Deftones’ new release, ‘Gore’, has been called a departure from the group’s recent albums— somber and a little less optimistic. Stephen Carpenter and Chino Moreno discuss filling different guitar frequencies with different numbers of strings, tone modeling, and keeping the inspiration alive for more than two decades. by TZVI GLUCKIN March 10, 2016 edit by: deftfan (DeftonesZone)
Grammy-winning rock group deftones is a guitar- centric, the knowledge i had read up on, was told about, and riff-driven band. Since their 1995 debut, adrenaline, the alt absorbed from others.” Deftones new album—two years in legends have been revered as extremely passionate masters the making—builds on carpenter’s experience, of sonic layering. And gore, their eighth studio release, is experimentation, and vast tonal awareness. Moreno adds a a guitar tour de force, featuring low-tuned 8-strings, swirly different perspective to the mix. “if it sounds good in a delays, sonic soundscapes, and bone-crushing chunk. little room with all of us in a circle then there’s a good Stephen carpenter is the band’s primary guitarist, while chance it should sound good on tape or recorded,” he says. lead singer chino moreno started adding additional guitars Gore, produced by the band in tandem with Matt Hyde, is with their third release, 2000’S white pony. Together, they a guitarist's feast and is replete with swagger, low-end create a dense, colorful, musical wall. “it’s like the rumble, and ambient textures. It also features Alice in bulldozer effect,” carpenter says. “you just get in where Chains guitarist Jerry Cantrell on the song “Phantom you fit in.” Bride.” Carpenter is the consummate gearhead. He runs his “It was one of those things that was meant to be,” Moreno signature esp guitars through a wall of fractal processing, says. “It doesn’t sound contrived, like we tried to do engl preamps, and orange cabinets. He likes to tinker, something outside of the box. It just sounds like something experiment, and modify gear—something he’s been doing that was very casual and really nice.” since his days as a tech. “i did everything: guitars, drums, PG spoke with Carpenter and Moreno (see sidebar) about and bass,” he says about his time working for a local 7- and 8-string guitars, low tunings, click tracks, sacramento band before deftones took off. “i took a guitar Carpenter’s battle with his digital rig, and Moreno’s need apart and put it back together the best i knew based on all for simplicity. (And no, we didn’t ask about the flamingos.)
1 When was the last time you played And you have both standard- a 6-string guitar? and baritone-scale guitars. Stephen Carpenter: It was about 15 Yes. I have both a standard-scale years ago. 7-string and a baritone. Throughout White Pony I used a What drew you to the 7- and 8- standard scale 7-string. I had it strings? set up like my 6-strings, but I The lower registers. Having that was using an extra high-E string option to drop down to the lower on the top, just like a drone. stuff—it’s just fun, really heavy to play, a little darkness. Darkness! How do you come up with riffs? How do you tune them? I’m not trained in any type of Nothing fancy, by any stretch. On my theory. I’m just noodling around 7-string tunings I used Ab or G#— until I find something I like. whichever you desire—and that was for the self-titled [2003] record. On And you like to play to a click the Saturday Night Wrist record I just track? drop-tuned the bottom string down to I play to a click track all the F#. I started playing the 8-string on time. I love it. The band doesn’t [2010’s] Diamond Eyes, and that’s play to a click track, but just the standard tuning that came on personally, I’ll write to a click the guitar: F# on the bottom and then track anytime. your standard B–E–A–D–G–B–E. Stephen Carpenter (photo by: Ken Settle) All I did for the next record, Koi No Do you keep the click on the Yukon, was drop-tune the bottom downbeat, or do you put the click about modern music. I love so many string down to E. That was about the on the backbeat and play games of the new bands that are coming out. time I met the guys from Animals as with it? I think everybody is just killing it. Leaders and Periphery. Tosin [Abasi] I really just put it on either eighths or Just amazing players out there. told me they were into dropped-E 16th beats. I don’t have any skills in Everybody is just shredding it. tunings. He said, “Hey you should it, but it’s on my very soon to-do check that out.” So I did. list—to improve my abilities in Anybody in particular? making a tempo map. That way I can Man, the list is long. That’s basically the bass register. really start going with whatever Yeah, of course, and it’s actually crazy ideas I want and just change it How have things evolved musically been quite tough for me. Not actually all the time, because that’s what I since Chino started playing guitar playing it on the guitar, but the love. as well? coupling in the band—because I wish Well, it’s been a mix. On one hand I had an equal on the bass. It’s just Do the clicks get in the way when there’s a part of me that loves it, not possible with the actual bass. To you start playing things in odd because I love the sound of two match it, you really need to have a meters? guitars. On the other hand, I’ve been synthesizer or something where you No, because I think all odd meters marginalized because of it—because can actually go down to that octave. still float around the exact same time. everything we do is just based around My biggest difficulty is really trying It’s just where you’re starting at— what he does all the time. If he don’t to mess with the bass without where you’re starting and stopping, like it, we don’t do it. sounding like me and the bass are right? playing a dual part. I haven’t given a And what’s the guitar? Do you write together or do you great deal of thought to it, but The guitar is like the ribbon around each show up with different parts whenever I’m jamming out, that’s the the present. You get the drums doing and learn the other guy’s part? wall I run into. But that’s largely in this time, the bass is going, We all jam it out together. If part because I don’t play in a metal everybody can be rotating around somebody’s got an idea—if band—I am the metal ingredient of each other and can come together, everybody is interested in it—we my band [laughs]. I think if the other play the exact same thing, and create work on it. This has been the guys were more interested in the this one effect. It’s up to the creative toughest process I’ve gone through in metal side they’d probably do what it individuals at that moment and how making a record because I was takes to get that register for me. they want to manipulate the sound coming out of the backend of fixing and time. That’s what is so awesome my rig while we were in writing about music and what’s so amazing sessions. I’m just getting myself
2 dialed-in to where I’m excited to play whole session through tone matching How is it set up now? on my rig again and the stuff of all the amps we had there. I said, “Look. I live in the real world, everybody was coming up with at the still, as a musician. I need a cabinet. time—I wasn’t very interested in. I I was fucking stoked on that. I was We need to dial that cabinet in and pretty much battled everybody the like, “Alright man, I’m going to go have my DIs as close as possible.” I whole time. back through the whole catalog and decided that my DIs would become get my sounds and this is going to be secondary to the actual tone that was There are some killer riffs on there awesome.” I got all my presets built coming out of the cabinet. I went though. with all these tone matches and my back to setting it up like an actual Oh no, it’s great. It’s blood, sweat, mentality at that time was that I amp. I also run through my Engl and tears—that’s what it was for me. didn’t want to use cabinets—I power amps and I’m running those I wasn’t living the dream on this wanted to go purely DI off the units. out into my Orange cabs—but I’m process [laughs]. We go into rehearsals, get ready to also going through a Radial JDX 48 go on tour, and immediately it was for the DIs off of them. My signal is What problems did you have with like my guitars vanished. They didn’t the left and right out of the Axe-Fx, your rig and are they solved? even exist. It was missing all of the it’s left and right off of my two When I first switched over to the frequencies of being a guitar amp cabinets, and it’s also each cabinet Axe-Fx from my old rig, I actually [laughs]. I had it set up for all of the mic’d up. Every cab I’ve ever heard had no problems whatsoever. When I recordings—when recording you are plugged into these Radial boxes has made that transition I was using the losing everything below 80 Hz. So sounded like you’ve mic’d your Axe-Fx Ultra—the II hadn’t come all of the feeling—all the body of a cabinets up perfectly. We matched out yet. I went into it just like it was guitar tone—was nonexistent. the DIs and the mics until we had a preamp: I set it up, got on with the what we had coming out of the business of making my presets, built What had complicated that situation Radials. my tone in it, and made it sound more for me was that my tone- great. That was, like, September or matched block was set up as a stereo The older version of your signature October of 2010. Later that year, we cab sim. My rig had forever been left ESPs used to have a single-coil in got our IIs. I spent about three and right, but it’s always been mono- the neck position. You don’t use months playing around with all the mono until I’ve thrown any type of that anymore? factory presets—we were just stereo effects onto it. But when we No. I just have the bridge and the starting to write for the Koi No Yukon were building the presets, we didn’t middle pickup. record—so I wasn’t too worried want to consider that it was always about tone because we were going to going to be mono-mono and I only What do you get out of the middle make it up from scratch anyway. We set up the stereo cab sim. We didn’t pickup? wrote the songs, had a great time, even audition it that way to find out, The middle pickup is pretty much a went in the studio, and went through you know what I mean? I went that toy. I don’t have it for anything other the whole process of tracking. When whole period of time—a little over a than when I want to take the edge it was my turn to do guitars we mic’d year—just being completely off, less attack, a more rounded tone. up the cabs with the sounds we were frustrated. The absolute obvious was using—I was barely using cabs at the just completely oblivious to me. I You don’t solo much. Is sitting on time—and we came to the conclusion was over saturating my gain and my a groove more your thing? that the tone we were running with, bass to try to fill in the hole that I’m about the groove. But like I said, the whole time we were writing, didn’t exist because of the signal I’ve I’ve been really inspired by all these pretty much sucked. We were like, got spread real wide because of the new bands man—everyone’s just “Oh great, now what? I’m about to stereo sim. One day I was just sitting killing it. I would personally like to start guitar tracks and I’ve got no there in frustration, just staring at my just manage for a bit and go work on tone [laughs].” rack like, “This is not rocket science. my skills and try to get my game up. Why the hell am I so damn destroyed I don’t need to do it to fit in; I just [Fractal] shot us over the quick beta by what seems to be apparently so want to do it because personally, of [their new Tone Match] before it simple?” I thought, “It’s got to be man, it’s just so inspiring. Everybody came out. We loaded it in, matched something easy. Let me throw it makes it seem so easy. my tone from the Diamond Eyes down to mono and see what record, and we were like, “Damn, happens.” Bam. Instantly, I had my there it is.” We had all these amps in guitar signal. Problem solved. What the studio and we started tone had plagued me for nearly a year- matching every amp. We did the and-a-half had been banished in the turn of a simple knob [laughs].
3 way. When I first started playing on the White Pony tour, I was sort of scared. I was like, “Should we hire somebody to play this stuff?” And he said, “No. You played on the record, you’re going to play it live.” He was like a coach in a way. “You’re going to do it. You can do it.” And I had to figure it out. Slowly but surely, I did.
You aren’t what I consider a classic two-guitar band—you’re not like Iron Maiden, for example. How do you divide up the duties? We don’t, really. We don’t really communicate that well as far as what we’re going to do or should do. And I honestly think that’s a good thing. Chino Moreno (photo by: Ken Settle) What ends up happening is that we Left Brain, Right Brain You can put out emotions through fill up the space. If it’s a song Deftones’ frontman Chino Moreno the guitar without having to speak Stephen’s starting out, I fill up the words or having to talk about space that he’s not. And I feel like he discusses his double duties as something specific. Being a singer does the same thing, vice versa—and vocalist and rhythm guitarist. and the lyricist of a band, sometimes with Sergio [Vega, the current the difficult part is trying to bassist], too. What’s crazy is that on You first started playing guitar on communicate what it is I’m trying to this new record, Sergio played a Bass White Pony? say—but a lot of times I don’t know VI on maybe 70 percent of the Yes sir, around 2000 is when I what I’m trying to say. The guitar has record. So frequency-wise there was officially started playing onstage in always been a way to express more of a feeling like, “What area do front of people. emotion without really understanding we take up?” For instance, with what you’re doing or trying to do. Stephen, our sounds in general are What inspired you to start playing Nowadays—especially with this new really different because of what guitar with the band? record, where I play guitar pretty guitars we play. We both play I think the catalyst was that Stephen much on every song—I’ve switched distortion and clean, but what makes had moved from Sacramento to Los to the opposite of that. I love writing our sound so different is Stephen Angeles. We had a studio in the songs and love playing them, but plays the 8-string guitar, with way Sacramento for a few years at that now I’m almost restrained a little bit heavier-gauged low strings that, to be point. We always rehearsed and because I have to pay attention to completely honest, aren’t my wrote our records there—and he what I’m doing on guitar [laughs]. I favorite—that’s not really what I wasn’t there. We started writing really have to use two sides of my listen to in my off time. He loves that songs after the Around the Fur record brain, coming from a singer’s kind of stuff. cycle and Stephen wasn’t really standpoint and a guitar standpoint. around so I started picking up the Do you mean extreme metal guitar and jamming. He’d come So you’ll be playing a lot more bands? down and we’d do little sessions and guitar onstage this tour? Yeah, I mean guitars with that low we wrote some of the record there— I believe so. Honestly, when we write tuning and that tone. To me, my although a lot of the White Pony setlists, the most important thing for problem with that is the bottom record was written in the studio. I me is spacing out the songs that I strings—whatever they are, I don’t forgot the guitar I used—I think I had play on guitar and the songs that I even know what it’s tuned to—you an SG. I might have had one of don’t play on guitar, because live I can play that same top string like Stephen’s old Jacksons that he gave really like to just sing. I do like to seven frets apart and it all kind of me. play guitar, but I know that I’m a sounds the same. So when I hear him way better singer than guitar player. I play on that low string, I try to How has your playing changed and kind of put myself in this corner and juxtapose that with something higher. developed since that time? Stephen is pretty adamant: “You play I think Vega does the same thing. We I hope it’s gotten a little bit better. this on the record. You’re playing it all play around each other and it fits Honestly, I just really like to play. live.” And he’s always been that together, but we’re not canceling
4 each other out—because honestly No. It’s over my head. It’s awesome. guess. After that we redo all the bass that could happen so easily. You can do so much with that thing. first, then I do my guitars, and then But for me everything makes so Stephen does his guitars. I then put For one example, if Vega played on a much more sense if I know how to the vocals over that and there you go. 5-string bass, which is something work my own gear. I can easily look we’ve never done… When a lot of down at my delay pedal and turn the Any standout guitar moments on those bands of the ’90s were coming little knob and know where I want it. the album? out and people were starting with 7- And the same thing with my chorus I don’t know, to me it’s one of those string guitars, as soon as you put a 5- pedal and the front of my amp. It’s things where there are a lot of happy string bass on that thing it sounded just way more comfortable for me to accidents—it’s those little things, like every other band that was out at know what I’m doing. I think it’s nuances, which are pretty rad. We the time. I begged Chi [Cheng, neat that he can do all that stuff, but haven’t gone into rehearsals for the Deftones’ original bassist], “Please I’m sort of a minimalist when it new record yet, so I still have a little never play a 5-string bass.” Even comes to gear. nerves going in, hoping I can pull it though it sounds good with the 7- off. I didn’t write my vocals until string guitar, having that frequency What do you use in the studio? after the full songs were written and going all the time takes away from I pretty much just use the live rig. I recorded, so now I have to go the dynamics. I think the main thing bring my little pedalboard, my Rivera through the two sides of my brain we try to do is keep it dynamic. The head and cabinet, and put a mic in type of thing. Usually it works out. way to do that, if Stephen is going to front of it. Like now, if I just had to play the play those 8-string guitars, is for songs, I know I can just play them. Sergio and myself to fill up those How much is tracked live and how And if I had to just sing them, I know other frequencies. much is overdubbed? I can sing them. It’s getting in that We pretty much overdub everything. head space where I’m doing both at Stephen has that Fractal digital We go in there and play together as a the same time. It will be a challenge, rig. Have you experimented with band—but we’re doing that for the but it should be good though. that? drum track, which is pretty typical I
CHINO MORENO’S GEAR STEPHEN CARPENTER’S GEAR
GUITARS GUITARS • Gibson SG • ESP Signature Guitars: Stef B-8 Fluence, • Knaggs Keya T2 Stef-T7B Fluence, Stef B-7 Fluence AMPS AMPS • Rivera Knucklehead Tre Reverb • Fractal Axe-Fx II (he uses 8) • Rivera 4x12 cab with • Engl Tube Poweramp E850/100 Celestion Vintage 30s (he uses 4) EFFECTS • Orange 4x12 cabinets • MXR Carbon Copy Analog Delay EFFECTS • Boss DC-2 Dimension C chorus • Fulltone True-Path ABY Splitter • Eventide H9 Harmonizer • Eventide H9 Harmonizer Effects Processor Effects Processor • TC Electronic Ditto Looper • TC Electronic Ditto Looper STRINGS & PICKS • Radial JDX 48 Reactor Amplifier DI Box • Currently experimenting with strings STRINGS & PICKS • Jim Dunlop White Tortex Triangle • Jim Dunlop Heavy Core (.011–.069) 8-string • Jim Dunlop Heavy Core (.011–.050) 7-string • Jim Dunlop Tortex 1 mm picks
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