DEFTONES Have Finished Recording All The Music For Upcoming Album: 'We're Really Excited'

Earlier today (Friday, April 12),DEFTONES frontman Chino Moreno spoke to the KROQ radio station backstage at Coachella about the band's plans for the follow-up to 2020's "Ohms" album. He said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET):  "We haven't really talked much [publicly] about it. We've just sort of been working on and off over the last year and a half from when we started writing to… Basically, where we're sitting right now is we have a whole record recorded all musically. And it's pretty much my job right now to finish up the vocals. And I have, obviously, this show again next week, and then straight after that, I go back home to Oregon and I go in the studio. So as long as that takes… I hate to put a definite kind of timeframe, 'cause we're not really in a rush. We want it to be great. I think that's most important. But it is coming, and, yeah, it's really good. We're really excited with what we've been working on. And everybody's jazzed."

Regarding the musical direction of the new DEFTONES material, Chino said: "I feel like, overall, it's an invigorated kind of sound. We went in and everybody… It's, like, after all these years, you go in, and it's, like, we hadn't written a record since — what was it? Pre-COVID, I think, when we were last in the studio. So it'd been a while since we'd actually… I mean, we've been playing shows, but we hadn't really got into being creative. The creative part, to me, is always kind of the funnest part of being in this band. Performing is great, but coming up with something out of nothing, that feeling cannot be topped. And so when you get in the room with your friends, we're laughing, we're having fun and then someone does something and then I react to it or they react to what I'm doing, it goes in a circle and then, all of a sudden, we lift our heads up and there's something that exists that didn't exist before we walked in that room. That's just great."

Last fall, DEFTONES guitarist Stephen Carpenter confirmed to the "Gnostic Academy" podcast mthat he and his bandmates were working on their new album with producer Nick Raskulinecz (RUSH, MASTODON, ALICE IN CHAINS). This marks DEFTONES' third collaboration with Nick, having previously worked with him on 2010's "Diamond Eyes" and 2012's "Koi No Yokan" LPs.

Asked how the songwriting process works in DEFTONES, Carpenter said: "It's a combination of things. Most often, everything stems from us just jamming out some ideas, messing around, and someone comes up with something that maybe someone else or everyone else likes. And then we kind of just focus in on that for a little bit. That's what Nick's great at doing, too. Where we could just sit and jam aimlessly and plow through idea after idea without even stopping to recognize them, he's great at saying, 'Hey, that idea is really cool. Let's try to work on that for a minute. And then that other idea might be really cool with that one. Let's try putting them together,' and stuff like that. So that's what's awesome about him. He's like an unofficial bandmember at that point and good at giving us direction where we don't normally do that well on our own. I mean, we do it, but it's a much slower process on our own."

Stephen went on to say that coming up with great musical ideas is the most difficult part of the process. "I feel like making the record is easy once you've got the songs, 'cause then we're just talking about arrangement," he explained. "And then if you want to finetune on things, and I'm sure a lot of people do… Once we have the songs done, it's literally just arranging the songs at that point. We don't actually do too much adjusting at that point."

Asked if he is pretty comfortable in the studio after all these years, Stephen said: "I have my moments where I can get stuck in a rut, but generally speaking, no, I'm pretty good and comfortable in the studio. I've always enjoyed that process because it's always been that place where you could really show what you can do as far as, 'The red light's on. Let's make sure we got it.' But otherwise, sometimes it could jam you up, but it's not often."

In 2022, DEFTONES recruited Fred Sablan as their new touring bassist following the departure of Sergio Vega. They were also joined by second guitarist Lance Jackman.

Sablan made his live debut with the DEFTONES in April 2022 at the opening concert of the band's spring 2022 U.S. tour at the Moda Center at the Rose Quarter in Portland, Oregon.

Sablan is best known as the former bassist for MARILYN MANSON, having toured and recorded with the shock rocker between 2010 and 2014. He has also played bass for CHELSEA WOLFE and PETER HOOK AND THE LIGHT, and is a member of the punk-rock supergroup HEAVENS BLADE alongside YOUTH CODE singer Sara Taylor, former ROB ZOMBIE bassist Piggy D. (on guitar) and SUICIDE SILENCE drummer Alex Lopez.

Vega, who officially joined DEFTONES in 2009, confirmed his exit in March 2022, just days after a new photo of the band without him emerged online on various digital service providers. At the time, he took to social media to share a video explaining his perspective on the split. In the Instagram video, Vega detailed the contractual issues that created a rift between himself and the group's core members.

Jackman is known for his work in Sacramento bands EIGHTFOURSEVEN, HORSENECK and WILL HAVEN.