Anyway, I'm tired after 6 days and nights in California doing this, so no more words from me....except for ones I've already written. Enjoy, or don't. It's entirely up to you, funnily enough.
Trying to do justice to an artist or ensemble whose music has consistently moved you for years with mere words when they have the full articulacy of sound in comparison is one of the hardest tasks a writer faces. Descending to hyperbole and analogy is all too easy and drifting into tangents which merely add colour to a narrative is a common trap. Sacremento's elite pioneers Deftones make my job extremely difficult, but if they didn't exist at all I would still miss them. Perhaps that's just as much about what they represent for us, the fans, as how their music has ensnared us.
The quintet currently touring the globe in promotion activities for their sixth officially released studio album, Diamond Eyes, may well be radically altered from that which made 2006's Saturday Night Wrist, but the heart, spirit and sonic sculptures are unmistakable. A huge amount of energy and thought has been expended by the band on their efforts to struggle on as a creative collective without founder member bassist and backing vocalist Chi Cheng who was left in a coma state following a severe car crash in November 2008, and at time of writing is at home under constant care of his family and a medical expert. Nevertheless, their first album without Chi (former Quicksand bassist Sergio Vega has taken on bass duties) is perhaps their strongest work to date. Amalgamating the eerie, stark and savage sounds the band have been cultivating since 1997's Around the Fur and 2000's White Pony into a truly cohesive and resoundingly heavy record, Diamond Eyes represents a little bit more than a snapshot in time.
“Music in general that I listen to is pretty much put on because I wanna change my headspace so I do feel the same way about the music that we make. Why not be able to use it to escape?,” asks vocalist and guitarist Chino Moreno reasonably. A quick glance at our surroundings, Chino, keyboard/electronics guru Frank Delgado and I, in this inviting central London hotel room immediately makes Chino qualify his statement and question. “It's not like our life is so terrible that we need to escape it but just for a head change, a mood, to get into a groove.”
Placing Deftones' music on a pedestal goes hand-in-hand with the escapism inherently captured within their dense yet subtle concoction of voodoo ambience and brutal riffs. The effect is not unlike exquisite caligraphy formed from fissures and unstable faultlines. “Sonically and musically that's what the bands music does so lyrically I try to live up to that and try not to put up any boundaries. I do none of that.” In the past, Chino's lyrics may have been more direct, but the oblique references, obtuse and haunting imagery as well as a consistent fascination with waves could easily be the subject of several articles in their own right. Of course that isn't our intention here, but it's necessary to briefly illustrate that every part of the Deftones art is inseparable from the other. Though there is no glue that holds the operation together, it's arguable that certain aspects are often overlooked in favour of the most tangible. Hence, Frank Delgado's intricate webs of sound, flowing from effects driven turntables, synthesizers or warped samples and tape effects – perhaps because of their understated yet essential role in the music or perhaps due to being the least visible as well as the latest permanent member (barring Vega) – will be disregarded in favour of Steph Carpenter's magma guitars or Chino's scathing howl and seductive whispers.
“Whether its a riff Chino's creating subtly on his guitar or with me messing around on a synthesizer, we're getting better at closing it all in a song instead of one song being one way and another song being another way. We're able to mesh them now,” explains Frank. Since the eclectic platter of White Pony, where blistering metal like Elite resided along surprising, lush electronica as on Teenager, the band has always had tracks which proudly strutted their opposing colours. Diamond Eyes is notable for having seemingly abandoned that in favour of cohesion which doesn't narrow their ambition or experimental sides in the least. Frank's role, as a result has grown, despite his own misgivings about his position.
“Especially with Steph's sonics with his low guitar, at times it was hard for me,” he admits. “Like how the hell am I gonna fit in this spectrum of sound? On the earlier albums, I don't know how I'm supposed to do this in this band I don't know what the fuck I'm doing but I'm gonna paint my shit and I knew what I wasn't gonna do. As I got better at it I could extend these sounds and change pitches if I borrow Steph's guitar pedal. That's how I ended up creating a sequence of melodies.”
These cycling, shimmering, harrowing sounds creep throughout the Deftones work but is especially evident as defining moments on classics like Change (In The House Of Flies), Digital Bath and Hexagram – those voices, smeared squealing, putty-like sampled garbling are all Frank's work. Diamond Eyes begins with a statement of intent; a startling onward rush of translucent sound before Steph's sludge guitar threatens to drown all else out. By chorus time a sublime euphoric upper melody has arisen from Frank's effects and it's clear immediately that the awe-inspiring balance between metal, hip-hop, new wave, electro and who knows what other genres effortlessly glide together.
“We all love the same things but we've all found them at different parts of our lives or different routes got us there. It's crazy because sometimes people like to think of Steph as the metal dude and Chino as this new romantic dude and Abe...well he's the black dude,” laughs Frank with Chino joining in. Drummer Abe Cunningham is caucasian yet his hip-hop influenced beats suggest otherwise. “But it's not really that way man. People would bug out if they saw Stpeh in his truest form. He fucking loves Depeche Mode and he loves the shittiest stuff too, like we all do. We saw him listening to PM Dawn and it looked like he was thinking about his whole life!” With those sort of revelations it's no wonder Deftones are one of only a handful of bands in the last twenty years that can stand up and be counted as a truly defined unit with a musical DNA that is impossible to replicate. “It just so happens we're very good at these different parts and getting them to work. We're all honestly trying to do it a little bit cooler, a little bit better and that way it doesn't come off as painting by numbers. That's all those other bands.” Diamond Eyes has proven this to be fact; it's a Deftones record which doesn't surprise at all yet absolutely astounds in its vision and execution.
To complicate things further, the three of us agree that those who have songs fully written inside their heads before recording are to be wondered at. Chino says: “Some people may be able to do that and that's great but for us the fact that things aren't preconceived that's kinda the uniqueness about us. The organic quality. These are some my favourite songs we've written, those with that organic quality and we still have to work at it. But the more organic and natural the better. If there's an idea we start gravitating towards it filters through us and who else is going to do something like that? No one else because there's only one of me, one of him, one of Steph and when you put the five of us together that's a unique sound, something that's not contrived and not formulated.”
“It's funny because in reality, say we wanted to make this electronic song it's not gonna be Deftones before it filters through Steph and Chi and by then it's already fucking morphed already,” says Frank. “The same thing with Stephan's crushing riffs. I mean he was riffing like I hadn't seen him do in a long time but it would just stay like that if it didn't go through Chino and Abe and then it becomes something like You've Seen The Butcher which is something we could never do by thinking in that way. That shit just happens.” Opening with the distinctive jagged chug of guitars before the hesitant, off-the-beat pounding drums and layers of arcane sounds, You've Seen The Butcher branches into stoner rock riffs, long sustained hollering from Chino and seething undercurrents which bellow from the undulating crescendo section. And yes, reading that back it's fair to say that their music is fairly indescribable.
In an ever growing list of contrasts they somehow got Diamond Eyes to sound like a studio creation that is still achievable live.
“We were pretty well prepared as far as being able to play them live pretty much before we went into the studio which was important I think for the way the record sounds and now us going out to play we have a lot more confidence playing it because we're pretty strong. It's probably closer to the way we did things when we didn't have the means to use pro tools or going into a studio and writing the record there,” explains Chino. The record was done in two months, a much shorter time than the last three. It seems as well as having the drive to create – bearing in mind that the band had already written and recorded their sixth album Eros with Chi before the accident, a record that may see the light of day at some point – the refreshing back-to-basics attitude of avoiding pro-tools and rehearsing songs to perfection before recording led to the precise, amalgamated feel of the album.
“The producer Nick worked with us in pre-production which was pretty much the whole writing process. He was very helpful in getting us on what the task of the day or the hour was. In the past we'd all start digging on the same idea and without anybody there to kinda get us focused on that we'd start somewhere and start drifting off to nowhere land, although that's not a bad thing,” says Chino. “But if nobody's speaking up and keeping things in context or keeping an eye focused on the essence of the idea... It snowballed. We'd start with something hone in on it and complete something in a few hours that wasn't there before. When it's done that's more ammo you tuck that into your coat and move on to the next thing so you start getting really inspired. Once you start getting in that rhythm it feels great and everybody hits a super creative stride.”
Essentially, the core of Deftones has always been this unstoppable gang, a group of friends who share such disparate musical tastes but work so closely together that they could only ever end up sounding themselves. This has always been reflected in the warmth and density of their sound, something that embraces you in a way similar music fails to do. Everything from the splicing of musical genetics to the caustic or glorious performances – live or on record – enrapture and captivate but their essential elements are most poignantly proven on Diamond Eyes: courage, conviction and optimism in the darkest of hours and this is something Deftones fans across the globe have taken to heart from this most important of bands.
Brad Barrett
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