A deep journey into Chino Moreno’s creativity, performances and more

Deftones‘ Chino Moreno made an appearance as a guest on the recently released “Broken Record Podcast” episode, as theprp reports. The interview, which covered everything from the band’s early years to Moreno’s creative process, his intense participation with the band’s visuals, and even his pre- and post-show routines, was informal yet illuminating. He also talked on how difficult it is for him to listen to the group’s platinum-selling 1995 first album, “Adrenaline,” and how strange it is that the cover art for their 1997 platinum-certified sophomore album, “Around The Fur,” got so famous. When did Moreno feel he first discovered his musical voice?

I think, definitely, after our first record, because our first record is still hard for me to listen to, because I can hear myself still not being confident and not really knowing what I was doing. I mean, I was so nervous on our first record that I didn’t even write a lot of lyrics.

A lot of it’s just like freestyling, syllables and whatever. And then, so if you notice, inside there’s not lyrics in the record. There’s some scribbled notes from me, that I wrote, whatever. So there’s some words in there. But, some of it’s [missing] because I was so scared to commit to what I was gonna say. [I] just kind of used my voice as an instrument more.

So that record’s hard for me to listen to, because I can see exactly where I was, whatever, just kind of not confident. Like, sort of still figuring it out. Whereas maybe our second record, I think you know, touring a lot from our first record, and just like actually getting the opportunity to make a second record, which a lot of bands don’t even get that chance, right?

We got signed to a pretty big label [Maverick Records], and we didn’t sell anything close to what Alanis sold, who was our labelmate. So I mean, honestly, that probably helped. Because I think our label was making so much money from Alanis, that they probably lost a lot of money on our first record, but allowed us to go and make a second record. Really, honestly.

Regarding the band’s name genesis, Moreno described how guitarist Stephen Carpenter suggested it. This is Moreno’s response when asked who came up with it in this talk.

Stephen did. We were going to play one of our first shows, and we had to buy tickets. It was like one of those pay to play kind of things, where we buy all the tickets… We bought the tickets for $1 a piece from the promoter, and then we can sell them for $3 so we can make a couple bucks off each ticket. But we didn’t end up doing that. We ended up just giving [them] away to our friends at school and whatever, so we can have a packed show.

And we were like, well, ‘we need a band name if we’re gonna play a show.’ So Stephen said, ‘Oh, we’re gonna be called Deftones.’ And I was like, okay, so then Abe wrote it on the ticket, but he didn’t even know how to spell it, so he spelled it like d-e-a-f-tones, whatever, right? So we gave all the tickets away and Stephen‘s like, ‘No, that’s not how you spell it.’

It’s all like, ‘def’, you know, like the rap…. It wasn’t anything that was, like, well thought out, or other than just, you know, Stephen said that’s the name of our band. We said, ‘Okay.’

He shares his feelings towards the band’s name in the present.

I don’t know. I mean, it’s worked. I guess… It’s silly. I mean, most bad names are silly. There’s a lot of silly band names, but you kind of… the name takes on its own thing after awhile, right? The music is kind of whatever and then you don’t really think so much about the name itself.

About their second album’s cover, “Around The Fur,” and the image that has made it legendary to this day…

Honestly, now I can appreciate it. But you know it’s so weird that even as far as our merchandise goes, that t-shirt with that album cover on it is like one of the biggest sellers. But it’s such a random photo, it makes no sense at all. And it was honestly just like we were… our photographer, the guy who was doing all our photos for that record, this guy named Rick Kosick. He was from this magazine, Big Brother — it was a skate magazine — and he ended up going on to do like, ‘Jackass‘ and all that stuff…

But he was the videographer/photographer, and he was a good friend of ours. And he came to Seattle when we were recording that record, and he took a bunch of photos of us, and and then just photos of us hanging outside of the studio. So with that record, we were all like 22 maybe, we were still pretty young. And, when I look back at that record, I don’t remember hardly any of actually recording the record.

I remember everything outside of it. We were just like wild, out every night, partying, driving around, listening to the roughs from the day. And that album cover was, we had a Jacuzzi at our apartment… There was a hot tub downstairs. So every night, at the end of the night, after all our bar hopping, we’d go with everybody we’d meet from the bar, ‘let’s go back to our place. We’re gonna go the hot tub.’

And that photo was just from a random night there, whatever. And it got mixed in with all the other photos from the thing. So when they came and [started] spreading all the photos out for the album cover, that picture was there. And it was literally just like everybody pointed at that one. I mean, it’s very 90s too. So 90s. So it like really represents that time. It’s kind of funny.

He then speaks about the woman on the cover, wheter he knew her.

I mean, kind of. She was a friend who we befriended while we were there in Seattle. And I did see a thing the other day, it was cool, they showed like, you know, her then and now. So it was her like, now — she’s probably our age now too, like, you know, maybe late 40s, early 50s — and she’s holding up the album cover, and she’s, like, smiling, whatever. ‘This is me’, you know when she was young as well.

But who knew, Right? It’s like even when she was asked, ‘Hey, we want to use this for the album cover.’ But then thinking that, like, 30 something years later, whatever it is, that would be such an iconic photo with t-shirts and all these like teenagers now wearing that picture on their t-shirt.

It has that fisheye kind of lens effect, whatever, so it’s you know it’s very kind of Beastie Boys-y 90s kind of flair.

Moreno continued by disclosing an intriguing detail regarding the transitional music that opens Deftones performances. In addition to playing in his dressing room while he warms up for the performance, the music played over the PA at the venue is typically a playlist he made that day.

So I listen to music, and then I also make playlists every day, which is really fun. So there’s a 35-minute time where they change over from the band before us to when we go on. So, I make a 35-minute playlist that plays in my dressing room, but it also plays in the in the venue. So the crowd hears what I’m hearing backstage.

It’s kind of neat, because I kind of feel like it maybe puts us all in the same sort of frame of mind before, like, the show. And it changes. It’s always like a pretty wild mix of stuff. But they tell me, like, 3-2-1, play. I’ll play it in my dressing room, and it’ll be sent, [it’ll] be playing in the venue.

And then I get in the shower, then the shower sort of just like regenerates me. I think the steam helps with my voice. And then I get dressed, brush my teeth, and then maybe I’ll do some push-ups or whatever. I have a little foam roller. I just do a stretch on that. Maybe some jumping jacks and just kind of like hype myself up, that’s pretty much it.

What comes after “private music”?

We do have some stuff left over [from the ‘private music‘ sessions.] And my idea would be like maybe if there’s a soundtrack opportunity or something like that, I think it’d be fun to go back and finish those things up for a specific thing or something like that.