‘Eros’: The long-lost Deftones album
Following the release of their 2000 masterpiece, White Pony, alternative metal masters Deftones entered a period of great personal and creative strife. This extended chapter produced the band’s self-titled follow-up to their chef d’oeuvre in 2003. Whilst the record is a triumph in its own way, it is much darker than what came before, coloured by the interpersonal relationships of the quintet breaking down, divorces, custody battles, money issues and a host of other issues.
This feeling carried over into the making of the group’s 2006 album, Saturday Night Wrist, an atmospheric record that does not get the plaudits it deserves from fans. Demonstrating just how fraught relations were, during the middle of recording the album, frontman Chino Moreno embarked on a three-month tour with his side project, Team Sleep. Things were so severe that Deftones were on the verge of breaking up due to the instability in and outside of its confines. The group later reflected upon this era as “The Dark Days”.
Before going out on tour in support of Saturday Night Wrist, an emergency meeting was held with Deftones and their management to discuss the future. When the band were asked bluntly if they wanted to continue, it was a unanimous “fuck yeah” that ended with a candid round of hugs and an exponential boost in morale to levels that had not been experienced for years. With everyone galvanised, the group sought to quickly move on from the 2006 record and push positively into a new era.
During the album’s supporting tour with The Fall of Troy, Deftones set up a rehearsal space backstage and used it to jam new material, returning to basics with just their instruments and no use of technology such as ProTools or other distractions. Reflecting just how keen to move on from Saturday Night Wrist they were, Deftones started work on the new album in May 2007, only seven months after their latest effort hit the shelves. They continued to work on the music for the rest of the year. The new album came to be known as Eros, a tentative title which stemmed from a long-standing in-joke the band had about the comical utterance of the word they encountered in pornography when touring Germany.
They revamped their studio, The Spot, and hung out drinking and playing cards before starting to play music. It served as some crucial therapy to ease the burden of their personal lives, providing a much-needed place of positivity and solace. By the end of October, Deftones had written half an album. In January 2008, the title was announced to the world, with the music said to be their “most unorthodox” yet, containing “that good old ‘Fuck you, I hope you die!’ aggression”. On April 14th of that year, they officially entered the studio, drafting in producer Terry Date, who worked on their first four albums, a period that included some of their most impressive creative heights.
To offer more insight, Deftones created a blog to update fans on the recording’s progress, and shortly after, they debuted the track ‘Melanie’ live. At this point, Date had already started mixing several of the tracks at his home studio, with the quintet releasing five weekly video studio updates online before the production was put on hold due to unthinkable circumstances.
This happened as the most significant moment in the band’s history emerged in the blink of an eye. When bassist Chi Cheng was on the way home from his brother’s memorial service on November 3rd, he was involved in a serious car accident, an accident which saw him rushed to an ICU and left comatose. Naturally, production on Eros stopped immediately, and the band focused on the health of their old friend and bandmate.
Deftones banded together and recruited Sergio Vega, bassist of post-hardcore pioneers Quicksand, to fill in for festival slots and fundraising shows towards Cheng’s hospital bills in early 2009. Vega was not new to the band and had already filled in for Cheng as he underwent foot surgery ten years earlier. Not long after, Deftones announced that they had shelved Eros indefinitely in order to work on a new album featuring Vega. Chino Moreno maintained that the decision to move was a “purely creative” choice. They also wanted to write an optimistic record which counterbalanced the dark music of Eros and as an aid to cope with Cheng’s situation. The result was 2010’s Diamond Eyes, an atmospheric project similar in essence to Saturday Night Wrist. They then toured the record and released its follow-up, Koi No Yokan, on November 13th, 2012.
While there was still some hope for Eros, its future would be cast under a cloud of even more inscrutable uncertainty when Cheng passed away on April 13th, 2013. Although he was showing some signs of improvement in his condition since the accident, that day, his heart suddenly stopped, making Eros the last Deftones album he worked on. A month after the bassist’s heartbreaking passing, Moreno surprisingly stated that there was more probability of Eros being released at that point than before.
He told Artisan News: “I actually went back and listened to some of it recently and… you know, I don’t know when [we will put it out] or… but I feel it’s a little more appropriate now for us to think about that [than it has been] in the last few years to think about”. Moreno would later state that the band wanted to release at least one more record following Koi No Yokan before seriously re-considering releasing Eros.
On the first anniversary of Cheng’s death, Deftones unexpectedly released the track ‘Smile’ on YouTube, the first material released from Eros. However, the song was removed by Warner Music Group only two days later due to a supposed copyright infringement, despite its uploader being Moreo himself. In 2021, when appearing on The Peer Pleasure Podcast, the frontman admitted to mixing, mastering and leaking ‘Smile’ on his own accord for the anniversary of Cheng’s passing without telling the rest of the band.
In the years since Cheng’s death, the messages from Deftones about the status of Eros have been mixed, with members expressing misgivings about the quality of the songs and recordings. Moreno would also elucidate on the multifaceted situation when speaking to The Independent in 2016. “Musically it’s probably 75 – 80% done and lyrically it was about halfway there, but honestly, I wasn’t too happy with the material we had,” he explained.
“Some of the music was lacking a little bit,” he added. “I had faith it was going to come together and be great in the end, but we never got to that point. Once Chi had his accident, everything came to a halt with the Eros sessions, so the idea of going back to that batch of songs, finishing them and have Sergio learn Chi’s parts just hasn’t felt like something that we’re interested in doing. If the record were finished and we were just sitting on it, we probably would have put it out by now, maybe even given it away, just so that people can hear it, but it would take a lot more work to get it done. But when we get together, we’re much more fascinated with where we are in this moment, trying to create something new.”
When appearing on The Peer Pleasure Podcast in 2021, Moreno also asserted that apart from ‘Smile’, he has not opened the Eros recordings since 2008. He said he would want the entire band’s input on finishing the tracks if it were to ever happen, but is also hesitant to revisit the music, as it is inextricable from such a profound tragedy. He said: “As to where if I put those on, it was gonna take me back to that time, which I didn’t want to be in. And I’m still kind of hesitant to go back and listen. It’s probably why I haven’t opened it up and listened to a lot of it.”
Fans may never get to hear the enigma that is Eros, and for good reason. However, it remains one of the most fascinating long-lost albums in history, with more significance attached to it than most of the other most prominent cases. Whatever the future might hold for it, Deftones fans can be safe in the knowledge that the band have managed to maintain a remarkable level of consistency throughout their career despite the obstacles in their way, with much anticipation surrounding the successor to their most recent offering, 2020’s Ohms, as it will be the first without Sergio Vega. It remains to be seen how they will navigate that issue.
