Bradley Kanaris, Getty Images Although Lamb of God vocalist Randy Blythe has spoken out multiple times about his arrest in the Czech Republic for manslaughter, along with his proclamation of innocence, Blythe has been relatively quiet since his return to American soil in August. Certainly overwhelmed by both media and fan support, Blythe articulated much about his experience in a brand new interview. Sitting down with WTVR-TV, the CBS affiliate based in Blythe’s home town of Richmond, Va., the vocalist revealed that the United States Department of Justice was indeed informed by the Czech government that Blythe was under investigation for manslaughter stemming from a 2010 concert incident. “The Czech government apparently contacted our government and said, ‘Hey, this guy [Blythe]; we want to investigate him,’ and the Justice Department did not cooperate.” Blythe continues, “I don’t think the Czechs were too pleased about that. I’m not too pleased about that. And the least they could’ve done is, if they aren’t going to cooperate, fine, at least let me know I’m wanted for manslaughter in the Czech Republic. We had no idea. As Blythe has stated in the past, he will not run from these charges or hide out in the United States. “I feel ethically responsible to go back there and face this charge,” declares Blythe. [The victim’s] family right now is in a lot of pain, and they deserve some answers. To lose a child is the worst possible thing a human can go through. I want my name cleared. I have to go around the world and tour, you know? That’s what I do. I’m not going to hide here. I’m an innocent man. I’m going to go to court and see what happens.” Lamb of God are set to embark on an extensive U.S. tour with In Flames , Hatebreed and Sylosis . Hellyeah will also be hopping on board for select dates. Watch Randy Blythe’s Full Interview with WTVR [button href=”http://loudwire.com/tags/lamb-of-god” title=”Get More Lamb of God News Here” align=”center”]
Photo: James Minchin It’s no accident that Linkin Park have one of the biggest fan bases going, and the band is continuing to do their part to keep their followers happy by staging the 7th International Linkin Park Underground Summit in Cape Town, South Africa, on Nov. 7. The group began holding summits for their fan base several years back and has spread out the locations to make sure that everyone who likes the band will eventually have the opportunity to attend one of the events. Past summits have taken place in London, Sydney, Chicago, Hamburg, Tokyo, and Camden, N.J., with the band offering meet and greets, backstage tours, the opportunity for fans to jam on their gear or walk across their stage, soundcheck entry, Q&A sessions and acoustic performances. Passes for the Summit will be available strictly for the band’s LP Underground fan club beginning this Friday (Oct. 19) at 9AM Cape Town time. Summit passes are free for LPU Plus Pass members as part of their membership. In addition, the group has announced that for the first time, they will be selling exclusive LPU Summit t-shirts specific to the Cape Town event for $25. You can purchase the shirt when you reserve your pass. Stay tuned to the band’s website for additional details, including a Music for Relief tree planting activity, in the days to come. To get a better idea on what’s involved with an LPU Summit, check out the video from their inaugural event in London below. Watch Linkin Park’s ‘LPU Summit in London’ Trailer [button href=”http://loudwire.com/linkin-park-in-the-end-top-21st-century-hard-rock-songs/” title=”Next: Linkin Park – Top 21st Century Hard Rock Songs” align=”center”]
Hedi Slimane Over the weekend, we reported that a man was arrested for breaking into Frances Bean Cobain ’s home in Los Angeles. Now, not only has that man has been formally charged, some strange details have emerged surrounding the case. According to TMZ , the intruder who broke into Cobain’s home on Oct. 13 was 22-year-old Mark James Franco. Police report that Franco is a homeless man who was found brazenly doing his laundry when he was discovered at the home. The daughter of late Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love wasn’t home at the time of the crime. The uninvited guest was discovered by a relative taking care of Cobain’s dog while she was out of town. The intruder claimed to have known the home owner, but when Frances Bean was contacted, she told authorities she had no idea who he was. Franco was charged with first degree burglary, a crime that could land him a six year prison stay if convicted. He pleaded not guilty to the charges. The famously quiet Cobain has not yet publicly commented on the situation. [button href=”http://loudwire.com/courtney-love-loses-kurt-cobain-image-rights-to-daughter-frances-bean/” title=”Courtney Love Loses Kurt Cobain Image Rights to Daughter Frances Bean” align=”center”]
Photo by Jimmy Hubbard It’s been nearly three months since progressive rock leaders Baroness were involved in a catastrophic and gruesome bus accident. After the breaks on the group’s bus failed to work, the band plummeted 30 feet into a wooded area at a speed of around 50mph. Although serious injuries were sustained, all of the bus’s passengers survived and are nursing themselves back to health. In a great honor here at Loudwire, Baroness frontman John Baizley offered us his very first interview since the crash, discussing in great detail how the incident changed his life. In this three-part interview, where we spoke to Baizley for nearly an hour, the musician opens up about the crash itself, his current physical condition, when the band will tour once again + much, much more. Read Part 1 of our John Baizley interview below: We’ve all heard that the bus crash left you with very debilitating injuries. You’ve just started picking up a guitar again and you wrote that incredible recollection of what happened. Since you weren’t able to pick up a guitar for a little while, I’d think that it’s left a little bit of a creative gap in you. So writing the recollection of that crash, was that somewhat of a creative catharsis for you? Yeah, in a way. It’s a far cry from writing full songs and really jumping back into art, but when I was first put in the hospital and had to go through surgery, I was just on my back and it was hard for me to sit up. The one thing that I did have the ability to do was use my right hand and I started very early on, very quickly after the crash, just typing really or texting, whatever I was able to do with those fingers to keep in touch with my friends and the people that I needed or wanted to have access with. Shortly thereafter I discovered that being able to articulate the experience, either verbally or on paper, was quite nice for my mental state. I won’t say cathartic because that would seem to denote that at the end of it, I feel better or that I purged with it. I guess over time it’s a slow purging. But yeah, I discovered some sort of therapy through putting my thoughts down on paper in a different way than I’m accustomed to. The tools in my trade are typically songs and images, so now I’m trying to keep them a verbal thing. It’s a new thing for me but it’s actually been quite good for me. It was strangely beautiful, that memoir . I think it connected with a lot of people and you mentioned that you only recently have been able to pick up a guitar again and you still struggle with some pain when playing. Could you elaborate on what that pain is actually like? I’ve been probably living with it now for close to seven weeks. It’s a physical pain, it’s a corporeal pain that won’t go away and of course when it initially happened, I was in real need of heavy medication. Since then, the trick has been to sort of get away from it, so I’m still not quite so far away from the injury that I’m without pain. There’s a 16, 17-inch scar going down my arm that hasn’t healed yet. There’s a small army of metal pieces inside which are not only helping keeping me together but also beginning to react with the organic parts of my body, and at the same time, it’s important for me to get to know the nature of my injuries so that I am as mobile as I possibly can be. I’m trying to move what doesn’t want to be moved and all the while I’m trying to heal. There’s that pain from the injury and along with that severely extensive nerve damage, basically from all the way up from my shoulder down to my fingertips. Playing music is like a different thing, you know? Now there’s a rehabilitative quality to what I’m doing because I essentially had all of the musculature and all of the nervous system removed from my arm for eight hours during the surgery and once it was replaced, you’re dealing with scar tissue and you’re dealing with some parts which aren’t going to work again. There’s a swash of skin down the middle of my arm; basically the top half of my arm doesn’t have physical feeling to it anymore. When I first came out of surgery, there was very, very extreme and incredibly painful pins and needles in my hand, which scared me at first. I said to myself, ‘Oh god what if this lasts forever? What if everything I touch hurts?’ Fortunately, the nerves in my hand are going to work again correctly but the interesting thing is I have to teach the nerve endings how to feel certain things. Textures are quite alien to me at this point. It took me a week to tell the difference between wood and cloth and to pick up my guitar and being able to do that. To my utmost surprise, my fingers were able to play and there was still a ton of muscle memory that was really left in them. They were articulate despite the absence of muscle in my arm, which is almost total. My fingers which require very little musculature; my fingers could do what they’ve always done with a guitar. It was remarkable, it was super surprising. I put it like this; I was stuck in the UK for like six-and-a-half weeks, and when I got home I went back to my studio and there was a guitar hanging on the wall and I was just sitting there looking at it for a full day trying to build up the will and energy and confidence to pick it up and touch it. To me, even at that time, it represented something more than just a guitar. The moment that I picked it up I was going to assess exactly where I was and exactly how much work I had ahead of me to get back to being normal, or whatever the new normal is. Like I said, to my surprise I put it on my lap and was instantly able to play. At first, it was country music; just simple chords, and then within three or four days my fingers were able to stretch out. After five days I was able to play all of our songs and at the end of the week, I had written three songs. So it was very quick and I think it’s an incredible tool for me given the very specific nature of my injuries. Having this tool is not only good physically for my arm, but also a positive thing for me mentally and a constructive thing for me spiritually. It’s like, here’s a tool to help me get back anything I could do with my hands. I’ve begun making art again and I started writing a lot more songs, so all of these things are sort of, multifaceted tools to express myself and to heal myself and to get right with myself by engaging. But, as you said initially, it doesn’t come without pain. I think that one of the big lessons through this process for me is that I’ve been broken down to the basic physical functions of a two-year-old and since the accident I’ve been trying to reclaim myself from all directions and it doesn’t happen without pain. I’m still waiting, it’s still just so fresh for me, I’m just waiting for the first moment of my life where just sitting here doesn’t hurt. It’s actually not that bad because if you’re sore all the time or if you’re in pain all the time, then adding a little bit doesn’t freak you out at all. So what I’m doing is I’m being very aggressive with my rehabilitation. My therapists keep asking me ‘Does it hurt when I do that?’ and my answer is, ‘Yes, but it hurt before you started doing it, so just lets get back together.’ [Laughs] I’m not the sort of person that likes sitting around. I don’t see the benefits in having the time-off aspect of this. I see this as another challenge for me this year and one in which I’m fully equipped to deal with even though it’s certainly been intense. It’s really been traumatic and it’s certainly become something that will define this year, if not this section of my life, but because of that, I think it’s very important not to let it be all negative. Yeah, I was in a crash and that’s bad. I got banged up, broken — that’s bad. There’s nothing good about that, but you can learn something through it, like anything. Like any mistake that’s made or any injury to a person, you could take something from it and use it to make yourself better. With this thing in particular, because it’s touched me on so many different levels, it’s allowing me to regain perspective and regain motivation and reaffirm my ideas and my passions and become, if nothing else, more confident, more resolute in the choices that I’ve made in my life in the fact that I’ve dedicated myself to music, and as I said in the press statement, this wasn’t the fault of my career path, this wasn’t the fault of my lifestyle. This could have easily happened … it’s that cliche, it could have happened walking out of the house in the morning or could have happened downtown while I was going to see a show or eat dinner. It’s just that what we do in Baroness puts us on the road and on roads very frequently, so it’s certainly part of the risk but it wasn’t something inevitable. It was a fluke, and like all of these things that happen as a fluke or by happenstance, we have to use it. We can use it very easily and in a negative way and become more fearful of leaving the house or fearful of going out on tour or, you know, less secure and sort of paranoid and sad about it, but that has nothing to do with us getting back out. It’s just that something has happened to us and it’s going to take a minute for us to get ready again, but f— it, put me back on the road; that’s what I do. This isn’t the sort of thing that is going to stop that. Please visit Loudwire on Friday, Oct. 19, for Part 2 of the interview, in which Baizley tells us that if his arm injury was any worse, there would have been discussion of amputation, among other revelations. [button href=”http://loudwire.com/tags/baroness/” title=”More Baroness Coverage Here” align=”center”]
Liz Ramanand, Loudwire / Ethan Miller, Getty Images There have been several stories over the past year on the topic of Zakk Wylde filling in for the late Dimebag Darrell should Pantera ever decide to reunite for shows, but singer Phil Anselmo says comments he made to that effect were taken out of context. Anselmo tells Ultimate-Guitar.com , “That whole thing was taken way out of context. All that happened was Zakk and I spoke and what it was about was just a personal issue between he and I that was worked out quickly and easily. We were cozy as kittens after that and we just shot the sh-t. Honestly, the whole Pantera thing did not come up at all. Whoever interviewed me and I f—in’ forget the whole thing but it was taken out of context because we didn’t even talk about Pantera reuniting or anything like that. Matter of fact we talked about relations and mutual friends and just honestly everybody getting along and that’s really all we talked about.” Anselmo was quoted by the Village Voice as saying , “I talked to Zakk about two weeks ago, and he’s very open for it. He’s got an open mind about it. But, truth be told, Vince has got a grudge against me that is really unfounded. And, honestly, I’ve always had a wide-open door when it comes to Vince. If it takes me standin’ there and lettin’ that little guy punch me in the f—in’ face repeatedly, over and over and over, til his hands were tired of hittin’ my rock-hard f—in’ head, as long as we could sit down and talk afterwards, I’m all for it, man.” Earlier this year, drummer Vinnie Paul also stated that should a reunion ever happen, Wylde would be the choice to fill in for his late brother Dimebag. But Vinnie Paul also stressed that he felt it was best to leave the band’s legacy alone. [button href=”http://loudwire.com/pantera-revolution-is-my-name-top-21st-century-metal-songs/” title=”Next: Pantera – Top 21st Century Metal Songs” align=”center”]
Simone Joyner, Getty Images It’s always interesting to see how things will work when members from various bands decide to take on a project together, and one of the better collaborations this year is the new metal outfit, AxeWound . The band features Cancer Bats singer Liam Cormier, Bullet for My Valentine ‘s Matt Tuck (on guitar), Pitchshifter drummer Jason Bowld, Glamour of the Kill guitarist Mike Kingswood, and Rise to Remain bassist Joe Copcutt, and they just released their debut disc, ‘ Vultures .’ Loudwire caught up with Cormier, who told us about the band’s speedy recording period, how quickly the group has bonded, and his thoughts on bringing their music to North American audiences this fall. This record was recorded in a little under two weeks and you were the last addition to the lineup. What was it like being thrown into the fire with this record? I was at home just having some downtime from finishing the Cancer Bats record and I got a phone call from Matt Tuck basically telling me that he had written a record, a metal record, and he was asking if I wanted to sing on it. I was like, “Yeah man, that’d be rad. I’ve got some time off and I think we could do something.” He was like, “OK then, I’ll send you something, the eight songs that I have mixed down and we’ve got another three that are finished. Let me know what you think.” I had no idea that he’d even have that many songs finished or what was even up with the project and I got all these crazy metal tracks and I was like, “Whoa, this is awesome!” I called him back and I was like, “Hey man, I’m totally in. When are you thinking?,” and he [asked], “How soon can you get on a plane and fly to Wales? I need to do this before I write the Bullet [for My Valentine] record.” I was like, “Ooh, I guess I can jump on a plane next week,” and he [said], “OK, perfect.” So before I had a chance to even think it out, I was getting on a plane flying to England. I was basically trying to write out as much as I could while waiting to meet this new band. We went to Wales and recorded the vocals in five days and that was it. We were like a real band. That’s great, and listening to this you hear the immediacy. You did it so quick, there’s not much time to think about it. You just knock it out and move on. That was the real fun side of it. It was just all of our gut instincts, and we didn’t have time to overanalyze things, so when we were laying down vocals or in the same spirit when they were doing the tracking of the album – the drums and guitar – it was just like whatever was your gut feeling, what felt right, that’s what went. It was cool having that spirit throughout the whole thing. It was like, “Hey man, that sounds great. Let’s move on.” I’m like, “Oh, do you want an extra track?” “Nope, we don’t have time and that sounds perfect.” It was really positive for me being in the studio under those circumstances, cause it was Ginge who was recording and Matt who was producing just being really pumped on everything we were doing. I’d show them lyrics and me and Matt would work on it, change a few words up or take some things out and for the most part it was just hammering it out. It was fun. Matt had talked about in a previous interview how interesting it was for him not having to be the lead singer and letting someone else go crazy onstage. Given his experience fronting a successful band and your experience with Cancer Bats, how has it worked co-existing onstage together? Well that’s what he told me when he came into – “I just want to play guitar and drink beer and have fun. I don’t want to have to worry about my voice or anything.” Originally it was supposed to be Matt singing on two tracks — ‘ Cold ‘ and ‘Collide’ — he had some ideas. But as we went on, just because he had some ideas, we were getting pumped and had some ideas, and I think it’s funny that I still roped him into being a singer [laughs]. It was like, “You’ve got a great voice. It’d be stupid of us not to take advantage of that.” And he’s got a really crazy screaming voice which I think is awesome. I think it doesn’t get presented as much as it could and Bullet, and the same with me and Cancer Bats, there’s some things I can’t do cause it wouldn’t fit the band. So this whole project was just trying different stuff. Like ‘Blood, Money & Lies,’ where Matt’s vocals are just brutal. It was awesome. I didn’t know he could scream like that. So it’s cool for both of us trying out different styles. With balancing Cancer Bats and AxeWound this past summer, does that just make you more energized when you return to one project after doing the other? It was fun this summer doing double sets, going from Cancer Bats to AxeWound or vice versa. It made me appreciate how different both projects were. I think when I’m screaming in the studio, it’s obviously Liam from Cancer Bats screaming on a metal record, but then playing those two different shows, it’s like, “No, I’m Liam from AxeWound, fronting this band.” I do see how different both projects are, especially when I’m doing them back to back. [laughs] Gotta say ‘Cold,’ such a great song to lead off with. Can you talk about how ‘Cold’ came together? ‘Cold’ was rad for me because that was the one song that Matt – it was the first song that Matt wrote for AxeWound. It was him thinking he had some stuff that was completely different from anything he was doing with Bullet. So for me, in the studio, that was actually the best because we were cramming, writing lyrics and working inside the can, and when it came to ‘Cold,’ Matt was like, “Oh I have the lyrics. We can just sing that.” It was like, “Whew! OK! Cool.” So we just banged that one out super quick. I think it’s rad because that song is such a 50/50 of Matt and I, between the verses and chorus, and to me that is the epitome of what the band is, having those different dynamics and how it comes together. I really like that song. It’s super fun. ‘Collide’ seems like the curveball on the album. It’s definitely heavy, but it’s got that soft piano opening and the strings, and after the brutality of the rest of the record, it kind of changes things up. We even position it in the set the same style, about halfway through as the sort of weird breather. But the song itself is super heavy when it all kicks in and it’s super fun to play live as well. But for those guys, they were telling me that when they were writing everything, they kind of got to a point where they didn’t want to rewrite the same style. We actually had that conversation of what other types of metal do we all really like. And having that theatrical style of things and Matt has a friend who plays all the piano on it, so we had this idea that we could make this heavy song, but have it be … Well, I like how all the songs don’t sound the same, and with this you’ve got something completely different. It’s a total curve ball. But once we put the vocals down, it didn’t seem out of place. I think on the album what’s cool is we can do something different, but it still stands up next to like ‘Destroy’ or ‘Victim of the System.’ It’s just as rad of a song because it has the theatrical and more dynamics to it. Obviously, we know you and Matt as the singers for your other respective groups, but man, Jason Bowld from Pitchshifter on drums kicks ass on this record. He’s like the secret weapon. Yeah, he’s an animal. It’s amazing playing with him live. He just locks in the click and just all of the songs he hammers home. It’s like you said – he is our secret weapon. Having this dude that’s like a machine gun behind you just let’s us go out and do our thing. You just always know that there’s this super solid dude backing you up. It’s the best. What’s crazy though for Matt is that with Jason, there’s some songs that, like ‘Victim of the System,’ Jason just laid down those drums and Matt wrote the guitars around it. So he wrote that song around the drum tracks. For a lot of guitar players and anyone in a band, it’s such a different way of thinking of things – doing drums first and then everything else according to that. But I think that Matt finds it really exciting. Just having this completely different way of doing things is refreshing. You’re also getting some love for ‘ Exorchrist ,’ and what a freaky video you’ve got for it. What can you tell us about the song and the clip? [Laughs] That’s one of my favorite songs. I just really liked it. When we were talking about what could be the next single, that one was up there for me. I love the chorus for the song. The lyrics and the idea was something that I had written. Actually, when we were throwing around ideas for a band name, I was thinking we could call the band Exochrist, like the opposite of an exorcism – getting all the good out and letting the evil in. I thought that was pretty metal. So I kind of kept that idea around and wrote a whole song about it. The cool part for me was that I had the structure of that chorus set out a lot different, just more traditionally hardcore singing on the beat. But with Matt producing, he was like, “Let’s bring out that last line and make more of a statement,” and all of a sudden that opened up that song to me in more of a Judas Priest-huge rock chorus context. That sold me on that song so hard. It was so cool and was a badass way of ending the chorus, just bringing on the ‘Exorchrist’ with the ripping guitar. And when the idea for the video came, it was like no videos get played on TV for metal bands anymore. Just very few daytime TV slots at all, so we thought why not make the gnarliest metal video we can. We just wanted some of those fun metal things, so we had some gore and naked demons. It was kind of cool and that’s where the idea went. I showed up to the set, and there were these girls just covered in gore, and I thought, “Oh, yeah, I guess it’s pretty full on.” [laughs] But I like how the video turned out in the end. It’s definitely pretty cool and something completely different than anything I’ve done with Cancer Bats or any other band I’ve ever been in. You’re right that Exorchrist would be an awesome band name, but it worked out perfectly with AxeWound, which is also pretty cool, and you still got a solid song out of the other moniker. AxeWound was always the band name, and then we kind of had a bit of a talk about whether it should be the band name. We threw around some of the songs and song titles that provided potential band names, like ‘Church of Nothing,’ ‘Exorchrist’ – I still like the idea of them, so it was just like, “Oh, well I’ll just write a song called ‘Church of Nothing.’ I’ll write a song called ‘Exorchrist.’ Perfect.” ‘Church of Nothing,’ yes we’re expecting metal, but that song swings. I really like how gallop-y and almost how power metal it gets in the bridge, but it’s also one of the fastest songs too. It’s so thrashy. I like it cause it confuses kids too. Like when we’re playing it on the tour live, you’d see kids when we start up the verse start the circle pit, but before they’ve even made a full circle, it crashes back into the gallop-y chorus. It’s like, “Oh, I need to pump my fists.” You see these kids wanting to get involved, but then having to figure out what to do. [laughs] Speaking of the circle pit, ‘Burn Alive’ has to work for that, as well. Yeah, ‘Burn Alive,’ that’s our circle pit jam. I’ll call it out pretty huge before that one and it’s rad because it’s an easy one right off the bat. ‘Destroy’ is actually going over really well where kids are singing along with the huge chorus and the big fist pumps in that bridge. ‘Post Apocalyptic Party,’ ‘Exorchrist,’ and ‘Cold’ have all been killing it too, just cause kids have known those songs that longest. But it’s great to see the whole record getting well received live. You can tell kids have put in the time and are learning the words and getting really into the whole thing. Most of your dates so far have been overseas. How pumped are you to bring it back to North America later this year? I’m pumped to see what the reaction will be like over here. I know I have a ton of friends in Toronto and Montreal where we’re playing that are really excited to see it. But I think in general, just Cancer Bats and Bullet fans and Pitchshifter fans, everybody is kind of finding out about this project is really getting excited. I think these shows are gonna be good. If this does go on beyond this first album , how excited are you to be there from the inception the next time around? All of us have been getting along super well and this tour has gone off, so for all of us, we want to keep working on the project. For us, especially Matt and I, it’s just a matter of finding time. But we’ve all talked about getting together at some point – maybe at the end of the Bullet tour cycle for this next record and maybe writing the next AxeWound record together – the five of us. Just thinking of how quick we were able to put things together with the quick sessions and it would be interesting to see what we could do – the five of us – maybe if we’re locked in a room for a month, which is the next step for the band. But at the same time, I don’t want to lose that urgency that we have with everything. Everyone’s on the same page that way, so I don’t think we’ll give ourselves too much time. But sometimes when you have a good deadline and your back is against the wall, that’s when you come up with your best stuff, so I think to not lose site of that with this band would be awesome. It seems like the song ‘Post Apocalyptic Party’ would make for a good video… If we could do a video for that song, Matt and I had this idea of us riding dirt bikes. We both ride motorcycles, so we thought it would be cool to do a Mad Max style video where we’re riding around on dirt bikes in a wasteland, kind of ripping around. Maybe if we become the biggest band in the world, we can make our high budget AxeWound video. Watch AxeWound’s ‘Exorchrist’ Video
Mary Ouellette, SheWillShootYou.com As anticipation builds for the Nov. 13 release of ‘ Koi No Yokan ,’ Deftones have released a lyric video for the album’s first single ‘Tempest’ (watch below). The band has also launched a pre-order bundle for ‘Koi No Yokan’ that includes the album on CD, a digital copy of the album, a download of ‘Tempest,’ a ‘Koi No Yokan’ album cover t-shirt and a 24 inch by 24 inch lithograph. 100 randomly selected fans will have their lithograph signed by the band. The package is available via deftones.com for $39.99. Singer Chino Moreno talked about how the dynamics will play out on their new album in a recent interview. He told NME , “It’s not a super fast or slow record. It’s very dynamic. Some of my favorite things about Deftones are the dynamics. Yes, we’re a heavy band, but we’re not just in-your-face aggro the whole time, punching you in the face. There’s a lot of aggression in some of the music, but there’s also this very soothing element where there’s a lot of soundscapes rather than attack, attack, attack the whole time.” Deftones are in the midst of a headlining tour with Scars on Broadway that wraps up Oct. 30 in New York. They’ll play some dates in Mexico and South America before returning to the U.S. to pick up the tour again Nov. 14. Last week at the San Francisco show the band invited bassist Chi Cheng’s son Gabe onstage to play the song ‘Root’ with them. Chi has been mostly in a coma since a 2008 car accident. Watch Deftones’ ‘Tempest’ Lyric Video