Deftones have completed work on their highly anticipated new album. Drummer Abe Cunningham says the LP is currently being mastered, with hopes for a September release.
Back in February, just prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, Deftones revealed that the album was being produced by Terry Date, who helmed Deftones’ first four LPs, including Around the Fur and White Pony. And in April, Cunningham briefly teased a guitar riff from the new album.
While mixing had commenced, singer Chino Moreno said last month that the process was going slowly due to the social distancing between band members and Date. He added that the band had originally planned to release the album this summer, but they would “have to figure out” a new release date.
Now, in a new interview with Download TV’s Kylie Olsson, as part of a virtual festival taking place this weekend, Cunningham revealed that the band has completed work on the new album and that it is currently being mastered.
“We actually tracked everything over the summer, last summer — June and July — we were in the studio tracking,” said Cunningham. “But we actually just completed everything. … We were down in L.A. recording, but we mixed up in Seattle.”
He added, “We’re working with our old pal Terry Date, who did a bunch of our earlier records and stuff, too. He’s up there [in Seattle] with this whole distancing thing; it was a bit rough, but we figured out a way to kind of do the mixes without being there.”
“It’s a lot better when we’re all in the room; we can knock it out quick and argue and do our things,” he further explained. “But, yeah, we just completed that. It’s getting mastered right now, and that’s been the main thing. So it’s been something to do in this strange off time.”
As for the musical direction of the album, Cunningham revealed, “We can’t help but sound like ourselves, but just being back with Terry, there’s certain sounds that we developed with Terry that kind of became sort of our core sounds, and those are back again.”
When the interviewer asked about a release date, Cunningham responded, “It should be coming along, hopefully, maybe September. I heard something.”
The drummer was also asked about Deftones’ shelved album, Eros, which was started before bassist Chi Cheng was in a horrific car accident in 2008 that left him in a semi-coma and eventually led to his death in 2013.
“It was never completed, and that’s what people don’t get, like, ‘What, you’re just sitting on it?’ And I mean no, we’re not just sitting on it, we never finished it,” said Cunningham. “And then [Chi] got in his accident and that’s kinda where it just stopped. And quite frankly it’s not that good. There’s some songs that are really good.”
He continued, “But I gotta be honest … we were just trying to get back to it and see what we can come up with then … and it’s not that it’s not good, it’s just … there’s a lot attached to it as well, you know? And I understand that people are passionate about that and they want to hear Chi’s last musical contribution.”
When he was pressed about potentially releasing the Eros album, Cunningham answered, “We’ve talked about putting out maybe a condensed version or an EP of four or five songs, something like that, and that kind of makes sense. But we have to get into all the legalities of it and all that stuff and also we have to finish it. But yeah, it would be nice for that to see the light of day, definitely.”
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Deftones were set to headline a North American tour with support from Gojira and Poppy, but the outing has been postponed due to the pandemic. The band hopes to announced rescheduled dates for 2021 shortly.
Watch Abe Cunningham’s full interview with Download TV below.
