When the metal band Deftones arrives in Seattle on Thursday night, it will be in small part because of guitarist Stephen Carpenter’s ability to briefly overcome an addiction.
To what? The “Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2005” video game on PlayStation 2.
Drummer Abe Cunningham made Carpenter’s problem public in a recent interview, so I had to ask Carpenter about it when I got him on the phone earlier this month.
Step 1: Denial. “It’s funny,” Carpenter said. “You just have to be around Abe enough and know how he talks.”
Step 2: Acceptance. “There’s always someone online to play with, so I could always get a game in. That was exciting, and I just got hooked on it.”
Step 3, in this case: Kicking everyone’s butt. Carpenter struggled at first to keep up with players online, but said he finished in fifth place in the game’s online rankings.
“When we weren’t recording, I was online playing that game,” Carpenter said. “I told those (other players online), ‘I’m in a band. We got all day. We ain’t going nowhere.”
He started playing the game when the band began working on “Saturday Night Wrist,” the Deftones’ fifth studio album that is due in stores Tuesday. Now it’s time to go somewhere, and the first post-CD-release stop is at the Fenix Underground (formerly the Premier) in Seattle.
But the fact that the tour and the album have arrived goes beyond any video game. “Saturday Night Wrist” was a struggle to get done and the band has admitted that the album-making process is getting tougher each time. A change in producers and lead singer Chino Moreno’s insistence on working on his side project, Team Sleep, caused some significant delays in getting the album done.
“It was tough, mainly in terms of the time spent on it,” Carpenter said. “It was tough times for everybody, but there was more tough times for Chino than anyone. I don’t want to repeat that process, that’s for sure. It was all the lessons on how not to make a record.”
Despite the steady tension that exists within the band and the painful process of creating the album, Carpenter shrugs off the rumors that the band is close to breaking up.
“There’s definitely tension there, but it’s not what we’re all about,” he said. “It happens to be part of what we are and how we work together, but it’s the tension that gets highlighted (by others).”
Deftones rolled through Everett in April when they headlined the “Taste of Chaos” tour. The festival shows are nice, but the sets are shorter and the fans are sometimes there to see other bands. This time around, Deftones are playing smaller venues.
“We enjoy all the (venue) sizes,” Carpenter said. “They’re all exciting to play. There are people from all walks when it’s a big festival; our audience is mixed in with everyone else’s audience. We haven’t even done our own headlining tour in a while, so we’ll start at the bottom. We’re not so arrogant to think we can go blow up some huge arena. We know our fan base and we know what they want.”
Victor Balta: 425-339-3455 or vbalta@heraldnet.com.
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