{"id":120976,"date":"2025-11-04T09:17:20","date_gmt":"2025-11-04T09:17:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/120976\/"},"modified":"2025-11-04T09:17:20","modified_gmt":"2025-11-04T09:17:20","slug":"the-early-2000s-tension-deftones-had-with-korn-limp-bizkit-was-on-full-display-in-a-newly-republished-white-pony-interview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/120976\/","title":{"rendered":"The Early 2000s Tension Deftones Had With Korn & Limp Bizkit Was On Full Display In A Newly Republished “White Pony” Interview"},"content":{"rendered":"

While much has been said about Deftones\u2018 decision to distance themselves from the n\u00fc-metal scene with their 2000 alternative metal landmark \u201cWhite Pony\u201c, it\u2019s 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<\/a>, it\u2019s clear that Deftones\u2018 desire to no longer be pigeonholed in a scene that was reaching its commercial zenith was influenced by tension and frustration.<\/p>\n

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\u2018s footsteps in doing so.<\/p>\n

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:<\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone 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\u2019s not one I really like.<\/p>\n

Okay, we know them, they\u2019re our friends, but they\u2019re 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

Given that Deftones, Korn and Limp Bizkit had all collectively rode the wave of n\u00fc-metal to fame in the years prior, including sharing stages and guesting on each other\u2019s records, Carpenter\u2018s dismissive comments were a bit surprising at the time.<\/p>\n

Looking back decades later at the circumstances that led Deftones to forge ahead on their own and forcibly break away from the n\u00fc-metal scene, Deftones vocalist Chino Moreno has been far more diplomatic. Back in 2017, speaking with \u2018Metal Evolution<\/a>\u2018, Moreno stated of their mindset at the time:<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of the press wanted us to\u2014you know obviously they put us in the category [of n\u00fc metal.] Our first instinct was just to kind of it push it away \u2019cause you know to me when they called it n\u00fc metal for one, I was like well if it\u2019s n\u00fc, you\u2019re putting the word new in it, it\u2019s gonna be old in a couple years.<\/p>\n

And then again it\u2019s hard for us to get\u2026 You look at these other bands and there\u2019s some great bands in that movement\u2014or whatever it was. But to each was his own. I always felt like we were our own kind of thing and we weren\u2019t 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\u2019t want to be a part of this other thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

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 n\u00fc-metal scene after being lumped into it and categorized alongside the likes of Korn, Limp Bizkit and co.. He said at the time:<\/p>\n

\u201cI used to hate it, you know? I think people were gonna do it anyways. But yeah, I used to\u2026 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\u2014I don\u2019t think a lot of people knew that.<\/p>\n

They\u2019re our friends obviously, we\u2019ve known them for a lot of years. And they\u2019d ask us like \u2018Hey, you wanna go on tour?\u2019 and we\u2019d be like \u2018Nah\u2026\u2019. And it wasn\u2019t because we thought we were better, but we wanted to\u2026 Especially, for instance when our record first came out, \u2018Adrenaline\u2018 came out, Korn\u2018s first record was already out for like a year I think<\/p>\n

So, people were calling us like \u2018baby Korn\u2018 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\u2019t really care, whatever.\u201d<\/p>\n

A 2017 interview with Metal Hammer<\/a> 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:<\/p>\n

\u201cWe 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\u2019t remember how many times I turned down Korn! And they got pissed at us. Jonathan would say, \u2018Why do you hate us?\u2019 and I didn\u2019t know what to say.<\/p>\n

I\u2019d tell him, \u2018Dude, I don\u2019t hate you. I love you guys, you\u2019re my friends. But I don\u2019t want to tour with you. I don\u2019t want to be on the Family Values with you and Limp Bizkit.\u2019 The name of the genre was n\u00fc metal, so anything that is new is one day going to be old. And I didn\u2019t to be old with it.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s clear that the bitterness that developed between Deftones and Korn over their intentional estrangement lingered for decades after after. In 2018, Korn guitarist Brian \u201cHead\u201d Welch told \u2018Good Company\u2018<\/a>, \u201cChino, Chino don\u2019t like Korn or any of us man. He won\u2019t tour with Korn \u2019cause we\u2019re not cool enough for him.\u201d<\/p>\n

He continued:<\/p>\n

\u201cI 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\u2019t tour with Korn] and then all these fans hit him and said [Welch made an angry expression] so the next day he was like \u2018I love Korn, I want to tour with them next year.’\u201d<\/p>\n

As mentioned by Welch, Moreno did state back in 2017<\/a> that he would then be open to touring with Korn, stating:<\/p>\n

\u201c[We] sort of made a conscious decision to try to break away from what we were trying to be shut into\u2014not 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\u2019s all. It\u2019s just funny how blown out of proportion people get. I would do shows with them, I would definitely do shows with them.\u201d<\/p>\n

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<\/a> that his band has also actively been refraining from associating with the the n\u00fc-metal resurgence that has taken place in recent years, stating:<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s so funny, because we tried hard not to be lumped in with n\u00fc-metal when n\u00fc-metal was big, and then we kind of had to do it again with the n\u00fc-metal resurgence \u2013 like, hoping that we weren\u2019t going to get lumped in once again. I think we do at times, but we didn\u2019t want to be dated back then, and the musical choices we made were not going to pigeonhole us into that space and time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now existing as arena headlining alternative metal standard-bearers at the height of their popularity<\/a>, it\u2019s safe to say that Deftones\u2018 big gamble in distancing themselves from n\u00fc-metal has paid off has continued to pay off, even if it meant being commercially overshadowed by their peers some 20 plus years ago.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"While much has been said about Deftones\u2018 decision to distance themselves from the n\u00fc-metal scene with their 2000…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":120977,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[72168,69940,48052,93,61,60,661,658,278,72169],"class_list":{"0":"post-120976","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-brian-u0022headu0022-welch","9":"tag-chino-moreno","10":"tag-deftones","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-ie","13":"tag-ireland","14":"tag-korn","15":"tag-limp-bizkit","16":"tag-music","17":"tag-stephen-carpenter"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120976","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=120976"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120976\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/120977"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=120976"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=120976"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=120976"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}