As Deftones gear up to release their new album, private music, on Friday, frontman Chino Moreno is celebrating another milestone as he nears being three years sober.
Speaking with Kerrang!, Moreno shares that he’d often drink “a couple beers” ahead of performing as a way to deal with the anxiety he experiences before shows.
“Yes, it does help ease that anxiety, but at the same time, it also makes you too loose sometimes, where you’re not really in control of your voice,” Moreno says. “You can get sloppy really easily.”
“I’d get offstage and what I remembered of the show would be like, ‘Oh, yeah, it was cool,'” he continues. “But then I’d hear back takes sometimes like, ‘Oh, that wasn’t as good as I remembered it.'”
In deciding to get sober, Moreno first reached out to Alice in Chains bassist Mike Inez, who “helped me kick it.”
“It’s been steady in my life since I was a teenager, but you see people around you whose lives get better [without alcohol] and you’re like, ‘Why haven’t I tried this and see if I feel better?'” Moreno says. “After a month of not drinking, I was like, ‘Wow, this feels pretty good, why don’t you keep going?’ That’s what I’ve done since and now it’s almost three years.”
He adds, “It feels great to get to the end of a set now and not feel like I’m gonna fall over.”
Moreno’s sobriety has had a noticeable impact on his performance onstage and in the studio, says drummer Abe Cunningham.
“Chino’s extremely focused right now – the most he’s been, ever,” Cunningham says. “He’s in great shape. He’s very cat-like onstage, and he absolutely killed it on this record.”
Deftones launch a North American tour Friday in Vancouver.
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