Deftones

Deftones are an American alternative metal band formed in Sacramento, California in 1988, built around vocalist Chino Moreno, guitarist Stephen Carpenter, drummer Abe Cunningham and turntablist/keyboardist Frank Delgado, with bassist Sergio Vega joining after the death of founding member Chi Cheng. Emerging from the same California scene that produced the nu-metal wave of the late 1990s, Deftones set themselves apart by blending crushing, downtuned guitar riffs with dreamy, shoegaze-influenced atmospherics and Moreno's melodic, often whispered-to-screamed vocal delivery.

Albums like Around the Fur and White Pony pushed them beyond nu-metal's confines into a more textured, genre-blurring sound that incorporated electronics, ambient passages and pop sensibility alongside heaviness, influencing the broader alternative and post-hardcore landscape. The band has continued to evolve across a long discography, with releases such as Diamond Eyes and the Grammy-nominated Ohms showing a band still expanding its sonic palette decades into its career.

With over a dozen studio albums and millions of records sold worldwide, Deftones remain one of the most respected and influential bands to emerge from the alternative metal scene, known for a devoted fanbase and a sound that consistently resists easy genre labels.