Splintr exclusive interview: Chino Moreno talks to Francis Brew

The interview couldn’t have started more embarrassingly.

After drinking coffee strong enough to fuel a truck, I start to gag and cough just as Deftones’ Chino Moreno gets on the other end of the line. He laughs, asks if I’m okay, and I do my best to apologize and keep the coffee and breakfast down. It was a good way of breaking the ice at my expense I suppose. But with Moreno, there was really no need to: he was in an expansive mood just like the 2011 interview.

The excitement is high as Deftones return to Manila on May 26. On their first visit, “Diamond Eyes” was their current album and it was well-received by fans and critics alike. Its overall “optimistic” tone was deliberate: they were shaken by Chi Cheng’s accident and faced a shift in their collective consciousness. Not that they mellowed; the magma-like riffs, eerie atmospherics, and Moreno’s whisper-to-a-scream were tied together by the implicit “theme” of the album.

The current album “Koi No Yo Kan” continues in the same vein and garnered similar accolades as “Diamond Eyes;” the optimism is probably their way, alluded to in the music and the always-ambiguous lyrics or not, of waiting for Cheng to recover. The bassist passed on last month… Deftones upcoming concert could be even more impassioned than the first one as a result. Cheng’s passing will not be lost on fans. As Moreno explains in the interview, Chi’s death is both sad and “a slight bit of relief that he’s not suffering like he has for so many years.” In a sense, he could be speaking about the band itself and its loyal following.

Moreno also talks about his creative mindset and how he loves juxtaposing contrasting ideas together. It is an approach that has obviously served the band well, trends in metal be damned. Moreno also talks briefly about his new side project Lands which features former members of Isis.

In the acclaimed Rush documentary “Beyond the Lighted Stage,” Gene Simmons of Kiss succinctly describes the legendary Canadian trio. “What kind of a band is Rush? It’s Rush.”

What kind of a band is Deftones? Take a guess.

LISTEN TO THE INTERVIEW ON SPLINTR.COM

Press release and photo from Splintr.com