With his nape-prickling vocal-fried whispers switching up to heartfelt roars, Chino Moreno has one of the most distinctive voices in rock history, and he has led Deftones for more than 30 years of cerebral yet mosh-ready alt-metal. As the band release their 10th studio album Private Music, he’ll join us to answer your questions.
Moreno has been there from the very start of Deftones in the late 1980s, playing with two high school friends, guitarist Stephen Carpenter and drummer Abe Cunningham, in a Sacramento, California, garage. The lineup settled in 1993 and they were signed by Madonna’s label Maverick just as the nu-metal sound of Korn was taking off, but while Deftones had a similarly groove-driven style, they set themselves apart from the larky, laddish end of the genre with a dark and dramatic sound – and of course those chilling Moreno vocals.
Third album White Pony was their double-platinum commercial peak and is seen as one of the classics of millennial metal, but the band have kept the quality control high and new generations of fans rolling in, and their most recent albums Gore and Ohms have each earned wide acclaim.
Moreno has found time for a number of side projects – Team Sleep, Palms, Saudade, and a number of releases with industrial pop project Crosses – and next up is the first Deftones album in five years, trailed by gigantic single My Mind Is a Mountain and follow-up Milk of the Madonna. The band will then return in February 2026 to play a series of UK arenas.
Ahead of the album’s release on 22 August, Moreno will join us to answer your questions on anything across his life and career – post them in the comments below before 6pm BST on Wednesday 13 August. His answers will be published online on 21 August and in print in the Film & Music section on 22 August.
