Deftones

One of my favorite bands and one of my heroes is the Deftones. A band that has a style that is of their own. With every album having a different feel too. A band that has been together for the past 20 years starting off playing in local clubs to headlining there own shows and touring with some of the biggest bands today such as Linkin Park and Korn. They are a band that blends metal with a style of hip hop and alternative rock. Which is why they're one of my favorite bands and one of my heroes for making great music.

Deftones

The meaning of "Deftones" by Stef Carpenter(guitar) :

"I listened to a lot of rap at the time, but, I always imagined being in a band but I could never pick out a name. I was like, "how do bands just pick their names?" You know, some bands, you got these metal bands that try to make their name all ugly and whatever. I wanted to pick a cool name, something that would just stand out but you know, not be all cheese-ball at the same time. Well, I was really into old classic music, like from the 50's and shit like that. I was like, "Tones," you know there's a lot of bands from that era that has "The Tones" in it. And "Def," just cuz I listen to a lot of LL COOL J, Public Enemy, you know, like Def Jam and all that. Then I thought, "Deftones," that would be kinda cool. Def would be mean "cool" and Tones would be like. the sound of the old days but being vague. cuz we didn't do just one kind of music. It was pretty heavy, but it has never been focused on one particular style of music."

The group was first formed in 1988 in Sacramento by high school friends Stephen Carpenter (guitar), Abe Cunningham (drums), and Chino Moreno (vocals) first began to jam together. They were able to invest a lot of there money on there equipment by the money that Carpenter collected from a settlement after being hit by a drunk driver. Soon after they started to tour locally and were at the time looking for a bassist but found the perfect bassist in Chi Cheng. A band that was more metal in the 90 they expanded there sound that was influence by Tool and Rage Against The Machine. After they recorded a Four song demo they landed a deal with Madonna's label, Maverick were they still remain signed to.

In October 1995 they released there debut album "Adrenaline". While it wasn't an instant success they still built a loyal fan base by touring with Ozzy Osbourne, L7, and their pals of Korn. This caused the album Adrenaline to sell up to 200,000 copies. After there Debut album there sophomore album had big expectations. In October 1997 They released "Around The Fur". This album escalated their careers. Which made their third album "White Pony" which was released in June of 2000 and the first album were turntablist Frank Delgado joined the group The album was great success and won them their first Grammy for best metal performance for the song "elite". Soon after they dropped their self titled album "Deftones" in May 2003 and In 2005 released "B-sides & Rarities" an album of songs that the Deftones cover from there favorite bands. And the Deftones have recently released their newest album "Saturday Night Wrist" which got great reviews.

Like many bands the Deftones have done many things to give back to by giving to fund raisers like members of The Deftones have penned their signatures to various guitars for the benefit for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in July 2004 and have been giving money to many funds to give back to many communities.