It took more than three years, a handful of different studio locales and a couple of producers to bring the Deftones’ fifth studio offering to life. And for the band and its fans, Halloween couldn’t come soon enough.
On that day, the Sacramento, California, rockers’ Saturday Night Wrist lands in record shops — and the band’s planning a 26-date U.S. headlining run starting October 26 in Oklahoma City. Deadsy, who spent much of this summer with the ‘Tones on Korn’s revived Family Values Tour (see “Korn Resurrect Family Values Tour With Deftones, Stone Sour”), have been tapped as the trek’s openers. The Deftones plan to tour in support of the disc for the next two years.
According to frontman Chino Moreno, the Deftones didn’t intend to take their time with Wrist, “but it just so happened it took that long. And it’s a relief to have it done. It was a hard record to make. Every record that we make, it gets harder and harder for us, because we try not to repeat what we’ve done before or stick to certain formulas. And in order to do that, we have to go through a lot of trial-and-error stuff, which can be time-consuming.”
Moreno said the band’s fans have come to expect a certain quality from his band, so the Deftones wanted to make sure Wrist would live up to the hype (see “Why Is The New Deftones Album Taking So Long?”).
“Our fans are very critical, which is the way we all are,” he said. “We feel like, in anything in life, what we put into it is what we get out of it.”
Fans have been getting a taste of the LP through the band’s MySpace page, where the Deftones have posted a track called “Rapture” as well as “Hole in the Earth,” the first single from Saturday Night Wrist, a title inspired by an injury one of Moreno’s friends sustained (she was diagnosed as having “Saturday night palsy,” a compression of the radial nerve that occurs when intoxicated people sleep with their arm draped over a chair or with someone sleeping on their arm).
” ‘Hole in the Earth’ was probably the first song I put lyrics on for the record, and the song is kind of in reference to the turmoil we were going through making the record,” Moreno said. He told MTV News in April the band nearly called it quits halfway through the recording process (see “Deftones Serve Up ‘Buffalo’ With System Singer On New Disc”). “We almost gave up on it. It was really difficult and communication within the band wasn’t that good, and I had another project,” an ambient outfit called Team Sleep, “I was going to do. Between us, the bandmembers, it was a rough time, and the song addresses that.”
Moreno also commented on the death of Andy Richardson, a 30-year-old man who was beaten in the mosh pit at the August 1 stop of Family Values in Atlanta. Police have charged 24-year-old Michael Scott Axley with Richardson’s murder (see “Man Charged With Murder For Beating Death At Korn Concert”).
“It was meaningless and sad and stupid that there are people who’re that retarded and do senseless things,” he said. “It was saddening to hear that someone would die at our performance. We’re there to have fun and for everyone else to have fun. It’s depressing. I don’t think you can blame it on the music, because there are always some people who don’t think before they act, and they have to bring it down for a lot of people.”
