Deftones vocalist/guitarist Chino Moreno has spoken with NME about the band’s newly released single “Ohms“—the title track to their ninth studio album. When asked about the track and the lyrical inspiration for it, he offered:
“As the last song on the record, it’s kind of sung in retrospect – it’s looking back not just at the batch of songs that come before it, but our lives and our surroundings. The verses are reflecting, but the chorus kind of says, ‘Yes this, but this‘ – it’s saying that time will change with the decisions we make. It’s a question and an answer.
The very first line of the song is ‘We’re surrounded by debris of the past’. That’s not directly about one thing. It could be about an experience or a relationship, but honestly in my mind I was thinking about the environment, the world and the Earth. The chorus is saying that we’re going to remain here together and nothing’s going to change that.
It’s a dichotomy of reflecting on negative things, but coming out of it optimistic.”
When asked if the song itself is representative of how the rest of the album sounds, Moreno replied:
“It sounds like we’re in peril when the song starts with a riff that’s all angular and dirty, then all of a sudden it lifts up with the chorus. That’s a good scope of where this record’s at, and as a Deftones’ song in general. That yin and ying of what we’ve always done of making very brutal music while having these lush overtones and undertones within it is what makes us who we are.
We’ve never just been a metal band, we’ve never just been an alternative band, we’ve always just been us. We feel comfortable in never having to choose and let the songs unfold in an organic way.”
“Ohms” will be released on September 25th and can be pre-ordered here.
