About White Pony by Deftones Album
White Pony is the third studio album by American alternative metal band Deftones, released on June 20, 2000, through Maverick Records. It was produced by Terry Date, who produced the band's first two albums, Adrenaline and Around the Fur. Recording sessions took place between August and December 1999 at Larrabee Sound Studios in West Hollywood and The Plant Recording Studios in Sausalito, California. The album marked a significant growth in the band's sound, incorporating influences from post-hardcore, trip-hop, shoegaze, progressive rock, and post-rock into the alternative metal sound which they had become known for. White Pony was also the first recording to feature Frank Delgado as a full-time member of the band on turntables and synthesizer; Delgado had previously worked with the band as a featured guest on their first two albums, producing sound effects on some songs. It was also the first Deftones album which Chino Moreno began to contribute rhythm guitar parts. After a break from touring, the band spent four months in the studio writing and recording White Pony, the longest amount of time they had dedicated to an album thus far. Moreno explained that the majority of this time was spent trying to write songs, and that the writing of "Change (In the House of Flies)" was the turning point where the band began working as a group. Despite being pressured to release the album sooner, the band decided to take their time making the album. Cheng explained that "We didn't feel like we had anything to lose, so we made the record we wanted to make." Moreno did not have a common theme in mind lyrically, but made a conscious decision to bring an element of fantasy into his lyrics, explaining that "I basically didn’t sing about myself on this record. I made up a lot of story lines and some dialogue, even. I took myself completely out of it and wrote about other things. Once I did that I was able to sing about anything I wanted to, I could be a lot more general. There’s a lot of stuff on this record that people are going to question me about, and I can just remove myself from it. It’s not me. I’m writing a story here." Although the band initially wasn't intending to include guest musicians in the record, the album features additional vocals by Maynard James Keenan on "Passenger", Scott Weiland on "Rx Queen", and Rodleen Getsic on "Knife Prty".
