Bandsplain - Deftones with Suzy Exposito

Episode Date: June 10, 2021

Suzy Exposito, music reporter for the LA Times, joins us to unpack the story and innovative musical style of Deftones, a band from Sacramento that never stopped evolving, through genres, trends, and even tragedy. Just don’t call them nü-metal. Find Suzy Exposito’s writing at the Los Angeles Times and follow her on Twitter at @HexPositive. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What's with this band anyway? I don't get it. Can you please explain? Wait, like, Bansplane. Welcome to Bandsblane. I am your host, Yossi Salick. This is a show where experts come on to explain cult bands to me and to you. Today's episode is about the deaf tones. If you've never heard the deftones, strap in, babe. Here is what the deaf tones sound like.

My guest today is Susie Exposito, former goth Florida teen and current music writer at the Los Angeles Times. Welcome to the show, Susie. Thank you so much for having me, Yassie. Oh, God, I'm so excited. I love former goth, Florida teens. It's an area of interest for me, personally. Did you grow up in Florida? No, I grew up in Torrance, California, which is in the South Bay region of Southern California.

maybe has some crossover with Florida. Maybe it's like the Jacksonville of California. You know, it's like lots of guys with nautical star tattoos. Do you know what I'm saying? And like wallet chains and stuff. So it feels to me that it's like that vibe. But I've never been to Jacksonville, so I'm speculated. I went to high school here.

As did Limp Biscuit, we went to the same high school. Oh my God. Your new metal pedigree had like really was faded from the start. Absolutely. I think it just came natural to me. Also just being in middle school during the height of new metal. You know, like the year 2000 was like the year that new metal really broke. And that was also the year that I got my first pair of Jinkgo pants. So now you can understand why I am the way I am. You get a little. window into that. I do see that for you. I love that journey for you. The year 2000, I graduated high school and I had my first Jinko's well before then, babe. Okay, one question before we dive in. What was it like being a goth teen in an extremely humid and warm climb? Because it feels oppressive. It feels like an extreme sport. Being a goth in hot.

weather is as you can probably understand just being committed to the fashion, being committed to sweating your ass off. I don't know. It just, it's a lifestyle. You just have to like grin and bear it, you know. I hear you, babe. I went to high school on the equator, so I also grinned and bore it. Let's get right into Dufftones. Dufftones are a band that, I like definitely listened to in my younger years, but never were a band that I was like obsessive over a deep dove into. I think partially because I don't know, maybe timing stuff, like just how old I was when the records or maybe just like interest stuff.

Like I was kind of a weird kid who was like listening to like bands that weren't together anymore all the time when I was like in middle school and like even early high school. the replacements and like Fugazi and stuff. But anyways, I'm excited to learn more about them because there's like one Def Tones album that I really loved and like played a lot. But I don't know much about them or their mythology or like how they fit into the greater like both new metal and just like in general like musical landscape. Susie, can you tell us first just to start like who are the Deftones? The deaf tones started in the late 80s, technically in the late 80s between three high school friends, Stefan Carpenter, Ed Cunningham, and Chino Moreno. I guess in California, you might describe them as like three rocker foos.

But yeah, there were three guys who were like kind of into skate culture, into punk and metal. Sure. But also, you know, they listen to stuff like Depeche Mode and the Smiths. Hell yeah. And The Cure. So I feel like Deftones doesn't have like a super cut and dry story like, oh yeah, they were into hair metal or whatever. They were like a really eclectic group of guys. Right.

I feel like a band like Deftones could only come out of a place like Sacramento. and California at large. Totally. These guys grew up in a cultural melting pot where, like, you know, Stefan and Chino, they were Mexican-American. Chino also has Chinese ancestry, thus his nickname, Chino.

And later on in the 90s, they also were joined by their bassist, Chi-Chang, a Chinese-American who went to college in Sacramento. And, they just had so many different eclectic influences. And I think that it's been really, really hard for anyone to, like, emulate what death tones

does because they come from a very specific context, like in California, but also like in metal, in alternative music. Totally. I'm always struck by like that area of California. Like, it's really kind of like equally cultural. diverse in a way that like is almost like a little perfect dispersion. For example, one of my favorite little dumb facts is like there's a town called Vallejo, which is like maybe an hour from Sacramento, but in the same area of California.

And it's the most equally diverse place in the state. It's almost exactly 25% Asian, Latinx, white and black, which is like you don't really find places like that anywhere in America. let alone, you know, so it's like, I hear what you're saying where it's like not only like could this band only like come out of California. I feel like probably a lot of like what makes them so unique is just like that diversity of both influences and just like who they are. Absolutely. And I think that that's something that really drew me to them. Just the first time that I ever heard deaf tones was in 2000

when they released the song back to school, which I will tell you later, it's a very contentious song in their catalog. But that was the first time that I ever encountered them, like seeing their video on MTV. What's up with deaf tones? Me being like this little baby rockera, like in Florida, I had these older cousins.

I'm half Cuban, half Belizean, and I had these older cousins who were like rockers and skaters, and they love deaf tones. They, like, put me on to them. And it wasn't even about who they were. Like, it wasn't about their cultural background, you know, being a, quote, diverse band. That's not really what it was.

But watching back to school and seeing a bunch of kids, you know, especially kids that looked like me and my cousins, just kind of like causing a rocket. in school where, like, you know, me being in Florida, I partly grew up in Miami and then moved up north to Jacksonville where things were pretty segregated. And so I didn't enjoy that kind of melting pot cultural experience when I was a teenager the same way that someone who grew up in Sacramento might.

So seeing a band like that on MTV meant the world to me because where I was going to school, I mean, like kids like me were very heavily surveilled all the time. You know, I was always in detention. It felt like I got singled out a lot. It felt like a lot of, you know, the black and brown kids that I grew up with, we were just getting singled out all the time in ways that felt really like frustrating and unfair. And then at the same time as if I didn't get it enough from like the authorities, from like my teachers, the principal, whoever. Like, I would get it from other kids who, because I was like a Latina and also a rocker, you know, like, there were kids who'd be like, why do you want to be white, you know? And so that's like where I was coming from when I started listening to the deaf tones.

For them, they probably don't even think about it like that at all. And I respect that. But at the time, it was so cool just to like see that. and just see them rocking out. And, you know, there were other bands like that, too. There was rage. There was soul fly. Like, the thing about new metal is how incredibly, like, ethnically diverse that wave of metal was.

Whether it's new metal or just, like, hard rock in the 90s and 2000s. Like, it definitely felt like something that spoke to me at the time. Yeah, 100%. I think even, like, honestly, pre-year. dating that like I think about like a lot of like punk where it's like now when you think about punk it's like the white genre right it's because people think of pop punk or whatever which even that is not fully wide but that's how people think of it but like yeah you know go back to like dead kennedy's you know like dh pliegro is african-american like there's like there was a lot of diversity in bad brains

exactly like for lack of a better word hardcore music or whatever especially guitar music and especially guitar, hard guitar music that came out of California. And I think that's really interesting. I want us to play a song. Yes. Why don't we hear Bored off of their first release adrenaline? Let's do that. Okay. This is Bored by the Doftowns. You are listening to a music and talk episode where full songs and talk segments live together in gorgeous harmony only on Spotify. Guess what? You can also create your own music and talk show. For free with Inker, Spotify's podcasting platform. Get started at anchor.fm slash music and talk. That's anchor.com slash music and talk. Okay, that was bored. I've not listened to this album, and that's a really good song.

I really enjoyed it. Yeah, I downloaded it off lime wire in 2001. Yeah, you did. Apologies. I was in middle school. I didn't have money yet. Here, in this song, you hear like the whole family tree that comprises like Deaf Tones influences, at least early on. I think of a band like Corn and what they were doing in 1995-96. That's so interesting that you brought up corn though, Susie, because When I was listening to this song, it was making me think of early corn that I really liked, like the song Blind, for example.

Yes. The guitars are very similar. Yes. The guitars, interestingly enough, like, I mean, they didn't have, I feel like when I hear the guitar in board and more generally, Deftone's first album, adrenaline, like, I hear Helmet. Totally helmet. Oh, my God, so much. They were a huge influence. I mean, like, the way that Stefan plays guitar,

especially on this track, just sounds like, it sounds like this sawing Paige Hamilton riff. But at the same time, you have, you have Chino, like singing very melodically, having this kind of, like, Androgen voice.

Totally. You know, he's a student of, I mean, so many different vocalists. Like, there's a really good, deaf tones cover. of Chade's No Ordinary Love Oh boy

Yes, yes So it's like They were They really threw everything Into They threw everything they could Into this mix of sounds I feel like the thing that makes

Deptone so special is that they didn't shy away from experimenting with sounds that might seem very disparate what sets them apart in this era specifically, like in the 90s, from all these like hard rock alternative bands that were popular at the time is that they employed the same loud, quiet, loud sequence that you would hear in, I guess more like emo bands, you know, like you hear glimmers of that,

but then you have that like super driving guitar that you would hear in hum. Oh my God, do you think you missed that? train to Mars, babe? No, you're out back counting stars. Yeah. That's a great song. So I just want you to understand that while I've been half listening to you, the other half of my brain went on a little train ride away to helmet and has just been like listening to milk toast in the back of my mind, just like on a loop. No, I'm just kidding. I have been fully listening to you, but also some part of my brain is still listening to milk toast. No, I hear everything you're saying and it's, it's crazy because I again I've just never really thought in depth about this band and I haven't

heard the early stuff so like I mean the hum thing just like you really fucking clicked it into place in my brain because like that is that song that we that I jokingly just quoted the lyrics to like that's very the soft quite and then hard hard guitars and then like very soft um this is a question I like to always ask especially around the 90s because I think the 90s was this weird time of like a free-for-all of bands getting signed to major labels that it just like now you're like what and even like in the 80s you'd be like what but like in the 90s it was just like a band like deaf tones which from what I can tell like they basically formed started playing shows only in California and then got signed to Maverick which was Madonna's and Gio series like subsidiary

of I can't even fucking remember which major, but Marrick was a great label. And they did take risks and stuff. But it's like to get signed to Maverick off the strength of like playing a show with corn, you know, without like really having output or anything is like seems kind of unthinkable. Because corn also wasn't corn. Corn's timeline pretty much is like lines up side by side with Deftone. So it's not like corn was so huge that like they wanted to sign like their compatriot or whatever. Yeah. It's weird because they. They sound like very different bands. Like if you really tried to compare albums like adrenaline and Life is Peachy,

like they're very, very different albums. Yeah. But there was something in the water in California at the time. You know, like Corn was from Bakersfield. Yeah. They were actually, you know, a song on Life is Peachy. It's called Chi and that's actually like dedicated to Chi Chang from Deaf Tones. So they were definitely running in the same circles, but deaf tones got signed to Maverick, and they were starting to encroach on like this metal scene.

Right. I was 12 years old-ish, 11 or 12, and I was like from Torin, so I was like really into skateboarding. And I would like read skate magazines, right? And like I remember the first time I heard corn, which was a, you know, kind of a bigger band for me than. Deaf Tones and probably just because of this random coincidence that like the single for Blind, which is before Life is

Pitchy, it's from the self-titled. The self-title. Yeah, was included in this like in Warp Magazine, which was like a super fucking cool magazine. So they were like positioned as cool and I think they kind of soundtracked some skate videos back then. I'm wondering if Deftones had big skate videos back in the day. You remember the 90s better than I would.

That's right. I'm older. Thank you, Susan. in case anyone forgot, I am far older than you. But no, no, they started out as skaters, for sure. Like, they were all involved in the skate scene. If you look at their early videos, I mean, they all look like skate videos. Even when they're just, like, hanging out in someone's living room or in, like, Stefan's mom's garage, you know? like they look like old skate videos for sure that makes I mean again not we'll go and get too deep into it but like a lot of music was dispersed through skate culture back then especially in

california because skaters have really diverse taste as well and like you would hear all sorts of shit in skate videos and get put on to stuff um okay so deaf tons gets signed guy of siri sees them in a show with corn puts them on maverick um and they put out that album um that board is on, called adrenaline. How did it do? Like, do you know, like, what the impact of this album was, like, culturally? Like, was it on the radio? Was it on MTV?

Did it chart? It got, like, kind of a mixed reception. They recorded it really quickly. So it wasn't quite, like, full-baked death tones. It was, like, half-baked death tones. It was showing their point. potential. But eventually it was like after touring a lot, they had to tour it a lot, like after they released it. Eventually it became kind of this this unsung classic. As they do. But it had a

modest reception at first. Producer Dylan has popped in to mention that Deftones opened for Kiss during this album cycle, which is a fun thing that happens when you, sign to something like Maverick, right? It's like, death tones are like, you know what? We think that would be a good idea for you is if you went on tour with Kiss. I would have loved to fucking be like at that show, like with those like mega Kiss fans who probably showed up with their fucking faces painted, ready to like glam rock out. And then the deaf tones come on and play these songs.

And they were probably so bummed. You know, singing to the people and he's like, how you doing? You can hear it. And people are like, what's going on? That was a tough gig opening for Kiss. Those are like the theater kids of metal. Totally. Yeah.

You know, these like four guys in cargo shorts. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Like pomade in their hair or something. 100%. Like an etnese being like, all right, we're about to bum you the fuck out for the 30 minutes of our allotted time. Like we can send my chemical romance out on tour with Kiss and that's fine. But like we really shouldn't be sending the deaf tones.

Okay, so this album is like sort of like reviewed okay. They don't, they don't really get as far as I can tell. They're not really on the radio. They're not on MTV yet. But they do quite of quickly record another album. Their next album, around the fur, came out in 97. And this was like the buildup to around this time there was like more of a buildup to what we now know as new metal. I actually think that this album was like the closest that they ever got to new metal.

That's probably why it's my favorite. Yes, it's also around the fur is also my favorite Duff Tones album. Yes. I think the through line was in the bass. Was in the way that Chi Chang played the bass on this album. He works in a lot of really like funky, groovy stuff in there, but it's also super heavy. And I think that this was actually like, I would say this was, this was their heaviest album. It kicks off with my own summer shove it in parentheses.

They set the bar straight away. Literally a great song. You know what? Hold that fucking thought because we're going to play the song. Go off. Let's hear my own summer, parentheses, shove it. Okay, that was my own summer shove it. Sorry, just quickly, because on this here podcast, I like to talk about myself.

I just remembered, like, the reason I loved this album so much. This was, like, a weird high school period for me where I befriended the hot, hardcore, hard music guy in my school and, like, you know, a feeble attempt to romance, but I was extremely ugly. So we just became gross. Wow. Shout out Chris Waugh, wherever. you are. But we together were very into this Daftone's

album and then about a year later a band that we have not yet talked about from that California diverse milieu system of a down. Mm-hmm. Wake up! Wake up! They were fucking awesome and like me

screaming with the kombucha mushroom people in high school, just loving life, not really understanding what I was talking about, TBH with Kiswah. shout out to him again, wherever he is. But yeah, like this, I closely like link those two albums in my mind because it was, those two albums are also like the two albums of two bands that became much bigger on the next

albums for each of them. But these, those two are the albums that I like famously rooting for the under album. And two of the most just like trailblazing bands like at, I mean, in. In my personal opinion, I feel like deaf tones and system of a down were really pushing the bounds of what metal could sound like. My own summer is one of my favorite, like, drum songs of all time. Abe Cunningham has this very specific, like, signature in his drumming style that's actually, And this is where the California jumps out. It's actually like he, what he does is he uses, he takes rim shots.

You hear when he hits the rim of the snare drum, and that's a sound that you hear in like reggae and ska. It's got this like delicious like pop to it. The fact that he freaked it and like turned it into a metal sound. And made it good. and made it good. It could have been really cheesy. But he made it sound good.

And it's something that's so specific to him as a drummer. And it's very hard for anyone else to imitate it without straight up, you know, like lifting his steeds. Totally. From the first rim shot in my own summary. Like, I don't know. You know that you're like in for a ride. Can I just say you're really smart? and I'm deeply enjoying this.

I'm like, again, all I use Bansplan for is a vehicle to talk about myself, to talk about Dave Matthews, and then to further understand myself, like, a therapy session. And I'm now really getting as, like, a young, you know, 15-year-old girl who had been ripped away from my home of Southern California and transplanted into Singapore and was like, yeah. I mean, it's fine. I turned out fine. But actually up for debate. But you know how it is. When you're 15, the worst thing that could happen to you on fucking God's good earth is people take you away from your friends and your culture that you've built and like painstakingly become, you know, a part of.

And like that happened to me. Yeah. It's hard, right? And then you're always kind of weird after that. You're always kind of like a clown for in my case where you're like, who's like me or whatever. And but then like listening to these, it makes sense for me. looking back where I'm like why I connected so deeply with this Deftown's album and that system of a down album this was the sound like you're saying that the thing about the rim shot right

it's like that's I was just hearing the sounds that I like had kind of grown up on in different ways like through like be it like punk or ska or you know southern California northern California sounds and these bands were like my connection back to like a thing that I had like been taken away from. Put away your Kleenex people. So this album now we're cooking with gas in terms of like cultural

appreciation and like piercing into the psyche of teens everywhere because this is on MTV. This song is on the radio and it's on MTV. Yeah. I do remember this video. I think there were sharks. Amazing. Incredible.

Real left turn. there. But there is this like glimmer of like goth pop melody in the middle of the record and that's in the song, Be Quiet and Drive. Oh yes. I was hoping you would

I was hoping you would pull that one up. We have to we have to play this song because it's like be quiet and dry far away. That's like this lovely little oasis in the of this super, you know, brackish metal record that at times, you know, can get like really sleazy.

Like, I think about a song like Day of the Flu where he talks about like how his girlfriend at the time like just tries to like avoid having sex. Sorry, this is no sorry. This is Chino. Nothing is off limits here at Bansplain. Around the fur is this like super brackish abrasive metal record. And in the lyrics themselves, you have Chino, like, processing his relationships and how to communicate and, like, what to do when you don't necessarily feel quite certain in your, like, desires for other people. And he does this in some lines, like, you know, it reads, like, free verse poetry sometimes. That's kind of how he wrote them.

Like, like, the way that Chino writes songs, it's a lot like the way more. Morrissey would write a song. It's just a lot of, you know, random thoughts, like kind of free verse meandering, things that he would say in conversations if he felt like he could. You know, in a song like mascara where he just tells his partner that. Mascarra so much. There are times when he just writes this like free verse poetry and then other times where he straight up says, I hate your tattoo. you have weak wrists, but I'll keep you. And it's like something you would write. You would scraw on like notebook paper and hope that your girlfriend never sees it, you know.

I thought men liked weak wrists. I always thought that one of my problems was the strength of my wrists. Can we actually hear a mascara? Sorry, I just commendering the vehicle for one second. Here's mascara. that was mascara I also would like to have weak wrists I'm working on it my wrists

They're okay They're like medium medium strength You know Susie I was listening And I was like man This It's all falling into place in my feeble mind The like kind of quiet Like

The way Chino does it is sexual to me more than it is yeah absolutely totally more than like for example when jonathan davis does it it's also a little sexual but it's also menace it's more menacing i think but you know it's like a little more like i don't know foreboding whereas chino's feels like a little more like sexy goth and then you got like surge who's like just like a lunatic you know from from system of a down. And I find I find it's interesting they're all working kind of within the same medium if you will, but they're bringing like such a different tone to it. Yeah. Generally masculinity in rock, sexuality in rock has been quite a journey. And I think that one one really

great thing about growing up in this era was just listening to people exploring different dimensions of their sexuality, not necessarily sticking to the rap boy shit, basically. And in the 90s, I mean, there were tons of artists playing with that. I mean, I think about Stone Temple pilots, like Scott Weiland, parodying that, like, predatory masculinity in the song, like, sex type thing. Totally. Also, a great architect of my young sexuality. of Scott Wyland with that voice. And then that photo, if you'll remember when he was naked playing the piano with the red hair,

I think it was in like sassy or something. Oh, man. Burned into my brain. Burned into my brain. Scott Weiland was incredible. Actually appeared uncredited on the following Death Tones album. But no, that era of Scott Weiland was fantastic. And that was when you started to hear him.

And also like many other guys in hard rock, like starting to color outside of the the lines when it came to expressing their, like, masculinity and their sexuality. I feel like corn, especially in their self-titled, like, I feel like that was the, like, masculinity was definitely, like, the central theme. Totally. And Jonathan Davis sort of grappling with being able to be vulnerable. And also, like, sexual on, on his terms in a way that, like, didn't necessitate him to be this.

like scary Hulk about it. You know, this like testosterone-addled guy. And that's not his voice, you know? Like he's got, he's also got a really melodic voice. He's a really like powerful singer. But he also does this thing where he's kind of like, like you said, there's something very sinister about it. Yeah, and like blind.

It's like, this place is time of mind. No, he wants to, he's like all creepy. Crawley. But that's the feeling that he wants to evoke, I think. I think he wants to evoke this like discomfort in his listeners. But Chino is more like, all right, come in. The water's warm. You know? Your wrists are weak, baby. Get in the water? But he says there's something about her, you know? And he's like, I feel like the way that that Chino sings is very much, it's it's him just kind of toying with like like he's he's being really like flirty in a in a kind of like impish like devilish way but in a way that's also very like

I don't know pleasant to hear something that's very inviting beguiling if you will which was perfect for all the like fucking teen vampire freaks like me and my friends and assorted boyfriends in my past. Yes, 100%. I was transitioning out of pop punk, which, as you know, they have a very mature and adult view of sexuality, like, you know, Blinquentity for example. Where are you?

It's very elevated. So it was nice to transition to something a little more, you know, a little more adult. Right. But this is also where. Chino's influences really shine as a vocalist. He was super inspired by a lot of British 80s vocalists like Dave Gahan from Depeche Mode, like Robert Smith from the Cure. And they also had these very sinewy, just really silky voices. But also deep and like kind of like, I mean, goth, we can't avoid the world the word, why are we, why are we dancing around it?

Gothi, gothic voices. Gauthie music, gothic voices. Why don't we hear Be Quiet and Drive parentheses far away to really cap this off? That was Be Quiet and Drive parentheses far away. Two things. Number one, as a person who is as a writer terminally addicted to parentheticals, literally can't stop using them, love them so much. I think I put them in my like senior, you know, fucking message. Like I love, they're in my bio.

I'm addicted. I love a band that uses parentheticals on many of their songs, not just one or two, many. Mm-hmm. And secondly, it's like, you know what? Take Jesus and Mary Chain and make it go fucking hard. And that's the song to me. I was like, you know, I hear it.

At first you're like, oh, yeah, this is. And then you're like, okay. And I love it so much every time I hear it. Yeah, I just love that, you know, lush kind of like, blow dive feel in the beginning. And suddenly it just all comes crashing down on you. You saw me rocking out. I did.

You were feeling it. And I enjoyed that. I was like, that's right. We're all, we're feeling it. Do you know that one time at Lollapalooza, ice cubes band beat up Jesus and Mary Chain for being like bad attitude. No. It was a fun fact I learned from Anthony Kudis's fantastic autobiography scar tissue.

I highly recommend. Incredible. Another band that Deptones toured with around this time was Red Hot Chili Peppers. That, again, that makes sense. A lot of what you were saying earlier, I was thinking about red hot chili peppers as like, again, sonically, no. But spiritually, they are definitely predecessors in the way that, like, they took a milieu of influences that weren't really that contemporary happening and put them into something totally brand new. And I think not a lot of bands do that, right? Like, it's not that common.

And so, like, you have Red Hot Chili Peppers doing that about a decade prior. And then you have bands like Deftones, like, kind of separately. I mean, Red Hot Chili Peppers did it at the same time, maybe like a couple years later. Faith No More, Mr. Bungle, all that was kind of doing similar things. But same here with, like, deaf tones, what we're talking about, corn. And they really were just like pulling influences from the air and making something so completely new. And that doesn't happen all the time, right? No.

No, it does not. I think when we're talking about this era of what people might refer to as new metal bands from California, all signs point back to what was happening with like this wave of like funk rock, I guess. We're talking about the chili peppers and face no more punk funk punk funk I believe is what they call it. Yes. Yes. I can't help but like think about that. But you would only think about it if you were familiar with it in any way. Or if you were maybe deeply researching a future episode of Bandsplain, perhaps. Yeah. Well, also and you can like chart them all back to the same plate. I mean, whatever. I'm not going to do that fucking annoying thing where it all comes back. from blues blaze rock, but like that's not what I was going to say, but it does.

But what I was going to say is like you can chart it also all back to like Black Flag. You know, like, which like did kind of birth these like offshoots that like reached into the chili peppers then later trickled down into things like new metal, you know? But it there was like a, there was a very, and Black Flags not the only band, but like, you know, bands like that from like the earlier punk scene and hardcore scene in Calvarez. California did give rise either directly or indirectly to bands like red hot chili peppers and then eventually bands like death tones and corn and system of a down. So that's right.

We are a black flag loving show. Yes, we do love black flag. Well, this leads me to my next point. I feel like new metal is so contentious. Like the term is so contentious. It seems like every band that was associated. with that moniker has since totally, like, disavowed it. Totally.

And even at the time, you know, like, I think corn resisted it. Jonathan Davis specifically resisted that label because he equated it with, like, butt rock, basically. He was, like, I think about the guys who bullied me when I was in high school. That's how he saw this label. They were signed to a major label in, like, the mid-day. 90s and were just kind of thrown into this cluster of bands that was emerging at that time. But here's the thing that pushed deaf tones into this like milieu that people refer to as

new metal. It started with the song Back to School. And it was tacked on to their album, White Pony, which was their biggest commercial success. And since then, they felt very lukewarm about the song, or not even lukewarm, like Chino's straight up hates it. And on their 20th anniversary of White Pony, which was last year, they actually didn't include the song in the reissue. That's how much they hate it. But here's the thing. The way that that song came about was, you know, deaf tones, they went in, they recorded the album. And after that, you know, a representative for Maverick came to them and was like, listen, we need a hit. I'm paraphrasing here, but the guy was like, the kids are really into rap rock.

And I think you need something that sounds a little more aligned with the time. And what was happening on the radio, which was largely Lint Biscuit. I mean, Limp Biscuit. That's your friends. My friends, Lint Biscuit, fellow Jackson villains. They're huge. Yeah. So the guy from Maverick is like, all right, we basically need a Lindquistit track.

And the thing is, is like the guys from Deftones, sure, they listen to hip hop, but that wasn't like really an element that was super present in their music. And it was Limbiscuit. It was Lincoln Park. It starts with love. I don't know why. It doesn't even matter how hard you try. I think their big album was also that same year, 2000. was in.

Might have been before a white pony came out, but they were huge. Yeah. And so there could have been a little bit of hip hop influence, maybe like earlier on. Oh my God. Papa Roach I just remembered. Cut my life into pieces. This is my last resort. Papa Roach.

Yes. They wrote this song back to school. It's basically like a hooligan anthem because Maverick went to them. And they were like, listen, we need a rap rock song. That's what the kids are listening to. You had bands like Limp Biscuit on TRL. Lincoln Park was on the radio. Papa Roach was on the radio.

And they were selling big on rap rock. And by that point, Chino was like, oh, God, I don't want to do this. You know, he was like way over it. But eventually he sat down and was like, okay, watch this. and he just made the most like Hold my beer Yeah Chino Moreno was like

Hold my beer And then sat down and wrote just the most like You know this This really Like in your face Like rascally Class clown

Like Missive from detention basically It was like Chino had to travel back in time And be like Okay if I was this like skate rat in high school like like he kind of was i mean i feel like i feel like gino is still like you know he was he was a sensitive goth boy who hung out with skaters is the vibe that i get from him

but he was like okay if i was like the biggest skate rat in school what kind of song would i sing on the first day of school and that became back to school let's hear it back to school parentheses mini maggot. Okay, that was back to school. Parentheses mini maggot. Susie, judging by your level of rocking out, you love this song. You don't share Chino's thoughts on this song.

I fucking love this song. And listen, this song came out when I was in middle school. I was living in Miami at the time. And I was always in detention. I hung out with all these like alternative Latino ex kids. And me and my friend Sean, he had like pink hair. He was older.

He like, I think he was held back or something. But he had like pink hair. And we would just like draw trippy like cartoons and stuff in detention. And it was just like he put me on to this. And we just, we would just be talking about deaf tones. And if you watch the video, it's just this like, what a tortifors. Um, it must have felt really cartoonish to someone like Chino who is already like an adult, you know, I think about what I would feel like, you know, and I'm 31, what I would feel like going back to a high school and like playing a high school student. It would feel ridiculous. I'd feel like Steve Bouchemmy. Like, hey there, like fellow kids. Totally. Or Drew Barrymore, famously. Or Drew Barrymore and never been kissed. Yeah. Like, I would just.

feel like such a cornball doing that and I imagine that Chino did too. He's like why the fuck am I singing about like Backpacks pen and pencils? Is this like a Macy's back to school commercial? Like can you imagine?

This video is like the most like it's like flipping the back to school commercial on its head. Chino just like skating past all the different clicks you have like the goths. You have like girls with crimped hair.

cheerleaders, jocks, whatever. But at the end of the day, they all like rage. You know, they all like run out of the school in this teenage reverie. But it was an act, you know, and you get to the rest of White Pony. And it's a very like intense kind of confessional album. I didn't love that song. Sorry. Or agreeing with Chino.

So the rest of White Pony is. tonally and everything different from what we just heard, would you agree? Oh, sonically, like, light years away from what the rest of the album sounds like, for sure. And it's considered their masterpiece. White Pony, yes. I mean, it was their most commercially successful album, but also it's the one that people go back to the most. It's the one that I see, you know, like, I see the teens. The youths.

The youths. I see them talking about it. I see them making memes about it. I think that's hilarious. I love it. I think something is telling here, and I want to slap myself in my own mouth for not bringing this up earlier. But I'm seeing my friend Wikipedia telling me that there's a collaboration with Maynard James Keating on here.

And I can't believe we haven't talked about Tool yet. And I think the collaboration with Maynard James Keating, who we won't speculate on his personhood. But that speaks volumes to me about how much they weren't a rap, rock band, or really even a new metal band. Tool also predates steptones by a little bit. And that's a whole different ballgame, you know? Tool is definitely more industrial metal. Like, they were on the industrial side of things.

Totally. But it's like to align yourself more than with. the tools of the world, L.O.L. Then with like, you know, Lincoln, like they could have

collaborated with Lincoln Park. They could have collaborated with, you know, a happening rap rock new metal situation at the time, but they didn't.

They chose to collaborate with tool. And I think that's interesting. I think that maybe shows a little bit of the psychology that they were having around distancing themselves from this genre

that they maybe didn't feel part of. But you, tell me you're the expert. I'm simply riffing. I think purely musically is what I'm talking about. Just like the genre and music wise. I find it interesting that that's the direction they chose for the collaboration that they did on this album. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, like Maynard James Keenan is another metal singer who definitely went the more melodic route. But I think in the 90s, you started to hear more uniquely melodic voices emerge in metal. Where you could have someone like Maynard who's like a vocal virtuoso. I mean, he is pipes.

Yeah. Well, back to White Pony. Do you want to point us to a song that you think is more demonstrative of like the actual, like, kind of overarching, like, tone and feel and sound of this album. Let's listen to Change in the House of Flies. Great. Okay. This is Change parentheses in the House of Flies.

That was Change Parentheses in the House of Flies. I really went in a little time machine in my mind just now back to when that song came out. And I felt it in all of my bones and heart being a wee 18-year-old. I just want to read you real quick, Susie. I did meander over to genius.com and I would love to read you the first genius annotation for the first two lines of this song. He sees that you were a maggot

and you have now transformed into a fly. You were a pretty contemptible person of little regard, but you've matured and gained a bit of respect from Chino, but not much. You are, after all, still a fly. I would love to meet. the person that wrote that. Susie, this is a song about

this is about a woman. We can assume so, maybe. Do you think so? I couldn't, I can't tell. The lyrics are pretty opaque. Yeah. I mean, that feels like a love song in the ancient tradition of love-hate songs, which I like those kinds. But I don't know. Maybe it's about his neighbor. Who knows?

I feel like every goth love song has a little twinge of like resentment for you know towards the other person for making them feel that vulnerable vulnerable enough to write a song about them like let's talk about the sexual awakening of many young deaf tones fans uh and if you weren't a deaf tones fan before like when white pony actually came out like you have to give them props for that scene in the movie queen of the damned The world is our god. Oh my God, totally. Yeah.

A terrible movie. I fucking love it. But it's just like, it's like new metal camp. Totally. It's the scene where Stuart Townsend playing the vampire listat, who's turned into this like new metal rock star, voiced by Jonathan Davis. Stuart Townsend sitting in a bathtub filled with rose petals,

he's getting Romanced by fucking Alia okay playing the supreme vampire queen Akasha and

they get to fuck in and next thing you know you can hear Chito like oh boy and then you know she like bites him I feel like

the route for so many Deftones fans was that scene in Queen of the Damned And it's just like so incredibly appropriate, erratically appropriate for a band like this. Can we just say also death tones have had their music not in only one quite bad movie, but also the sequel to the crow. Oh my God. That's right. So it's perhaps a tradition for them to have music in questionable films. Questionable goth films.

Right. I mean, just thinking about how perfect it was that change soundtracked, like Stuart Townsend and Alia getting freaky in a bathtub. And I think that in that song, speaking more on like the musical elements of that song, that's like White Pony was also the first album to feature Frank Delgado as the, as like a member of the band. He's the, he's like the keyboard player and like turntablist. Oh man, you could not have a rock band in this time period without having a turntable list.

The clock struck 2000 and everyone was like, you know what? We need in our band? A DJ. A DJ. Yeah. And so Frank was that guy. And I think the secret sauce to a song like this is that it's not a straightforward metal song. It's like got this like trip hop electronic element to it that courses throughout the album.

You get a similar vibe in songs like RX Queen or like Knife Party, this really like bewitching electronic element that stays like continuously throughout the record. So I interviewed Deftones last year. And when I asked them about working on like their more electronic songs like this one, Frank said that it was a matter of like creating negative space and playing with the negative space. Instead of just kind of adding to it, like what makes this song so incredibly bewitching is the fact that it's like, it's not the most like busy song. It's not, it's definitely not a back to school.

But it doesn't have that same like, I guess like rock energy of like their previous songs. And it's, you know what it is? It's like that thing, kind of going back to like your thing about it being really sexual. It's like it's that thing of like when you're kissing someone, but that the part where you're not touching mouths yet. Like, you know how that's like often like the most charged part of a makeout sesh, if you will? Like that's working in this song. Producer Dylan has brought up that this might be the second time I brought this up on Bandsplain. For the record, it is my show.

being ashamed um deftones like their whole sound you know speaking outside of like the the technical musical elements of it there is this like eroticism to deftone songs even the ones where chino sounds straight up like he's raging it's just there's something about not just like his his vocal delivery, but like the band harmony in general, they do play with tension a lot. It goes back to that loud, quiet, loud sequence we were talking about that you heard in so many like alternative and emo bands in the 90s. But they took that and, you know, combined it with all the other things that they were liking, you know? I mean, I can't think of a song like change without thinking of bands like Portishead or sneaker pimps.

Because of that like simmering tension that's underlying the song and many of the songs on White Pony. And knife party, I picked Knife Party. I'm not really sure why. There's so many like urban legends around it. But I remember like one of the urban legends that I heard about this song when I was in middle school was that it's a song about people who have sex with knives. And it's like a super sexual song. Chino's really like playing with a lot of themes here. And he's really playing up the like kind of the really like flirty, menacingly flirty, coquettish energy.

Finally addressing the long ignored and marginalized knife fucker contingent of the population. Yeah, it's basically like, I always heard that it was about an orgy of people who got turned on by like blood and like cutting and stuff. Okay. Okay. Okay. Well, why don't we hear it? Why don't we hear a knife party? That was knife party.

Producer Dylan, who is now fired, said in the chat that this is the dream for knife fuckers. Yes, the falsetto, because of the falsetto. I love this song and it is truly unlike anything else. Like, that's all I kept thinking when I was listening to it. It's like, this is a song that I'm glad you picked it. I hadn't heard it. Wow. It's not like anything else, right?

Like, especially of that time period or anything, like, it's so singular. And it makes me think how I would also be fucking pissed to be lumped in with goddamn limp biscuit. when this is the kind of music I'm writing. Do you know what I mean? Like, no shade to limp biscuit. They did it all for the Nookie and the cookie and whatever else. So you can find. Find music for people of it.

Go off red durs. But this is like, this is something totally different. And wow. Wow. We will. I'm so glad that it spoke to you. You don't have to be a knife fucker for Knife party to speak to you. I suppose.

So true. Or anemic. Or anemic like I am. No, I remember hearing this and it just like rocked my world, especially hearing. So the woman singing in this song, her name is Rodlene Getsick. And she, I guess, just happened to be like kicking around the studio space. And I think they recorded this in L.A. and she just happened to be, you know, around.

Sure. And I guess like they could hear her down the hall and then invited her to freestyle and then shriek her head off. The song wouldn't be as good without that. I don't know what it would sound like without her. Like it would still be really weird. What makes it weird is the come get your knife. Come get your knife.

That's to me what makes it like completely weird. Like the other stuff altogether does make it just is kind of like intense medley shoegaze but then like come get your knife come get your knife gives this other like texture to it that's like just kind of mind blowing. Okay so Susie after White Pony, White Pony's huge and like I always find this interesting about any band's trajectory, right? Like what happens after your biggest album? it's always kind of something to see how bands react to that do they try to make the same album again and again

do they shift chorus what happened with deaf tones after a white pony which was like massively successful and really like you know put them on the map in an insane way I feel like White Pony was not just definitive for the deaf tones it was definitive of an era

where I think people were really opening up to genre fusions. I think it was more important in the 90s and 2000s to belong to like one scene as opposed to having, you know, fan bases in different scenes. I feel like the rap rock era definitely pushed back against that. Think about how many, especially in the late 90s, how many like rap and rock collaborations there were.

Like think of the spawn soundtrack or something, you know? Yeah, or the, what's that amazing soundtrack that I fucking love, Judgment Night? That's an amazing, that teenage fan club and De LaSoul song, I think that's on there. That's incredible. Hey, yo, kids. Remember when I used to be dope. Yeah.

Oh, my God, yes. You know, the earlier 90s was very much like you stay in your lane of your scene and, like, the music. While, like, some people played around with genre within their scenes, like, of course. It wasn't, like, you didn't diverge too much. much like people really identified with their scene and I think it's like not a coincidence that this happened with the rise of the internet because before it's like you almost didn't even go outside your scene because you didn't you had to spend $15 on a CD so you're not just going to be like

let me go fucking listen to this other thing that I've never really experienced but with the internet all of a sudden you're just like slamming back you know music on Limewire and Napster like it's nothing I mean it did take like two full hours to get an MP3 on to the computer but you know still it was free and you know this starts to open up scenes like you're talking about and also i think particularly while some genre like melding has been happening forever obviously like we can go back and back you know punk did it other genres did it but the particular melding of rap and rock is just so out there for the sound like they people didn't expect it you know you don't expect to hear rapping and turntabalism alongside like heavy crunching guitars. And that starts

to happen. Yes. In the 90s, 2000s, this like increased experimentation with like hip hop, electronic elements and metal. Like I think that was extremely informative for me and like how I thought about music. And people talk their shit about like slip knot and corn or whatever and and their fan bases. But at the same time just thinking about how, for example, like, I don't know how incredibly insular other scenes are. You know, I think about punk being extremely insular and how, you know, comparing something like new metal and later on, you know, I mean, talking more about death tones, thinking about this like combination of like electronic and metal elements and which I think is also tied to like industrial metal and you know bands like like ministry and like romstein um i feel like

they were all on this wave that i think precipitated what was going to be happening in music like in the next decade and beyond so i feel like white pony was kind of like a proposition to the metal world you know like here we combined all of these sounds and made something that y'all fuck with. So it's almost like Deptones decided that they were only going to lean more into experimentation. I mean, like, there's a, there's, there's, there's a funny quote about, um, where it was, it was like, I think during an interview, Chi Chang said that, uh, the producer, Terry date the, I mean, the Deftone's like trusted producer. Um, Terry went to Chi, like I don't want you doing that like funk-based shit.

Like I don't want to hear it. And she did it for change in the House of Flies. And it managed to work so well. And after that song became a hit and soundtracked our favorite scene in Queen of the Dam. He was like, all right, well, I'm going to keep fucking doing it because guess what? It works. Yeah. And so you see in the self-titled album, which came out in 2003, I think,

feel like Deftones, like, got deeper into that ocean of shoe gaze and more, more kind of, like, ambient electronic sounds. And that's a wave that they continued on for, like, the next few albums, I think. Why don't we hear a song off of the self-titled Deftones album? That's kind of, like, what you're talking about, like, them really leaning more into the sort of, like, email or experimental sounds. Yeah. I think. Minerva could have been a My Bloody Valentine song. Let's hear that one. Okay. This is Minerva off Deftones. Okay. That was Minerva off Deftones. I love that this is the direction they went. And I think I was just like listening and I was like,

it is so much that like they had like one, it's almost like New Metal had one arc and Deathstones had one arc. and there was just this like moment where they overlap. Where they collided. Yeah. But then it just, they went on their like their own individual arcs. I found a funny quote. I think it's just in the wikidipedia.

I did not do too much digging. But where Chino Merno was quoted in like Kerrang or something that's saying like, we told motherfuckers not to lump us in with new metal because when those bands go down, we aren't going to be with them. shots firing babe but like he wasn't wrong I mean I feel like Lincoln Park is

is one of the few bands that emerged during that era that's like not embarrassing at all but I also I also feel Chino on that like I understand what where he's coming from

just my tiny defense of Lincoln Park But they did their own thing, you know? Yeah. I think probably what they were reacting to is like, we are just not like that. And like we weren't ever really like that. And so like, please stop thinking that that's the kind of band we are. You said this kind of continues, this sort of like lean in their music over the next couple of albums. Yeah.

After their self-title, they stopped working with Terry Date. and they started delving deeper into this electronic sound in Saturday Night Rist. They hired a different producer named Bob Ezrin. And also at the same time that they decided to switch gears with a different producer, there was also a lot of stuff happening in the band's personal lives. I can't speak to what was happening in everyone's life, but I know that Chino had talked about dealing with drug addiction and drinking a lot. And like his marriage was like definitely crumbling at the time.

And so I guess he started taking like, you know, his own direction personally. And I don't think the band was like necessarily going to break up. They never had like a definitive breakup or anything like that. But it's kind of like everybody had to. kind of do their own thing for a little while. It took them three years to, two or three years to finish Saturday Night Risk. They released their self-titled in 2003. And then Saturday Night Risk came out on Halloween in 2006.

And between that, there was just all this like emotional upheaval between the bandmates. And it definitely comes out in this album. I mean, this is, I find it like their spookiest album and not even just in the sound, but just like in, I don't know, it has like this kind of like cursed aura about it. That's also really beautiful. It's just haunted. There are some ghosts in this album. And I feel like Cherry Waves is like the song that truly gets to like the heart of the character of this album. Yeah, I would love to hear it.

We love a divorce album. That's simply put, they're usually really good, sadly, a byproduct of a bad thing. Okay, let's hear Cherry Waves. That was Cherry Waves. That's for Bethany. Cossentino, if you're listening, this one goes out to you, babe, love you. That's a great song. Yeah.

One tidbit that stuck out from the Wikipedia of this album is that they almost worked with Dan the Automator, which I'm just obsessed with that idea, like, what a different album this could have been or like what the death tones stand on the Automator album would have sounded like. Do you think he would have let them, like, get away with putting out something so, like, gauzy and sleepy sounding? I think it just would have been more swingy or, like, you know, like you've heard his work with, like, Mike Patton and stuff. It's obviously, like, so different.

Yeah, Cherry Waves. I mean, I hear this and I think about the cover of Shade's No Ordinary Love that Deftones did, like in their previous B-Sides album that they put out between their self-titled and Saturday Night Risk. Namely in, you know, Chino's vocals, I think he was also like letting himself sing more softly, like, you know, carry his voice a little bit stronger the way that I don't know, even like a pop singer might. definitely like allowed himself to be a bit more of a singer than like maybe like focusing on having to sound like we talked about before like the various like qualities of the voice that overlap with Jonathan Davis for example. You know it's like more heavy menacing type things like there is something more vulnerable in these vocals in this song like you can really hear it and it's partially the singing and I think it's partially the production. like it's not quite as effect heavy on his voice. And that was also, I'm sure, a creative choice. Oh, yeah. Chino also played guitar on this album more so than he did on like any of the other albums.

And he just like he went into this just thinking like, yep, we're just making, there's a quote here. We're making straight evil music. Yeah. I think this album seems like they definitely started to get. I don't want to say weirder, but, you know, they kept pushing their experimentation like you're talking about. And I really like the fact that they collaborated with Annie Hardy from Giant Drag on here, too, which is like unexpected in terms of a collaboration. And surge.

And surge, which is more expected. Still very cool, but more expected. What happens after Saturday Night Wrist? Also, need to just point out that this band is more obsessed with wrists than any other band I've ever talked about. It's the second time we're talking about risk. Really, really, it's the deftone setting the direction for us here. We're just riding along with them. Exactly.

Okay, so Deftone started working on a follow-up to Saturday Night Risk called Eros. And that started in April of 2008. However, in November of 2008, their basest, Chi got into an absolute hideous car wreck and went into a coma. Chi Chang remained hospitalized until he finally died of cardiac arrest in 2013. Right. So it was like five years. He was in a coma for five years. It's horrible. I think that Chi was like a very,

crucial part of the band. Like this band, I mean, Deftones were not cheese band. They weren't Chino's band. They weren't Steffin's band. They weren't Abe or Frank's band. Like, it's this specific formula that worked for them up to this point.

Right. As they were like without a bassist, but like they didn't know what was going to happen. They had to like make some choices. So they needed to find a bassist who was also, so powerful and had their own definitive sound. And they found that in Sergio Vega, who played bass in the New York post-hardcore band Quickstand. That's when you can hear a noticeable turn in the band's sound. I mean, he really, like, he packs a punch when he plays bass. It was awesome that they

were able to recruit him. Like, quickstand is such an influential band. Totally. I think it's so, it's such a testament to what you were saying that like this band is not one person's band and never has been and like it's such a collaborative band that like they a didn't seek to just like replace chi with like a chia like you know like who sounded like him and who could just fill his shoes because they that's not their vibe they went out and found someone who was also very singular and because they're such a collaborative band the whole sound shifts you know and that's really that's really that's really a mark of how much this band relied on each member to bring to the table what would ultimately be the sonic output of the band and the record they put out together.

And so with Sergio Vega, they put out Diamond Dies, is that right? Is that the first record they did with him? Yes. Diamond Dies has more of that like shoegazy, like slow dive sound, but I think it does have like its heavier moments. After sitting in the opium den that was Saturday night wrist, Diamond Dyes is like stepping out of that and like into the like blazing sunshine, having a cup of coffee, waking the fuck up and then being like, okay. So where were we? You know?

Yeah. It's like they got back on track a little bit. if you listen to the title track, Diamond Dyes, like that's worlds away from sex tape, which is my personal favorite. Let's hear a sex tape. Since we've already heard a clip of Diamond Dyes, let's hear a sex tape in its entirety. So you get a feel for the difference, but also like a feel for Susie's favorite track off of this album. Okay, this is Sex Tape. Okay, that was Sex Tape.

I'm kind of surprised. It sounds like it was really good. It sounds like a smashing pumpkin song. Do you know what I mean? Exactly. Exactly. Like we're really singing now, which it's like like we sort of talked about with the last record, like less and less like effect and maybe even affectation was happening with the singing. And now this feels just like I'm singing, babe.

There I am. Hear me. Oh, yeah. No, Chino's cruising. It's great. He's just like coasting along. I mean, just thinking back to like my own summer. Yeah, no, totally.

Like what? He's like screaming his head off, you know? How did people react to this? We fucking loved it. I don't know. I feel like this was also reflective of what was happening in metal, like in other corners of like the metal world. I'm thinking about the advent of like black gaze. bands like Death Heaven.

Yes. Also the growing popularity of like these space rock sounds. Right. In alternative music and indie rock like a lot of like shoe gaze fusion was happening in the 2010s. Yeah, Beach House. Yeah, like Dream Pop, but also bands that sounded kind of like old C-86 band. I mean, I don't think that death tones are twee, but I think about the return to a lot of the sounds that bands like Slow Dive were making. Right, right.

And how everyone tried to take like a little piece of that and then integrate it into whatever kind of music they were making, whether it was like pop or metal. Yeah, I feel like, you know, again, this is sort of new to me, right? because I'm like coming along for the ride when you're guiding me. But I'm I'm really impressed and like struck by this doesn't always happen though when like a band, you know, who did initially have these influences anyway. Like we talked about it at the top of the episode throughout like it's not like they weren't listening to The Cure and My Bloody Valentine and stuff like that. But like how authentic to continue to evolve along with the evolution. of like everything that's happening within yourself and around you, you know, like these guys are older. They're in their 40s now. They're not, you know, shove it. They don't have that same,

you know, you don't maintain, I would hope, the rage that you have as a young person. It's not sustainable. And they've also gone through like multiple tragedies, you know, probably personally. And then also, obviously, as we talked about with the cheese accident. So like this record does feel really authentic to all of that. Like, it's not, to me, sounding like it's a crazy departure. It sounds like a total, like, evolution that makes sense and feels very, correct is not the right word, but just it feels real. Yeah.

Very well said. Oh, thank you so much. How are the deaf tones, you know, in today's musical landscape viewed, like, what have they contributed since here. Like it sounds to me like I can really hear what you're saying as like this album sort of predating like a death heaven and the bands that like go along with that, you know? Yeah. But what are they up to now or like what what's going on with deaf tones?

You said they go back to like a metal sound, right? Yeah. I mean, I would say it is heavier. Like their music did get heavier after again. You know, I feel like death tongues, they had to do their little like. dark wave thing. Right. Totally.

I'm being, I'm being silly, but, you know, they had to have their, like, Christian death, Sisters of Mercy moments. Yeah, but it's a record about grief, right? Like, a record about grief, to me, would sound like that. And it makes, it makes sense that, like, yeah, maybe that was just the moment they were experiencing and, like, then things shift again. And you, like, you're saying, like, they go back to a harder sound or, or, you know, a different kind of harder sound.

Mm-hmm. What comes after Diamond Dyes? So after Diamond Dyes is Koi No Yokan. Mm-hmm. And I picked the song Swirp City because it's just like, I don't know. It feels like it feels like going from like a, you know, driving a little, a little Honda to driving a fucking monster truck. I don't know how else to describe it.

But it's like after roving this, this limit. space between losing their best friend, you know, one of their best friends, and actually like progressing into the future, it's like deaf tones come out guns blazing. Well, let's hear a swerve city off Kuoch, no yucon. That was swerve city. Susie, do you feel like the fans of deaf tones, you kind of talked about this a little bit earlier in general about like how hard music at that time had started to spread across genres in a way that was like kind of unprecedented. And then obviously clearly as we've talked about

in their own way, deaf tones have done that a bunch too. Do you feel like the fan base of deaf tones, that's like something that they specifically appreciate about the band? Like they are individually maybe fans and you obviously included as you're a mega fan are fans of all these different inputs like the shoe gaze and the, you know, harder stuff and the metal. Is that something and this kind of deafness in switching sort of around the genres and melding them in different ratios? Is that something that is like really appreciated about the deaf ones by their fan base? Oh, yeah. I mean, they have, they have fans in like so many different countries and cultures, you know. One of my favorite things about going to South America, I spent some time in Chile in like 2018,

was being at parties of people. And it didn't matter if they were people who preferred like Ragedon. Like one of my friends, she's like obsessed with Raghetton. She has a white pony tattoo. And it didn't matter if they were like traditional metal fans. It seems like almost every kind of person can find something they like about deaf tones. When I saw deaf tones at Coney Island, I saw them with the Refused, which was incredible. I was like standing next to like a bunch of nurses.

It was these like otherwise, you know, very like deceptively clean cut women who just like really fucking love the deaf tones. I love that. There is something very universally appealing to them. And I think it's because they've taken the risks that they've taken sonically. There just is something accessible about them to a lot of people. And it doesn't mean that they're not like a challenging band. I think that they have their moments. But there is something for everyone to like about them. Well, guess what, Susie? We've reached the favorite part. The favorite? My favorite? No one's favorite. Part of the episode where we are going to hear from some real life, Deftones, super fans. Cool. Yes. Producer Dylan says no one's favorite. That's okay. We're going to do it anyways. Here are the fans. So I'm 39 and I formed my first band when I was 14, right around the time the adrenaline came out. And even at 39, I still feel like I'm doing my own version of what they do, which is sweeten the sour, that dynamic. Deftones is sex, drugs, and rock and roll, but vulnerable and conflicted.

It's an evolution of cocaine music that you get to headbag to, sometimes invincible, sometimes cautionary. What I love about deaf tones the most is introducing them to people who write them off as a new metal band and don't understand how good they are. In my opinion, the deaf tones took the moment of new metal and made it their own. I'm a sucker for California snares, dropsy tuning, and tempos best enjoyed while driving. So naturally, when I discovered deaf tones, I was sucked. Their band that has always had the one foot metal and hardcore, wanted emo, post-punk, shoe gaze, even hip-hop at times. But it was never done in a way, like, you know, look at us. combining all these different things,

it was a lot more seamless than that. They correctly pivoted out of new metal on their third album, White Pony, which is a masterpiece and one of the best albums ever recorded. They pivoted out of new metal. They saw where it was going, and they knew they wanted to do something different. They looked like the older dudes in my neighborhood

that we so badly wanted to hang out with, like me and my little skate rat friends, but we were just too young, and they were just so much cooler. Like, we had a kick cramp, but the older kids had a half-pipe. and they had, you know, boomboxes and 40s and girlfriends or boyfriends. And so we'd like skate around them, but we could never really hang out.

I sort of discovered them at the same time I began HRT transitioning. So like before I was pretty much always withheld emotionally, like Chino's close mic, whisper reverses. And now HRT has unlocked the dynamic power. powerful energy of his chorus and hooks. That sound essentially defines, you know, where I grew up, what time I grew up. And they took that moment and that energy, and they did the most interesting things to it, in my opinion. And so, you know, they took heavy and aggressive, but then made it erotic, atmospheric, dreamy, and fused Morrissey, dismiss the cure into something that people wouldn't think you could be able you could do that sort of

like that pero piceno perigronde meme just pure bipolar music for gemini's chino is a gemini god damn this was seriously the best grouping of fan voices i've heard yet that's like i had to be punished for saying it was no one's favorite because these were fucking fire like the takes they like said how did they even know what we were going to talk about the snares they talked about everything yeah i'm blown away i'm blown away by this fan voices that was great it was great um shout out to our mega fans um susy we've now sadly reached the end of the episode i know there's a couple more albums. People do have access to Spotify to go listen to them. Yes, they do. I think that their most recent album, Oms, was like a beautiful, full circle moment from the time that they released White Pony.

Oms has this like very classic like rock and roll drive to it, especially in the beginning. And it's kind of jarring at first because you're like, whoa, is this where they're going? But then it's, It's like you get to ease back in and be like, oh, oh my God, okay, this is the death tones that I always knew. It sees them continue to own the sound that they created. And I feel like that's what makes a timeless band so timeless is when they really own their own sound. Gorgeous, a gorgeous wrap up with a beautiful black gothbow. Susie, thank you so much for coming on Bansplain. This was amazing. Thank you guys for listening. Come back every Thursday for a new episode. And this is Oms by the Deftones. If you liked what you heard today, subscribe for more episodes of Bansplain, only on Spotify.

Our brilliant goth guest was Susie Expozito. Follow her on Twitter at Hex Positive. Huge thanks to the Deftones mega fans you heard on this episode. episode, Derek Miller, John Cullen, Luke O'Neill, Walker Warren, and Zia. Bansplane is a Spotify original show. This episode was produced by Producer Dylan, aka Dylan Tupper Rupert, and edited by Michael Hardman, with help from Casey Simonson and Tari Miller. Executive producers for Bansplane are Gina Delvec and me, Yossi Salek. Our gorgeous and catchy theme song was composed and performed by Bethany Cozantino and

Jennifer Clayman and graciously recorded by Carlos de la Garza in Los Angeles, California. Special thanks to Felipe Gihermino, Robert Adler, Leah Edwards, David McDenna, Dana Meyerson, Jessica Hopper, and the framed drawing of David Matthews that I got on Deepop, whose spirit continues to guide. Come back every Thursday for a new episode of Bamsplay. Only on Spotify. It us. Cooking with Gas.