The highly anticipated new album by Deftones is finished and might be out in September, according to drummer Abe Cunningham.
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Speaking in a new interview, Cunningham was asked about the status of the band’s ninth studio album, which frontman Chino Moreno had previously stated would “definitely be out” this year.
“We actually tracked everything over the summer, last summer – June and July – we were in the studio tracking,” Cunningham told Download TV, a virtual edition of Download Festival, the UK’s biggest metal festival designed to take the place of 2020’s cancelled edition this weekend (June 12-14). “But we actually just completed everything… We were down in L.A. recording, but we mixed up in Seattle.”
In April, Cunningham confirmed that the band were mixing the new record, although it had been “a bit difficult” to do so because of the coronavirus lockdown. He has now revealed that they “figured out a way to kind of do the mixes without being” together.
“We’re working with our old pal Terry Date, who did a bunch of our earlier records and stuff, too,” he said. “He’s up there [in Seattle] with this whole distancing thing; it was a bit rough, but we figured out a way to kind of do the mixes without being there.
“It’s a lot better when we’re all in the room; we can knock it out quick and argue and do our things. But, yeah, we just completed that. It’s getting mastered right now, and that’s been the main thing. So it’s been something to do in this strange off time.”
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Asked if there was a release date, Cunningham replied: “It should be coming along, hopefully, maybe September. I heard something.”
As for the musical direction of the album, Cunningham said that Deftones can’t “help but sound like ourselves,” but that the “core sounds” they developed with producer Terry Date on their first four albums were “back again.”
Elsewhere in the interview, Cunningham discussed Deftones’ shelved album ‘Eros’, which the band started before bassist Chi Cheng was involved in a car accident that eventually led to his death in 2013.
“It was never completed, and that’s what people don’t get, like, ‘What, you’re just sitting on it?’ And I mean no, we’re not just sitting on it, we never finished it,” he said. “And then [Chi] got in his accident and that’s kinda where it just stopped. And quite frankly it’s not that good. There’s some songs that are really good.”
When asked about potentially releasing the album, Cunningham answered: “We’ve talked about putting out maybe a condensed version or an EP of four or five songs, something like that, and that kind of makes sense. But we have to get into all the legalities of it and all that stuff and also we have to finish it. But yeah, it would be nice for that to see the light of day, definitely.”
In a statement via Instagram, the band said: “Due to current regulations, and uncertainty surrounding COVID-19, we must reschedule our North American tour dates.
“We’re currently rescheduling the dates for 2021, and you’ll be the first to know once they are confirmed. All tickets will be honoured or refunded upon our next announcement regarding the tour.”