For years, critics and fans have used a specific shorthand to describe the unique, genre-defying, and constantly evolving sound of Deftones: they are “the Radiohead of metal.” In a new interview, frontman Chino Moreno has responded to the long-standing comparison, and while humbly deflecting the title, he confirmed the profound and “mind-blowing” influence the British alt-rockers had on his own band at the exact moment they were making their own career-defining leap.
Speaking with The Irish Times, Moreno addressed the popular comparison, which stems from both bands’ shared reputation for an “introverted” sound and a career built on “constant evolution.”
“It makes me smile, and it doesn’t annoy me at all,” he said of the label. “Can I see the correlation there? It’s hard for me, because I’m a big Radiohead fan, and I think they’re one of the most amazing bands of our generation. So it’s flattering, yes, to be compared to a band as great as them. Do I think that we are? Not necessarily.”
The comparison is most often drawn due to the parallel paths the two bands took at the turn of the millennium. Just as Radiohead famously pivoted away from the guitar-driven rock that made them famous with 1997’s OK Computer and 2000’s Kid A, Deftones made a similar, commercially risky move to distance themselves from the nu metal scene with their 2000 masterpiece, White Pony.
Moreno confirmed that the band faced immense pressure from their label to stick to the more commercially viable nu metal formula of their first two albums. “We could have easily made another Around The Fur or Adrenaline,” he explained. “At that point, considering nu metal was the biggest thing at the time, with the successes of Korn, Limp Bizkit, Papa Roach and other bands, our record label thought it would have been the smartest thing to do.”
This decision to defy expectations and evolve was, as Moreno has revealed in the past, directly inspired by Radiohead. In a previous conversation with Zane Lowe, he recounted a pivotal moment while in the studio recording 1997’s Around The Fur.
“Honestly, that band was a huge influence,” he said. “I remember we were in the studio, literally writing Around The Fur and watching that video for the first time for [‘Paranoid Android‘] and just having my mind blown, like how music can be anything.”
