Deftones discuss progress of their forthcoming album
The legendary rock group Deftones have issued an update regarding a follow-up to their 2020 album Ohms. As yet, the album is untitled, but the band are enthusiastic about the progress they’ve made so far.
Speaking backstage at Coachella, where they performed on the Outdoor Stage on April 12th, frontman Chino Moreno noted that the band has an entire “record recorded all musically.” He added that the ball is now left in his court to finish work on the vocals.
Deftones have been around for the best part of three decades and understand the virtue of patience. Consequently, Moreno is cautious about putting “a definite timeframe” on the album’s release. “We’re not really in a rush,” he told KROQ. “We want it to be great. I think that’s most important. But it is coming, and it’s really good.”
Of course, artists will always back their latest work, but the band claims to have reshaped their musical approach for this latest instalment. “We’re really excited with what we’ve been working on,” Moreno added. “And everybody’s jazzed.”
Elaborating, Moreno explained that the group hadn’t been in a creative environment since before the Covid-19 pandemic. The past few years since the arrival of Ohms have been mostly preoccupied with live shows. “We’ve been playing shows, but we hadn’t really got into being creative,” he said. “The creative part, to me, is always the funnest part of being in this band.”
While some artists get the most satisfaction in the audience’s response to new music, Moreno feels that stumbling upon a new idea is the best part of the process. “Coming up with something out of nothing, that feeling cannot be topped,” he continued. “So when you get in the room with your friends, we’re laughing, we’re having fun.”
In this laid-back setting, Deftones thrive, creating new music in an improvisational jam set-up. “Someone does something and then I react to it or they react to what I’m doing,” he said, describing the creative process, “it goes in a circle and then, all of a sudden, we lift our heads up and there’s something that exists that didn’t exist before we walked in that room. That’s just great.”
Talk of Defones’ tenth studio album first arose in September 2023, when guitarist Stephen Carpenter told the Gnostic Academy podcast the band had entered the studio. “It was a little slow at first, but it always is; dragging our feet ain’t nothing new,” he revealed. “But we’ve got stuff up and going now, and we’re on a good little momentum at the moment. And we hope to have it all done and out by next spring-summer.”
At present, it seems that Carpenter’s timeframe could be a little tight, but a 2024 release could certainly be on the cards.
Watch the full Coachella interview below.
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