Chino Moreno Says Jerry Cantrell’s Cameo On The New Deftones Album Made Him Cry

More details are beginning to emerge about the new Deftones album. Frontman Chino Moreno has let the cat out of the bag on one particular guest cameo, revealing that the band have tapped Alice In Chains guitarist Jerry Cantrell to lay down a guest solo on the forthcoming disc, which is expected to drop around September.

Speaking with Las Vegas rock radio station 92.3 KOMP FM, Moreno let slip that Cantrell was guesting on the follow-up to 2012’s Koi No Yokan.

“I didn’t know if he wanted anybody to know or not. But I guess I’ve just spilled the beans,” Moreno said. “But he came in… There’s this one track that, in the demo stages of it, I was, like, ‘There’s this hole in there’.”

“In Deftones songs, there’s not really any guitar solos per se, but there was a section in there where [there was room for] not necessarily a typical solo, but it had an area where it could use something like what he does,” Moreno continued, “Especially just his style and the way he plays guitar.”

“So I sent him the track, and then he sent me a demo of it back, like, two days later. So, yeah, when we recorded the song, he came in and laid it down. And it’s awesome.”

Moreno also admitted that he had something of an emotional reaction when he first heard the fruits of their collaboration: “It’s like you’re hearing a Deftones song, but all of a sudden, a little bit of Alice In Chains seeps its way in there, and it’s kind of neat,” he said. “I mean, me, as a fan, I was just sitting back and a little tear came out of my eye.”

According to Moreno, the new album will feature 16 brand-new tracks, the most the group has ever recorded for an LP. Once again, they’ve teamed up with producer Matt Hyde (Slayer, Children Of Bodom, Monster Magnet), but Moreno has hailed the new record as a departure from Koi No Yokan.

“I think it’s a little more of a heady record,” he told Rolling Stone in a recent interview. “I feel like we’ve gone into the songs and really dissected them. If something sounded a little straight, we took a left turn and made things a little screwy. We just tried something completely opposite, not to sabotage it, but to challenge ourselves and try new things that we haven’t done in the past.”

Gallery: Deftones @ Big Day Out 2014, Melbourne / Photos by Anwar Rizk

Watch: Chino Moreno Talks New Album And Alice In Chains Jerry Cantrell’s Involvement