A Conversation with Chi Chen of Deftones

This is the original transcript of the interview, only minor editing has been applied for readability. This has been the basis for articles but has never been published in the original form.

Wortraub: This is your first album not to have been produced by Terry Date? Who produced it then? Bob Ezrin, Aaron Sprinkle and Shaun Lopez were the names I found?
Chi: Well, you are probably right about all of them. There was a bunch of different people. We started with Bob Ezrin and then finished off with a couple different people, Shaun Lopez from Far helped out, Chino did some more work with Terry. So it was a mix of people.

Wortraub: What was the problem about deciding on a producer?
Chi: At first we thought it might be nice to work with someone new. And Bob is obviously quite an amazing producer. We started working together and then we got to a point where there was a road block. So we went home and started writing in our own studio in Sacramento, took a little time off and then Chino disappeared to do the Team Sleep stuff he was doing, and Bob had a prior obligation. So he wasn’t on the project anymore and so Chino finished with Shaun Lopez.

Wortraub: I found Bob as a choice interesting because his fame comes from the 70s production he has done. Is that a choice of sound you wanted for the album?
Chi: I don’t think it was the sound, the guys had met him and had hit off with him really well. So they wanted to do it with him, I was at a wedding at the time. I met him afterwards, but I have seen what he has done and that was good enough for me.

Wortraub: Why did you choose not to work with Terry?
Chi: We thought that it would be good to get someone who was also a musician and to try something different. In a way it worked and in a way it didn’t. We all loved Terry and he is like a part of our family and always will be. We just wanted to try something different for this album.

Wortraub: What has changed for you with the new team?
Chi: It is a Deftones album for sure. I wouldn’t say much has changed. We thought the change would come from someone else but the change is always going to come from what the band is doing. Picking another producer to change something was something we thought would happen but it didn’t.

Wortraub: Well, Chino has experimented with beats and electronics with Team Sleep. This album has some definite influences of that, right?
Chi: No, it is not so important. We were always inspired by each other. If someone comes up with something cool, then we all gravitate towards that and want to work on it. It doesn’t matter who wrote it. If it something that is inspiring to the other musicians then we start to work on it. The electronics, that is Chino’s influence. That is what he enjoys and he has added it on the last album, also on White Pony. That has always been what he adds. Stephan does the heavy stuff, Chino does the lighter electronics stuff. With every album we are not scared to progress further or to expand on things more deeply. So it is more apparent, more noticable.

Wortraub: Before this record was produced you announced that it would again be going back to some heavier riffing and metal sound. But in my opinion there are still more experimental songs than rock songs, with broad spaces and layers of sound, not so much heavy as you were on „Around the fur“? Did you change plans in the studio?
Chi: No, we never know what the fuck we are going to do. *laughs* In a chaotic sense, where we start an album and where we finish an album is always two totally different places. I don’t think that we could ever acurately say how an album is going to be until we finish it. I sometimes feel like it is wishful thinking that we are going to an album at all half the time.

Wortraub: Is it so hard to get you five guys together?
Chi: On the same page at the same time? Yes, occasionally it is. But you are looking at five really bullheaded, stubborn fucking assholes that are so passionate about our music that we will nitpick it to death. That is our strength and our weakness.

Wortraub: So this is where your sound comes from then? Five guys clashing their heads?
Chi: Yeah, pretty much, banging your head against a brick wall or something.

Wortraub: On the other hand, with „FM“, „Rats“ and „Combat“ you found some aggression and screaming again. Did you find your anger again?
Chi: That is a Chino question, but yeah, I think he was pretty fucking angry about some things and that ended up being a way of him expressing himself. We were kind of glad that he was back to being aggressive. When we heard those songs, we were like: great man. You know what I mean? He is fucking fired up, he is pissed off.

Wortraub: For the lyrics it might be a Chino question, but I had the feeling the music is aggressive too. The riffs are heavy, your bass is pumping …
Chi: Oh yeah, absolutely. That comes also from excitement. A lot of it is misconstrued as aggression, for us it is excitement, passion. We get passionate about it and everybody plays hard. When Stephan wrote the riff to „FM“ he had a whole song around it but it was the one riff that we were all really in love with and so that riff, we all jumped on and do as much as we could to make it amazing in the whole song, as opposed to what he had originally started with.

Wortraub: So this is a passionate album for you guys? What has changed?
Chi: Absolutely, yeah. At least for me, this was such a long, drawn out process. There was so much turmoil in the band. I really did not know whether the fucking band was going to exist or not. There was a period where none of us knew whether the Deftones were going to continue as a band. And so, when the project did get rolling again, everyone was really fired up again, really hungry again, having appreciation to be able to be in the band, to be able to play with the same guys.

Wortraub: So you are drawn together more. Are you back to being real musicians again?
Chi: Yeah. Everyone is really in a lot better of a space than we have been maybe since around the fur. Back to being a family and back to really appreciating what we do. And being really passionate about what we are doing.

Wortraub: Is that why the album is oscillating between those two extremes? The aggression and the slow electronics?
Chi: I think, all the Deftones albums have extremes. It is nothing that we rule out, it is just what we consider to be good that is kept. Obviously songs like „Pink Cellphone“ are much more influenced by Chino and songs like „FM“ are much more influenced by Stephan but they are both amazingly good songs and where not ruled out on the basis of what style it is.

Wortraub: I’ve read in an interview, that Abe stated he had the feeling that the „Deftones“-Album wasn’t complete in a way-
Chi: I mean, I am not sure about that. That album is where everyone was at, at the time. It was a dark period for the band. It was in that way more linear. Everybody was writing in satellites as opposed to writing together as a band with some cohesion. That is probably what he meant.

Wortraub: Coming back to „Pink Cellphone“ with Annie Hardy which sticks out from the record. Annie first cites a prayer to the one true coward (instead of God), then goes on to explain that you learn butt fucking at a school in England. What is that all about?
Chi: I have no fucking clue. To be honest, I just heard the track two days ago because someone was telling me, we have to get that off of there otherwise there will be a parental warning. I said, why? I haven’t really heard the track. So Stephan played it for me. And he stopped it before she got to all that shit. And I said: I did not really hear anything, did I miss it. He was like: Just kidding. And then he played the rest and I was like: Oh shit, damn she is going off. I have no idea what the inspiration for that shit was. I think, it is pretty amazing, it is pretty cool. I don’t know. I think she was with Chino. Towards the end of the album production Chino was in L.A. finishing with Shaun Lopez. We had had the music done for so long, we just let him do his thing. This is usually, typically the way it is. It is just functional the way it works. We all wish, he would sit with a notebook and write lyrics while we are writing music, but he just doesn’t do that. He waits until the album is done and then he fucks with it months on end musically and then decides, oh shit I’ve got to finish the vocals and it takes him a million years. And we sit around angry. A lot of times, the shit will get done and I don’t even know until the product is finished.

Wortraub: That sounds like a family. Like the strange uncle that always messes up the family party and everybody leaves him be, because what can you do?
Chi: Yeah, exactly. You are like: Goddamnit and you are pissed. But is not like it surprises you. Because he has always been that way. Next time, we are going to shoot him in the leg.

Wortraub: In regards to your guests – On White Pony you had Maynard James Keenan guest-singing, on this album it is Serj of System of a Down. What connects you to them? What connects the Deftones to those bands?
Chi: The Tool thing was amazing because Maynard is so amazing. I don’t know how it came up, it was a mutual respect thing. I think our band is avantgarde enough to where people are exited about us. We have been an influence on a lot of people and so it is humbling and cool that that kind of caliber of musician would like to come out and work with our band.

Wortraub: How do get to your sound, that avantgarde feel which is hard to pinpoint?
Chi: It has a lot to do with the fact that you take each album and springboard into something creative and more daring and you are never complacent with your own music. I think that is what Deftones, Tool and Jane’s Addiction have in common. You constantly want to innovate, if nothing than at least for yourselves. We have been able to do that.