From schoolboy ambitions to international fame via drug problems, personality clashes and the death of a bandmate, the path of Deftones has never run smooth – but they’re still standing…

Since they were formed in Sacramento, California, in 1988 by a bunch of skateboarding teenagers, Deftones have cut a swath through the metal scene with a sound that has always broken new ground and that went on to influence a generation that followed them. But their triumphs have been marred by low points that would have been insurmountable for a lesser band, from bouts of in-fighting to serious drug habits to the tragic death of an integral member of the group.

Frontman Chino Moreno looks back candidly over a career that started in the school playground, reflecting on the mistakes they’ve made and learned from, and how they managed to heal the rifts that threatened to tear them apart. “This whole long story of everything we’ve been through, it’s put it in perspective for myself,” he says after picking apart Deftones’ history. “It’s actually making me realise everything we’ve been through and why we are who we are today.”

You met Abe (Cunningham, drums) at school – what are your earliest memories of your bandmates?

I met Abe in seventh grade, when I was about 12. We were both into skateboarding. We became good friends, and one day after school I went to his house and he had a drum set in his bedroom. The drum set took up his whole room, then he had little makeshift bed on the floor. It was cool to me, that this kid was really committed to his drums. He later told me he had been playing since he was little, like four years old. So he was really good, at 12 years old.

And Stephen (Carpenter, guitar)?

He was a couple of years older than me, but he also skateboarded so we ran in the same circles. He had a garage that had a bunch of musical equipment in it. Everybody used to go over to his house and bang around on the drums. Sometimes I’d go over there and there’d be random kids playing, and I would grab the microphone and try to sing what they were doing. One day after school Abe and I went over to Stephen’s house. He was sitting on his porch chugging away on his guitar. Abe starts playing along, they lock in on some riffs, and they start playing together. And all of a sudden I see Stef looking at me, playing, and his eyes get wider and wider. They were playing Metallica or Death Angel, and that was it. Right away they locked in. So because I introduced them I guess they thought it was appropriate to offer me a job in the band.

What was the aim when you first started out?

I don’t think any of us really had this idea that we were going to become a real band, meaning we’d play shows, let alone ever go on tour or get a record deal. We never thought that far. But the fact that we can make a song from scratch, we were very ambitious to try and do things. There was no one telling us that we couldn’t, even though none of us had any formal training. We were just figuring stuff out on our own, a trial by error kind of thing.