Chi Cheng of the Deftones
Interviewed by Sirona Knight and Michael Starwyn
The Deftones received the keys to their hometown,
Sacramento, California, in honor of the tremendous success of their third
album, "White Pony." Besides
being certified as a Gold Record, "White Pony" won the UK Music Award
for "Best Album of the Year," and the song "Elite" on the
album won a Grammy award for best metal performance. The Deftones, who consist of vocalist Chino Moreno, guitarist
Stephen Carpenter, bass player Chi Cheng, drummer Abe Cunningham, and DJ Frank
Delgado, all write the songs together, creating music that is surreal with a
razor's edge. Unlike the ego-driven
antics of some of today's rock and rollers, the Deftones' bass player Chi Cheng
is introspective and articulate, evidenced by his spoken CD of poetry, entitled
"Bamboo Parachute." He is
also very community-oriented as shown by his donation of time and money to
Muscular Dystrophy and WIN, a program for homeless teens. In the following interview, Chi shares his
insights into the Deftones' creative process, and his personal views on
spirituality.
Do you follow a particular spiritual tradition? Are you a Buddhist?
Chi: I'm more
of a Zen Lunatic actually. I like the
idea of just sitting. When you sit, you
have thought. Eventually you have no
thought. When you sit, you naturally
have compassion for other human beings.
You hear your own thoughts and you're able to empathize with other
people because you can hear the chaos that's going on in your own head.
I understand the Deftones write songs as a band? How does that process work, for example, in
your album "White Pony"?
I 'm not going to lie, there's usually a lot of
fighting. Being a band with a lot of
different personalities, we cooperate as much as we can. It can get sticky sometimes. There are a lot of cooks and not enough
people outside of the kitchen. Everybody
is really passionate about the music.
Our guitar player, Stephen, has been the primary song writer. But we won't work on anything or turn it
into a song unless all five of us like it.
We get rid of about 90 percent of our material.
So sort of a semi-democracy.
Yeah, something like that. Chino, our singer, tends to like the softer stuff while Stephen
likes the harder stuff, so there was some tension there. I'm more laid back, and if it's cool, I like
to work on it. If it's not vibing, I
like to move on. There are twelve
notes, and you can pick and arrange them in any way that you want. We were all pushing our selves a lot harder
on "White Pony" and we really challenged ourselves.
How do you keep the sound of the Deftones keep
progressing? You are quoted as saying,
"Our albums keep progressing because we're going with what we feel is
right at that moment, not what we think we're supposed to do."
We have been together as a band for over ten years
and we are a very self-indulgent band.
We're just trying to figure out where our heads are at and put that
down.
Is that one of the keys to your music, staying in the
moment?
Yeah, a lot of bands stick with a formula and that
makes them kind of complacent. They
came up with something that made them big and then they stuck with it because
they don't want to go backwards or something.
They have lost the fire.
Everyone is more concerned with maintaining a status quo instead of
actually pushing themselves as artists.
So you really have to re-invent yourself.
Yes, I think it's important. My favorite artists are the ones than when I
first put on a new album, I end up listening to it over and over again, and
suddenly it's my favorite stuff. I love
Ben Harper. He's one of the few
contemporary people I can listen to.
It's important to be willing to try something
different.
Yeah, and if it doesn't happen, as long as you're
happy with it, I don't think you can have any real regrets. For me, when I write something down, at the
moment I'm happy with it. When I look
at it later, and don't want to see it and hear it. Is reality truth or is the perception of reality truth? And the perception is still a thought, so
what is the actual truth? What is
actually true? It's a tricky thing. That's why when I write, I don't try to put
thought to writing, for example, I don't sit down an hour a day to write. I write whatever is banging at my head and I
have to get it out.
When the creative spirit hits you?
Yeah, I don't think you can force something like that
or it becomes contrived. I'll go for
three weeks without writing a thing and then suddenly all these things will
start flooding my head. I'll grab a
notebook or napkin or whatever is around and write it down.
You have to stay with the moment.
You really do because it's not the same vibe or mind
space anymore.
I look at it as a gift, and hope that you got a run
and go with the run and put it down. I
think I've lost more poems than I've written down. I won't have a pen and it will flood in and I will try to get it
down. It comes to you at any
moment. I write a lot of music and
poems in my dreams. I wake up and I can
tell it was really a decent poem or song.
Do you get up and write it down?
I do, and it drives my wife nuts because sometimes I
will get up four times in the night.
It's nice to write then because there aren't any distractions. I don't read much poetry. I read other things and that inspires my
work, like Capra's "The Tao of Physics" or Townshend's
"Holographic Universe" or books on alchemy, and occasionally I will
go to a library and look at the art of Cezanne or Matisse and get inspired by
paintings. I don't write like a lot of
other people. It's kind of out there
and different.
I understand you personally are involved in charity
work, and you like to give back to the community.
Chi: I
started getting into charity work through my son who had a hop-a-thon for
Muscular Dystrophy at his preschool. I
thought it was cool so I volunteered to help the kids hop and get them fired
up. I found out it doesn't take that
much money to send a kid to camp for an entire summer, so I put up some money
and called up everyone in the industry that I knew--record companies,
management, accounting, to match what I gave, or more, and we sent a bunch of
kids to camp. It seemed like an easy thing
to do, so we branched out from there. I
discovered there were a lot of musicians at WIN a program for homeless teens,
and how many of the kids were fans of the Deftones. So I started hanging out with them, and I bought a bunch of
instruments for the kids. I just went
down and dropped the instruments off yesterday, and now we are setting up a
program where the kids can go in an jam a couple of hours a day. I like to actually work with the kids and
participate. It makes more of an impact
that way. I think it's really important
to work with local community programs in your town. It makes a difference.
I noticed that half of the profits on your
"Bamboo Parachute" spoken word CD go to charities.
Chi: Right now,
it's more 100%. I keep giving it away.
It's cool, and I'm glad I've been able to donate money to these charities
and be a part of it. While I had a little down time, I decided to
do a spoken word CD. I had five or
six books of poetry laying around. I
don't think I'm a great poet or anything, but I figured I didn't have anything
to lose. I always figured it might
be a great way to generate money for charity.
I'm marketing it at Deftones shows and online at <http://www.deftones.com>.