Deftones Innovate & Move On

No one could accuse The Deftones of selling out. The moment the rock masses began embracing the style they helped start - rap-metal - they ditched it for something new.

"We wanted to detach ourselves from any label," says Deftones' singer Chino Moreno. "Honestly, I don't think there's any band out there that does rap-metal correctly, except The Beastie Boys. The rest just seem silly to me."

Specifically, Moreno calls Kid Rock a novelty. Limp Bizkit, he says, is "frat-rock, a mockery."

"It's hard to turn on MTV and see all these bands on 'TRL' (the popular audience request show) doing really s----y versions of a sound we helped pioneer, while our video gets played once, at 3 in the morning." Given the opening sales of their new album, "White Pony," the exposure of The Deftones' clip should soon be widening. It debuted at No. 3 on last week's chart with 177,000 copies moved. This week, it sold another 75,000 platters to rank a respectable 15. Wednesday night, the band headlines Roseland.

The new album significantly broadens the Deftones' sound, adding more melody without losing the punch of the beat or the force of the riffs. The result sounds like either a sweeter Korn or a more user-friendly Tool. Moreno himself refers to the sound as "warm metal. It's more than just us tearing your head off with every note."

The 27-year-old says the album reflects the influences of his youth. He grew up on early rap and '80s new wave, with a special love of The Cure, Morrissey and Depeche Mode - rare touchstones for a metal-head. Of Depeche, he says: "They had the same electronics as the early rap acts, like UTFO, but they put melody to it."

Moreno, who grew up in Sacramento, didn't get into metal until around the time he helped form the Deftones in 1990 as a teen. The five-piece group included a turntable man, Frank Delgado, who gave them an instant hip-hop edge. They also took inspiration from the proto-rap metal of Aerosmith and Run DMC's version of "Walk This Way."

At the time, the Deftones and Korn defined the still emerging rap-metal trend. Over the course of their three albums, they began to evolve a style that had more nuance to it. The band's second album, 1998's "Around the Fur," sold steadily over a long period, eventually going gold and giving them a core audience.

In the time since then, rock radio has moved toward a harder sound. "When we put out our last album, radio wouldn't play the single 'Shove It' because there was all the screaming. Now you listen to the radio and you hear everyone screaming.'"

Not that Moreno has much use for the subsequent wave of "new metal" bands, like Slipknot.

"I grew up seeing real metal bands, like Metallica," he asserts. "Compared to them, Slipknot is 'The Mickey Mouse Club.'"

Moreno saves his admiration for groups who innovate.

"I love bands that keep putting out records which always take the music ahead another step," he says. "That's the kind of band we hope to be." They're already well on their way.