Keeping it real with the Deftones: A phone interview about lettin em know with Deftones DJ Frank Delgado

by Jon Robertson

Online Exclusive / Posted August 2, 2007 More Exclusives

Deftones one of the hardest working, longest lasting, most innovative and original bands around, they began in 1988 as childhood friends in Sacramento, Calif. In 1995 they released their first record, Adrenaline. In the 12 years since, they have released four other records, all growing and progressing musically more than the other. There most recent release their fifth studio album Saturday Night Wrist was a difficult one for the band to write. Choosing to not go with long-time producer Terry Date, the band went through a slew of possible producer such as Ken Andrews of Failure, Ric Ocasek of The Cars and Dan the Automator. The band finally settled on former Pink Floyd producer Bob Ezrin. Working with Ezrin didn’t go as well as the band had hoped and a couple months later the recording sessions ended. In the early part of 2006 the band began recording again finally finishing the record with producer Shawn Lopez former guitar player of Far and current member of The Revolution Smile.

Deftones (courtesy of myspace.com/deftones)

I got a chance to talk with Frank Delgado a few days before the North American tour began while the band was on a three-week break from touring. I had to get the stone skinny about what’s been going on with his band and all the recent drama surrounding them.

SLUG: What were the problems that caused the delay of the record? Was it that Chino (Moreno vocals) left to do Team Sleep or that Stephen (Carpenter guitar) was obsessed with online golf… What was the hold up?
FD: It was all of that. We probably went in too early to record. A bunch of shit happened, it was just life. We didn’t want to try and force creativity… you can always chalk it up to the fact there’s this pain that you have to go through to make a record. You can’t just give in and be like, 'okay here will put out a record it sucks, but here….' You have to stick with it and that’s what we did.

SLUG: Why didn’t you work with Terry Date on Saturday Night Wrist?
FD: We were trying new things, just wanted a change. We would have probably, but why not take a chance try something different get out of our comfort zone?

SLUG: You guys started working with Dan the Automator, what happened with that?
FD: We were writing at a house in Southern California and he came through and started hanging out. It was really relaxed. We made noise, but while he was hanging we were still meeting new people and we just decide to go with Bob Ezrin, someone who we thought would take us for a different loop.

SLUG: Why didn’t the band get along with Ezrin?
FD: It wasn’t so much that we didn’t get along with him. The working relationship was something we weren’t used to. Some people expected something and maybe got another and others didn’t. It’s hard to gel and record with someone you just met. When the deadlines come and shit ain’t happening we couldn’t expect Bob Ezrin to wait around for us, and maybe some guys in the band weren’t getting what they wanted out of the relationship. He stuck around a lot longer than he was scheduled to. But, I’m glad we did it the record still turned out really good.

Page: [1] 2 Next >>

Comments on this article

Be the first to comment!

Add a comment

Please keep your comments on the subject of the article.
We will delete your comment if it is racist, misogynistic, sexist, bigoted or just plain lame.
No HTML allowed!

Your name
Your email	(Your email address will not be displayed)
Comments