’ve been fighting and fighting for,” he says. “It’s more that we have always just…”
The Deftones frontman suddenly trails off. From behind the orange tint of his sunglasses, his eyes start darting as he begins tracking something. His face softens.
“Look,” he says quietly, in full David Attenborough mode. “There’s a deer.”
Bathed in sunlight, a beautiful deer is strolling nonchalantly down the middle of the tree-lined road beside his house. A Portland resident of six years, Chino – dressed in a crisp white tee and sporting a sharp goatee – shifts his position on his garden patio to get a better look.
“One was in my backyard the other day, eating my wife’s garden,” he grins, as he watches it slowly disappear from view. “They come by all the time.”
It is not, however, Portland’s wildlife that has brought us face-to-face with Chino today. Prior to this four-legged interruption, the singer was attempting to put Deftones’ grandstanding 2025 into context. Fresh from selling out their biggest-ever UK show at Crystal Palace Park in the summer, Deftones have since announced their first full UK arena tour. Moreover, thanks to TikTok, there’s been a big Change (In The House Of Fans) with a whole new generation discovering them via the popularity of Cherry Waves, Sextape and more on the platform. And all of this without mentioning the magnificent new album they’re about to unleash. Put another way…
“Big things are going down,” smiles Deftones drummer Abe Cunningham as he greets K! from his home in Sacramento, the shelf behind him proudly displaying Madonna, Iron Maiden and Prince vinyl. Trickster-like in conversation, Abe is a cheeky foil to the sensitive, philosophical Chino. Friendly and whip-smart, he’s also loveably mischievous and funny as hell. Sometimes he deflects questions by only answering in jokes, at others he adopts hoity-toity mannerisms like “pooh-pooh”. At the same time, he’s also capable of offering profound candour or explaining how “fear is the dream killer” of creativity. Prone as he is to bouts of sarcasm and self-deprecation, even Abe can’t camouflage how happy he is right now.
“It’s a really nice time for this, the ol’ Deftones,” he admits. “We’re really grateful, man.”
This is understandable. It’s not always a guarantee that bands – even the very best of them – will find a way to resonate with successive generations. Yet here we are, 30 years on from the release of their debut album Adrenaline, and Deftones are experiencing a remarkable growth spurt. They have always been one of the greatest and most acclaimed acts in K! history but, by their own admission, they have also endured seeing other “cookie-cutter” bands draw inspiration from them and go on to sell out bigger venues or shift more records over the years. What we’re experiencing today is the glorious long tail of their victory.
“The longevity thing has always been important to us more than just, ‘How big can we get?’” Chino says today, picking up his pre-deer train of thought.
That said, something is different in 2025…
“There’s a lot more people that are expecting things from us now,” he notes, alluding to their new wave of fans. “It does add more pressure, which is a good thing – we can’t become complacent.”
Their response to this pressure is Private Music. Christened after the desktop folder that housed many of its original ideas, their 10th studio album is a new Deftones classic. In order to record it, however, Chino, Abe, guitarist Stephen Carpenter and keys/turntable guru Frank Delgado had a bit of a problem. They were missing a bassist. In March 2022, Sergio Vega (who stepped in so brilliantly after their original bassist Chi Cheng entered a coma in 2008 that would ultimately claim his life) announced he was leaving. “It was clear there was no opportunity for growth for me,” he wrote.
Looking back on that “trippy” time, Abe recalls the band hooking up with only a handful of people to explore options afterwards, one of whom was Fred Sablan. After coming highly recommended to Chino, the singer suggested they have a jam in LA. When Fred arrived, well… it’s better they explain it.
“He literally showed up with an eye patch on,” Chino laughs. “We were like, ‘Yo!’”
“There were a lot of pirate jokes that day about scurvy and rickets,” adds Abe, probably joking, but possibly not. “I happen to always have an eye patch in my backpack too, so I’m able to whip one out at any time.”
“I think Fred scraped his eye on a bush when he was hiking,” continues Chino. “He was like, ‘Don’t worry, man, I got this.’ Because of his injury he couldn’t really rock out so he was trying to stay still and play at the same time, but one of the first songs we played was Rocket Skates – by the end his hat flew off! It was pretty funny.”
An immediate connection was made.
“He’s got an impeccable memory,” praises Chino. “I don’t understand how he remembers so many songs – songs that I have to go back and look up how to play. But not only is Fred a great bass player, he’s a really great guy. I feel like we’ve been friends since we were kids. We got lucky.”
Fred didn’t just make an impact with his medical eyewear, either. He was at the heart of Private Music’s pulverising single Milk Of The Madonna. It started out as a late night conversation between the band about footage of Smashing Pumpkins and others playing Pinkpop in the ’90s and the waves of people jumping up and down, completely lost in the music. They wanted a song that could summon that kind of energy. When Chino returned from an early morning swim the next day, he heard Abe and Fred jamming on something fast and frenetic. He promptly joined in. Then so did Steph. So it was that a new Deftones anthem was born. “It was at 7:30am, too!” Abe winks.
Private Music also takes Deftones to new places, no more so than in Chino’s vocal approach. On the hulking Locked Club, he starts off singing ‘Cruise out in style / Well it’s safe / Come stepping out / Proud from the gates’. But it’s the peculiar delivery that’s so different.
“It’s like he’s a minister speaking,” observes Abe. “It’s like a sermon.”
“It’s something new I’d never really tried,” Chino continues. “I was listening to the demo while I was driving and I started recording myself scatting that cadence on my phone. It just sounded weird and different.”
This typifies Private Music, a record that often zigs when you expect it to zag. Souvenir, for one, switches up to give way to a gorgeous instrumental passage. “That’s a buchla easel you’re hearing, it’s an old synthesiser,” Chino explains. Steph is on fire on the record, as is Frank with his rich atmospheric flourishes.
“We always try to make full albums while living in a singles-based world,” Abe observes. “There are a lot of things that are hidden in there that you’ll hear more and more with patient ears.”
Abe jokes around a lot, but on this point he is deadly serious. It’s time for the public to get to grips with Private Music…
“There are a lot of things that are hidden in Private Music that you’ll hear more and more with patient ears”
Departing The Body, Private Music’s majestic closer, came to Chino at 2am in Nashville. He had only just gotten back to his hotel from the studio when the idea struck. Alone in his room, he promptly got to work.
“I got out a little microphone and sang it really quietly,” reveals the frontman, explaining how he took pains to avoid waking anyone. “I just needed to remember the idea.”
This approach isn’t new per se: Chino often records in whispers. “I’m very self-conscious,” he laughs, sheepishly. “Especially if I’m at home, I don’t want to sing at top level because I’m nervous of, like, my daughter hearing me and going, ‘What the hell is he doing in there?’”
The difference this time is that we will actually hear his initial approach, and we have Private Music’s producer – and secret weapon – Nick Raskulinecz to thank for that. Having convinced Chino to keep it at that low register, Departing The Body captures the singer as we’ve never heard him before.
“Honestly, I thought it was very reminiscent of Roger Waters,” Chino says. “That song is probably our biggest nod to our love for Pink Floyd.”
Abe is full of praise for Nick – or “Rascal” as he calls him – for pulling this out of Chino. Their plan, he explains, was always to follow-up the acclaimed Diamond Eyes and Koi No Yokan by reuniting with him for a “trifecta”. That shared history, the drummer believes, explains why there are so many bold ideas on Private Music.
“There’s been a trust built,” he says. “Maybe on Diamond Eyes, there wasn’t the same trust, but after a few records Nick can now say to Chino, ‘Hey, try that.’ It might be something that you don’t think you could do, or ever would do, but when you have that trust built and Nick suggests something you don’t say, ‘Fuck that.’ You try it. It might be amazing.”
Not that Deftones had much chance to say “Fuck that” to Rascal. The producer doesn’t just get Deftones as musicians, he gets them as people, including their love of procrastination. Chino proceeds to explain how Private Music’s spectacular lead single My Mind Is A Mountain came to life after he struck upon the palm-muted opening riff. “Great,” said Nick. “What’s the next part?”
“Um, okay, give me a second,” Chino replied, somewhat puzzled at the immediate expectation that there would be more. He worked on the next part and presented it.
“Cool, what’s next?’’ the producer asked. “There’s more to go, right?”
“Yo, I only just made the last bit!” Chino exclaimed.
So the conversations went until the track was done.
“Honestly, I’m glad Nick would do that,” Chino reflects today. “Otherwise, I would just sit on two parts and maybe pick it up again in a couple days or we would pat ourselves on the back before anything was done.”
But there is much more behind My Mind Is A Mountain than this “What’s next?” approach.
“The phrase actually comes from a children’s book,” offers Chino, referring to Cindy Montenegro’s work. “I saw it on an ad and I didn’t actually look it up until a couple months ago and read what it was about. It’s teaching kids about their emotions, that it’s okay to have a range of them, that it’s normal that sometimes you’re happy and sometimes you’re not. But in a way, it does sound kind of empowering too, right? It leans on self-confidence.”
“After a month of not drinking, I was like, ‘Why don’t you keep going?’ It feels great to get to the end of a set now and not feel like I’m gonna fall over”
That’s something that has figured prominently in Chino’s life lately. Over the years, he’s spoken of the various ways in which he has changed his lifestyle. In 2010, he said his time with drugs was over, acknowledging that he had previously used them as a crutch for creativity. In 2020, he explained how he had embraced therapy. And now? Well, if you’ve noticed Chino moving around onstage with the energy he did as a frosted-tipped blur of energy circa Around The Fur, it’s no coincidence. He’s nearly three years sober.
“A lot of times before I play, I still get nervous,” he says, explaining his journey towards that decision. “My way of dealing with that anxiety would be to have a couple beers before I go onstage. And yes, it does help ease that anxiety, but at the same time, it also makes you too loose sometimes, where you’re not really in control of your voice. You can get sloppy really easily.”
Chino recalls occasionally watching live footage back and not always loving what he saw and heard.
“I’d get offstage and what I remembered of the show would be like, ‘Oh, yeah, it was cool,’” he begins. “But then I’d hear back takes sometimes like, ‘Oh, that wasn’t as good as I remembered it…’”
Kicking alcohol, especially as a member of a touring band, is not the easiest process. Mastodon’s Bill Kelliher once told your correspondent about how their tour with Deftones and Alice In Chains helped him in his endeavour.
“What’s very crazy that you said Alice In Chains is that Mike Inez – and I’m sure he won’t mind me telling you this – was a big part in my decision to try to not drink,” Chino explains. “He’s been sober for years. Jerry Cantrell as well, but Mike was the first person I reached out to and he helped me kick it. It’s been steady in my life since I was a teenager, but you see people around you whose lives get better [without alcohol] and you’re like, ‘Why haven’t I tried this and see if I feel better?’ After a month of not drinking, I was like, ‘Wow, this feels pretty good, why don’t you keep going?’ That’s what I’ve done since and now it’s almost three years. It feels great to get to the end of a set now and not feel like I’m gonna fall over.”
Abe has noticed the difference in his friend.
“Chino’s extremely focused right now – the most he’s been, ever,” he says. “He’s in great shape. He’s very cat-like onstage, and he absolutely killed it on this record.”
Speaking to this focus, Abe points to one of his “favourite jams” on Private Music, the tranquilised, graceful strains of I Think About You All The Time. “It’s the ultimate love song,” Abe proclaims of the track Chino plucked from the waves during a swim near Rick Ruben’s Shangri-La studio in Malibu. “It’s like you’re at a look-out point, making out.”
“During recording, I would wake up super-early every morning, get a coffee and then walk down to the beach,” Chino recalls. “I jumped in the water, walked barefoot back to the house and picked up my guitar and started playing. I wrote it from the start to the end, every little part. I pictured early Jane’s Addiction stuff, where Perry [Farrell] would write about how powerful the ocean is. I’ve been up in Oregon for 12 years so I really was having this California, West Coast moment. It’s not like I wrote a surf song, but I just felt very invigorated. Some days you’re just sitting there tinkering forever, but sometimes songs just pour out. That was that moment.”
The man that wrote 7 Words only has five at his immediate disposal on one particular topic. Put it to Chino that it is, well, a bit of a surprise that a spectacular but 19-year-old song like Cherry Waves has ushered in a new generation of fans via TikTok and he’s quick to embrace the befuddlement.
“For you along with us,” he grins.
The theory Chino later arrives at comes after discussing the “gut punch” passing of Ozzy Osbourne.
“Led Zeppelin or Black Sabbath, for instance,” he says. “We know there are so many people that their music touched that were not alive when it was released. We just write these songs that we like, and hopefully they can transcend time, and I feel like that’s what they’ve done.”
“It’s wild, man,” adds Abe. “Not in a million years would we have thought TikTok would help expose new people to our ancient tunes. Now, that being said, we never went anywhere either. We’ve been putting out fucking solid records for this whole time! But seeing the crowd the past few years, there are some really, really young people out there. We meet parents and their kids and ask who actually introduced who. We got both, ‘My parents listen to this and I got onto it,’ and, ‘My teen was into it, and now I’m digging it, and it brought us closer.’” This, Abe notes, gets him right in the feels.
“I mean, I’m a dad, man,” he continues. “Teen years can be difficult with parents sometimes… That’s heavy shit, so that was amazing to hear.”
The Cherry Waves phenomenon also begs other questions. Its parent album Saturday Night Wrist captured the band on the verge of disintegration. Chino, in particular, struggles with it, telling K! in 2016 that he couldn’t stand how “unconfident” he sounds on the record. So, has the renewed adoration for SNW tracks like Cherry Waves rehabilitated it for him?
“It does feel good,” he says. “I guess it wasn’t as bad as I remembered it. I just equate it with the time of my life. I don’t want to say that it was always dreary, because there were great times within that record, and within all our records, but some things you equate with not the best moments, right? But when people hear Cherry Waves now, maybe they were falling into a relationship, or whatever it is they equate it to that has a whole different meaning and perspective for them.”
Just as Deftones’ relationships with their fans and own back catalogue is evolving, so too are their relationships with one another. Their triumph with Private Music is in spite of decades of accumulated scar tissue – the band overcoming things that would have ended many careers, from the tragic loss of Chi Cheng to various wars of words. They seem stronger than ever in this regard, not least in rallying around Steph in his decision not to tour internationally anymore owing to a fear of flying. “He’s always been afraid to fly, man,” says Abe. “It’s a real thing. It’s a very real fear.”
The chemistry, meanwhile, is off the charts. Incredibly, the quaking Infinite Source was written by Steph and Abe jamming “in 20 minutes”. Still, don’t get it wrong: things can still get heated between all of them in the studio when they make a record.
“It’s a very personal thing he says,” Abe says. “It gets hot in there, man.”
“I mean, Stephen and I’s working relationship is great, but it’s also very delicate at times,” Chino says. “I have to be very delicate about that so that I don’t come off being too bossy.”
Then again, maybe it’s not as delicate as he thinks. Chino and Steph’s relationship has been a fascinating one ever since the frontman introduced his own guitarwork on White Pony – thus began a game of brinkmanship with each trying to take the band in their direction, which created a record of astounding range. Especially in the aftermath of White Pony, Steph often chastised his Padawan about his playing – ranging from gentle poking to outright piss-taking in interviews. Yet in a Zane Lowe interview recently, Steph took time to salute Chino’s guitar work on Private Music.
“Honestly, I was touched,” Chino tells us. “That was the first time that he’s said that to me, to acknowledge that. It felt really great. It always feels great to be acknowledged, actually, but by him? That meant a whole lot.”
There is, too, the relationship with their past to contend with. Private Music marks a poignant milestone: Deftones have now released as many official studio albums without Chi Cheng as they have with him. There is sadness in that, but also joy that they found a way to forge ahead. Chi’s presence will always loom large, Chino acknowledges, including for anyone picking up the bass for them.
“It is rough,” he says of the mantle Fred now assumes. “He’s put in a position where he’s going to be judged. For him and Sergio, people were going to have opinions and sometimes they’ll be nice, and sometimes they won’t. To really fill in someone’s place like that you really have to have self-confidence.”
Fred’s own approach has been nothing short of moving so far. K! enquires whether Chino or Abe saw his Instagram post on Chi’s birthday this year when he wrote, “I’m doing my best to celebrate your songs and beautiful bass playing every day.”
“That was lovely, man,” says Chino.
“He’s a very sweet human,” praises Abe before going on to laud Fred’s playing on Ecdysis, another immediate highlight on Private Music.
“It’s sort of a Chi bassline,” he says. “I don’t want to say it’s like Adrenaline or anything, but it’s a style of song that we haven’t really fucked with for a while. It sounds like us, man. And what’s wrong with us sounding like us?”
Amen. It’s a sound that has carried Deftones through decades. A sound that has brought them new waves of fans. A sound that, according to Chino, shouldn’t really work. It just does.
“It feels great to still be here,” he says. “But I don’t have an explanation of why and how we are. My instinct is to say it’s a lot of luck, but I’ve always gone back to our friendship being the base. I really enjoy making music with them. Stephen doesn’t play like I expect him to play. And that’s what is so awesome. And I’m sure it’s the same for him with me – I don’t play how he would probably want someone to play. He gets mad at Abe sometimes because Abe doesn’t play what he expects over what he writes…”
He pauses. There is no deer to provoke it this time, just a realisation.
“Honestly?” Chino says. “That’s what makes Deftones what it is.”
Private Music is released August 22 via Reprise / Warner.
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