This story was taken from the first Deftones Fan Page ever – DEFTONES SCREAMN CAT PAGE –
a nice little story, written by Bryan Dailey (1998)
“About 5 years ago I was in a band called, (can you believe?) “ARGYLE WING-NUT” and we played shows at a place called the Cattle Club (check the liner notes of Adrenaline and the 7words video, where it was filmed). The Cattle Club is where the Deftones built up their huge following in Sacto. (that’s what we natives call Sacramento) It has since closed down, but the owner, Jerry Perry really helped the Deftones out by letting them open for some of the bigger bands that already had a large following such as Mordred from San Francisco.
When they first started playing in clubs, they had a drummer named John Taylor and Chino was going by the last name Wong. A few years later, John quit the Deftones and joined a band called Prayer Wheel, who are also a pretty cool band. Anyway, the manager of the Deftones, Dave Park, (I don’t know if you’ve ever heard the Deftones play the song, “He wears short shorts, Dave wears short shorts – they gave him alot of shit about his nut-hugger running shorts) called Scott, the drummer in my band, to try out for the Deftones. Scott received two demo tapes in the mail (which I happen to have kept) and went in for the audition. Scott was really nervous so I went with him that day. The funniest thing about all of this is that Scott used to be the drummer for Prayer Wheel.
Chino was sick, but we got to hang out with Chi and Stephen. In fact Scott and I drove Stephen home afterwords because his ride didn’t show up. At the time of the auditions, Abe, who was in the band Phallucy, was filling in on drums until they could find a replacement. Stephen told Scott that he was the front runner for the spot, but the guys in the band really wanted Abe to quit Phallucy and stay with them. (I saw a couple of their shows when Abe first joined and I knew then that he was perfect for the Deftones).
They finally convinced Abe to stay in the band and before we knew it, the Deftones were signed to Maverick and recorded Adrenaline. A few of the songs on the CD were from the demos i.e. 7 words, Engine #9, Root, Nosebleed but hopefully they will put “Like Linus” (later renamed simply “Linus”), Some People, Christmas, and Hump, on their next CD.”
