“I used to give Stephen s**t because he wasn’t a shredder like Eddie Van Halen”: Original Deftones bassist says he used to make fun of Stephen Carpenter’s guitar skills
Stephen Carpenter’s Deftones riffs have played a pivotal role in shaping the alt-metal genre. But his guitar skills haven’t always been universally admired.
In a new interview in the latest issue of Metal Hammer, original Deftones bassist Dominic Garcia – who held the post between 1988 and 1991 – remembers actively teasing Carpenter during the band’s early years for not being a “shredding guitar player”.
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While Garcia was the band’s original bassist, he assumed the drummer position “around 1991 or 1992” after he says original drummer Abe Cunningham “left the Deftones” to join another band called Phallucy.
“I took over on drums and that’s when [bassist] Chi Cheng joined the group,” he says. “I loved Chi, he was really cool – he was into poetry and all this stuff. Just a wonderful, kind-hearted person.” Chi Cheng remained a member of the Deftones until 2008, when he was involved in a serious car crash in California. Cheng died in 2013 from a sudden cardiac arrest.
Garcia continues, explaining that Phallucy’s bassist quit, and the idea of him playing “two different instruments in two different bands” – drums in Deftones and bass in Phallucy – seemed “super-cool”.
“I found out from a third party that Stephen had got a guy named John Taylor to play drums in the Deftones,” he says. “I was a little bit heartbroken because I’d started the band, but we were still friends.”
He adds: “I used to give Stephen a load of shit because he wasn’t a shredding guitar player like Eddie Van Halen. I was just being a snob, a cocky kid, but maybe it was low-key bullying.”
As it stands, Stephen Carpenter is still not touring internationally with Deftones. In 2022, the guitarist announced his decision to step away from performing with the band outside the US. Many believed it was due to his anti-vax views around the time of the Covid pandemic. The guitarist has also noted his struggles with anxiety more recently.
Last year, frontman Chino Moreno noted he wasn’t sure the exact reason why Stephen Carpenter was refusing to tour with the band outside the US,
“I don’t want to speak for him. And even if I could, I still don’t have an answer,” he told Metal Hammer. “And if he does have an answer, I think it’d be great if one day he would share it. But yeah, we support him. We have to. He’s our friend. And his health, be it physically or mentally, always takes the forefront of anything.”
View the Deftones website for a full list of upcoming tour dates.
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Source: www.guitar-bass.net
