How Maynard James Keenan’s meditations helped Deftones write ‘Passenger’
Following the success of their 1995 debut, Adrenaline, and its follow-up, 1997’s Around the Fur, Deftones were cemented into the nu metal scene. But, from the jump, the Sacramento natives promised something different.
Vocalist Chino Moreno could release blood-curdling screeches one second and sultry whispers the next, singing about lust and death and life’s disarray that existed in between.
Deftones’ then-lineup, comprised of bassist Chi Cheng, guitarist Stephen Carpenter, drummer Abe Cunningham, and new, permanent turntablist Frank Delgado, performed with brutal precision, both harsh and calculated in forming their unique industrial/hip-hop hybrid. The experience of listening to a Deftones record leaves one exhausted but wanting more, and when it came time to plot their third collection, the band knew they had to elevate their formula to the furthest extreme.
“We came off a couple of records that were pretty successful, but I felt like we had a lot more to do,” Moreno tells Louder Sound. “A bigger voice, and really no rules.” Creative freedom meant a heightening of the senses, leaning into the elusive vulnerability that lurked in Morneo’s lyrics, while amplifying the aggression that drove their sound. In turn, Deftones saw a range of collaborators introduced during their recording sessions.
The late, brilliant Scott Weiland sings on ‘Rx Queen’, an ill-fated love song. Rodleen Getsic, a horror actress, lent her terrifying screams to ‘Knife Prty’. And, Tool and A Perfect Circle vocalist Maynard James Keenan would eventually duet with Moreno on ‘Passenger’, the two musicians writing the song side-by-side in the studio.
“So the way you hear the song on the record is pretty genuine to the way we wrote it, where we trade lines,” Moreno explains. “We didn’t really have an idea for what we were making a song about; we just started riffing off each other.” The lyrics to ‘Passenger’ suggest certain activities happening in a car, but it is also read as a song about giving in to chaos and releasing control. After writing the lyrics in 1999, Moreno later invited Keenan to the studio; Keenan happened to be in Los Angeles, working on the debut A Perfect Circle record. Unbeknownst to Deftones, Keenan was under the impression that he was invited to be a sort of mediator within the band.
“I may have received bad or exaggerated intel at the time, but I was told the guys were having a bit of writer’s block or some turmoil within the band,” Keenan tells Revolver. “I felt like they just needed a bit of new perspective. So I showed up with Tibetan Singing Bowls, some percussion instruments, champagne and asked them permission to do some experiments.” Keenan’s vision of a therapeutic recording session ensued: he had each member of Deftones switch instruments, play on the Tibetan bowls and try to improvise their songs. “The looks on their faces was priceless,” Keenan recalls. “I might as well have been wearing hippy beads and bunny ears. I could just feel Stephen thinking, ‘What kind of acid trip crap is this?’”
Keenan’s influence, however unexpected, was a perfect cure for what Deftones needed: a push outside of their boundaries. As Moreno says, Keenan’s approach, coupled with his own, first-time guitar playing on record, and the permanent inclusion of Delgado’s turntables, would broach boundless creativity. “I think that really benefited the record, because there was no way you were going to have this linear-sounding thing, when each of us were trying to see how far we could push each other,” Moreno explains. “Our relationship started to be strained a little bit at that point, but musically I think we prospered.”
As for Keenan, he sees his contribution to one of Deftones’ most defining songs as a mere happenstance. “The result of my interruption was for them to unconsciously remember or feel what connected them in the first place,” he says. “I honestly had nothing to do with it other than a mental break and temporary change of perspective.”
Deftones’ resulting album, 2000’s White Pony, became a blistering metal opus that changed the course of how metal could both sound and feel. Listening to each song is its own immersion into the chaotic, confusing, but rewarding world that Deftones found themselves in, prompting an energy of giving in to the thrill of the unknown.
