Deftones Reflect On “White Pony” In New Interview
Rock Sound have published a revealing interview with the Deftones‘ Chino Moreno and Abe Cunningham regarding the creation and impact of their 2000 effort, “White Pony“.
An lengthy extract from the feature can be found at the above link, with an except from band frontman Chino Moreno regarding the track “Back To School (Mini Maggit)” available below:
“I remember the record had already been out for a while and had some radio play, but they wanted a second single and they didn’t think there were any more on the record. I said, ‘Well how do you know, because you haven’t tried with any others?’
I remember them sitting me down and pointing me out Papa Roach and Linkin Park had sold 6 million albums while we hadn’t sold a tenth of that. To me, they were saying they wanted some rap-rock, and at the time I was already way over making music like that., but my response was no way at first, and then they pointed out the chorus of ‘Pink Maggit’ was so great, so they asked me to rewrite it as a three-minute song.
They kept hounding me about so I was like ‘Watch this’, because formulaic songs are so easy to write…”
Loading ...
COMMENTS
I’d really like to find the full interview somewhere…
except back to school was done before the album even came out and was included in the original leak
@Tom – Well that shoots a whole right through the story. Any back-up on this? I didn’t get the leak, just got the original CD with Pink Maggit on it.
Aaawweeesome tune, by the way, Pink Maggit is.
Uh, and you also put your time into making the video because formulaic songs are so easy to apply to music videos? Something tells me the cash prospects were somewhat influential here. Also, in regards to the leak, I don’t remember hearing Back to School until well after the album had been out for a while and the Red version or whatever came out. I wasn’t AS into downloading full albums at the time though, so I COULD be wrong on this. I doubt it though, I think Pink Maggit was on the original leak.
I’m kornfused.
pink maggit was on the original release, secret song, then i think maybe 4 months later they re release white pony with Back to school on it and Pink maggit as well. But when White Pony first came out they had 4 different album covers, Red, White, Black and Grey. And had an extra “The Boys Republic”
Goddammit Chino.. I knew I didn’t like this song before I knew the reasons behind it. But this is like a gallery owner overlooking Van Gogh’s work and saying, “Um, I think this brush stroke needs to be a little more color by numbers.” & Van Gogh finally submitting. Goddammit Chino
I can vouch for Tom. I also downloaded the leak 1 or 2 months before the release and it had both Back to School and Pink Maggit. When it came out, I bought the limited edition red cover and it included Boys Republic (which was not on the leak), and it did not include Back to School. White Pony was later re-released in the white cover with Back to School as the first track. This story doesn’t make sense to me. Back to School was an unreleased B-side that the record company wanted to turn into a single because it had rapping in it. It was not written/recorded after the original White Pony release.
when I downloaded the leak (1 month prior) it did not have Back to School, only Pink Maggit & Boy’s Republic. when I bought it on release day it did not have Back to School, 3 months later-ish, the record was re-released with Back to School.
I had already been jamming to Back to School weeks before the album was released (thanks Napster)
“To this day I’ll put up Abe’s drum sound on ‘Digital Bath’ against anything.”
Exactly.
i bought White Pony the first day it came out. it was the grey cover. and pink maggit was the last track.(not hidden)
something else about his story, their album (white pony) came out in june 2000. linkin park’s (hybrid theory)came out in october 2000. NOBODY had heard of them prior to that. i saw LP open for kottonmouth kings in spring 2000, and after each song it was crickets. sounds like he’s backpeddling a little bit.
i remember hearing not long after the album came out that they were all against putting it out as a single, i don’t recall them being “forced” to record it.
i also downloaded the leaked cd a couple of months earlier and it had the mini maggit and back to school version.. no boys republic in there… i bought the red limited edition
I bought White pony when it first came out. I bought it on tape where usually when a band brought their stuff out the original version came out on tape. Pink maggot was the last song I still have it somewhere around here.
i think you’re all liars lol. or my leak was just not as cool as your leak.
To this day I will say “White Pony” was great but far from my favorite album. “Around the Fur” is the pinnacle album for me. “Self-Titled” & “Saturday Night Wrist” are also held high even if they consider them failures. Oh and I will also second the comment about the “back to school” song being on the leaked album before the first official release. I still have it as a matter of fact.
I agree with Jas. “Around the Fur” was a killer album as was “Adrenaline” for its era. I think “Adrenaline” was the best “nu-metal” record ever put out along side Korn’s self titled.
“back to school” definitely leaked with the entire album at first, it was called “mini maggit” at first, it came right before pink maggit in the original tracklist i had, and the original leak was missing the excellent “boys republic” featured on the limited editions….
now i dont know if the band is fibbing here or maybe just they cant exactly remember the order of events, but i certainly think its possible mini maggit was recorded last out of the material they were putting together at the time. there just no way they recorded it AFTER the album came out, as the leak proves.
the biggest travesty was making “back to school” track one on the album, totally ruining the vibe set by feiticiera (new murderer) kicking the album off originally…in the leak it came right before “pink maggit” which was actually a rather nice contrast to have the two tracks sandwiched together like that making them feel like one long song….
the song itself was never that bad, obviously nu-metal / rap rock became cliche but deftones still made some of the best. i suppose it takes some of the shine /integrity off of white pony as a whole, but that is the beauty of the deftones as well — most of the snobs get to miss out on them. good, let them.
my guess for what the truth of the song was, is they recorded it when they made the album (perhaps under pressure from the label as mentioned) but ultimately decided to leave it off as they realized the potential classic quality of their new album. what is strange is how they later caved to label pressure — but who cares — as i said already, i’m glad dogmatic snobby critic types can have a reason to brush aside the deftones — its their loss, and i guarantee you their music still reached those of us who needed it.
White Pony & Around The Fur.
The best!
I still love “the boys republic” track for some reason.
Crazy how Scott Weiland was the “RX QUEEN” song.
it doesn’t matter if it was recorded before or after the release. but i find it absurd, that people critisize the deftones for “caving” to label pressure. it’s an easy decision. your label tells you they don’t see any singles left on the record? that means they are gonna pull all financial support i.e. promotion, tour support, etc. the record to them is basically done. and we’re speaking of times, when record sales were still a relevant factor to a band’s existence. isn’t “white pony” the best selling deftones album to date still? so it’s an understandable and even wise decision from their perspective. and btw “back to school” is probably one of the best rap/rock songs ever made. chino flows nicely, the groove is tight and the hook will catch you immediately. so what if it was a business move. job well done, i’d say.
@bodes – “the biggest travesty was making “back to school” track one on the album, totally ruining the vibe set by feiticiera (new murderer) kicking the album off originally..” – couldn’t agree with you more. Felt completely, and utterly, tacked on…and the irony is, it wasn’t tacked on at the end, but the start!
Back To School is still better than the entire Saturday Night Wrist album.
Now where did you get that piece of information from?
lmao there are very few songs on SNW that aren’t miles better than BTS
Are y’all kidding? “Mein” & “Rats!..” are the only runts in that litter. That CD is the bomb pussy
Rapture, Cherry Waves… you’re joking right? If Deftones have a bad album. Please speak up, because it isn’t SNW.
This just in… they don’t have a bad album. And I would say Mein is my least fav song on SNW.
The question is that the leaked version(2 months earlier) already had ‘back to school’ so i wonder, why the cd version didn’t included that? Then they released it as a single and videoclip, a song that wasn’t on the original cd! So then they re-release the SAME cd within a couple months with ‘back to school’ as the first track and say, oh yeah.. this song wasn’t already written… When chino talks bad about the the record company at least he could speak the TRUTH.. yeah the song was already recorded and masterized, but i just didn’t want anything to do with numetal ‘so there you go…’ The record company probably heard complains about that cool song that got leaked and wasn’t even on the CD… and then they force the single release, with a nice story so nobody knows that the downloaders have an opinion :pppp
« Back View All Recent Comments »