While much has been said about Deftones‘ decision to distance themselves from the nü-metal scene with their 2000 alternative metal landmark “White Pony“, it’s a bit jarring to once again see firsthand evidence of the tensions that surrounded that move. In a newly republished interview with Deftones guitarist Stephen Carpenter conducted back around 2000 by Guitar World, it’s clear that Deftones‘ desire to no longer be pigeonholed in a scene that was reaching its commercial zenith was influenced by tension and frustration.

In that interview, Carpenter spoke about making the transition to 7-string guitars, but seemingly took umbrage to the idea that he was following in Korn‘s footsteps in doing so.

Carpenter, who credited Meshuggah and Fear Factory in that same interview for inspiring him to expand his instrumental arsenal with additional string, stated at one point:

“Everyone acts like Korn were the first 7-string players, but what about all of those death metallers? I could write some Korn songs easily, and there’s not one I really like.

Okay, we know them, they’re our friends, but they’re still living off the hype of that first record. And as for Fred (Durst, Limp Bizkit), no matter what anyone says, he completely ripped Chino off. Reality is reality.”

Given that Deftones, Korn and Limp Bizkit had all collectively rode the wave of nü-metal to fame in the years prior, including sharing stages and guesting on each other’s records, Carpenter‘s dismissive comments were a bit surprising at the time.

Looking back decades later at the circumstances that led Deftones to forge ahead on their own and forcibly break away from the nü-metal scene, Deftones vocalist Chino Moreno has been far more diplomatic. Back in 2017, speaking with ‘Metal Evolution‘, Moreno stated of their mindset at the time:

“A lot of the press wanted us to—you know obviously they put us in the category [of nü metal.] Our first instinct was just to kind of it push it away ’cause you know to me when they called it nü metal for one, I was like well if it’s nü, you’re putting the word new in it, it’s gonna be old in a couple years.

And then again it’s hard for us to get… You look at these other bands and there’s some great bands in that movement—or whatever it was. But to each was his own. I always felt like we were our own kind of thing and we weren’t put together under any kind of preconceived thoughts of what we were gonna be. We just are who we are, so I wanted to be Deftones. I didn’t want to be a part of this other thing.”

Moreno also spoke in that interview of how Deftones actively went out of their way to avoid so much as touring with artists from the nü-metal scene after being lumped into it and categorized alongside the likes of Korn, Limp Bizkit and co.. He said at the time:

“I used to hate it, you know? I think people were gonna do it anyways. But yeah, I used to… We did a lot you know? And I think we hurt a lot of feelings in the meantime, because we turned down so much stuff with Korn and Limp Bizkit at the time—I don’t think a lot of people knew that.

They’re our friends obviously, we’ve known them for a lot of years. And they’d ask us like ‘Hey, you wanna go on tour?’ and we’d be like ‘Nah…’. And it wasn’t because we thought we were better, but we wanted to… Especially, for instance when our record first came out, ‘Adrenaline‘ came out, Korn‘s first record was already out for like a year I think

So, people were calling us like ‘baby Korn‘ when we first came out and I was boggled by that, you know what I mean? And right away that just made me want to separate myself even from them more. It was kind of tough back then. Now I don’t really care, whatever.”

A 2017 interview with Metal Hammer saw Moreno further reflect on how things got tense between the Deftones and Korn camps around the turn of the century. In that chat, Moreno offered:

“We did make a very conscious choice of who we were going to play shows with. It was hard to be this young band and having to turn down tours. I can’t remember how many times I turned down Korn! And they got pissed at us. Jonathan would say, ‘Why do you hate us?’ and I didn’t know what to say.

I’d tell him, ‘Dude, I don’t hate you. I love you guys, you’re my friends. But I don’t want to tour with you. I don’t want to be on the Family Values with you and Limp Bizkit.’ The name of the genre was nü metal, so anything that is new is one day going to be old. And I didn’t to be old with it.”

It’s clear that the bitterness that developed between Deftones and Korn over their intentional estrangement lingered for decades after after. In 2018, Korn guitarist Brian “Head” Welch told ‘Good Company‘, “Chino, Chino don’t like Korn or any of us man. He won’t tour with Korn ’cause we’re not cool enough for him.”

He continued:

“I think they [Deftones] got too cool for us somewhere down the line. No but, he just said some stuff recently in the press and it got out there that [he wouldn’t tour with Korn] and then all these fans hit him and said [Welch made an angry expression] so the next day he was like ‘I love Korn, I want to tour with them next year.’”

As mentioned by Welch, Moreno did state back in 2017 that he would then be open to touring with Korn, stating:

“[We] sort of made a conscious decision to try to break away from what we were trying to be shut into—not that we felt better than Korn and Limp Bizkit or any of the other bands. But we just wanted our own identity. One way of helping that was to do shows on our own and away from what we were being lumped into, so that’s all. It’s just funny how blown out of proportion people get. I would do shows with them, I would definitely do shows with them.”

Despite sharing the same management for numerous years now, a joint tour between Deftones and Korn has yet to materialize. There could be a similar reason for that though, as an interview conducted this past August found Moreno telling Metal Hammer that his band has also actively been refraining from associating with the the nü-metal resurgence that has taken place in recent years, stating:

“It’s so funny, because we tried hard not to be lumped in with nü-metal when nü-metal was big, and then we kind of had to do it again with the nü-metal resurgence – like, hoping that we weren’t going to get lumped in once again. I think we do at times, but we didn’t want to be dated back then, and the musical choices we made were not going to pigeonhole us into that space and time.”

Now existing as arena headlining alternative metal standard-bearers at the height of their popularity, it’s safe to say that Deftones‘ big gamble in distancing themselves from nü-metal has paid off has continued to pay off, even if it meant being commercially overshadowed by their peers some 20 plus years ago.