A Short History of the Deftones

Deftones were one of the first bands to mix metal up with funky beats and elements of hip-hop while still focussing on the songs themselves. They may have been influenced by the likes of Tool and could have been discovered by Korn when they played a gig in Sacramento, but singer Chino Moreno had a love of the Cure, vocalist Robert Smith and PJ Harvey also. He was more concerned than most metal based singer to delve into the possibilities of emotion and texture within the music and the lyrics rather than relying on a unit-shifting groove.

Their debut album, 'Adrenaline', shows how impressive Chino Moreno can be at times as he mixes up rock and hip-hop delivery to convey a range of emotions. There are similar lyrically motifs which run through all his work. Well, not original motifs by any stretch of the imagination - sex, death and religion just about covers it, pretty average goth stuff really. The music is not just noise either. The influence of bands like Bad Brains can be heard clearly on some tracks, especially the more hardcore ones. But Deftones experiment with dynamic shifts and subtler textures.

This becomes more apparent on their second album, 'Around The Fur'. The single that starts the album, 'My Own Summer', has Moreno whispering and whining over a solid reggae tinged first section. Then it launches into a full scale metal screamathon as he screams 'Shove It, shove it, shove it'. The track 'Mascara' could sit easily on the Cure's 'Pornography' album. It's features a dark gothic guitar sound and a vocal which may have had Moreno wearing badly applied red lipstick and a big bad-hair day black wig as he recorded it in the studio. 'Be Quiet And Drive (Far Away)' is a wall of sound song which is driven on by the pounding drums and screeching guitars. Moreno gets all schizo when singing 'Faaar, awaaaay'. It's all pretty primal.

The next set of songs took three years to hone. 'White Pony' focuses on the textures and there's some interesting stylistic tricks using trip-hop, looped beats and some sprawling psychedelia. All this is fused together with their usual big pounding drums and big heavy guitar. It's not a million miles away from some Husker Du stuff, but not as good obviously. Moreno has started to use his vocal more as an instrument by this time. What comes over more than anything else is that the are trying hard to sound like no one else, which should be applauded. Their sound isn't straight-metal, nor alt-rock and definitely not hip-hop.

In 1991, indie gave way to metal. Kids wanted physical music and metal was used as the backbone for various sub-genres and so-called alternative movements. However, it all got suckered into the mainstream. It all ended up in a nu-metal mush that questioned nothing, was non-experimental, and sounded lazy and cynically made for the market. The Deftones have shown that the physicality and energy of metal can be used in an imaginative way.