Joint tours are a big deal in the music world. They’re like collaborations that bring different bands together to rock the stage and entertain fans. Still, the Deftones frontman Chino Moreno saw it from a different perspective, as he declined to tour with Korn several times in the past.
It’s pretty usual for bands and musicians to get labeled as part of a certain music style. This was also what happened to Deftones. They were a metal band, but when nu-metal was popular, some people heard their loud guitars and assumed they were part of that music scene. Moreno explained how their desire to separate themselves from that movement impacted their touring choices to Metal Hammer in 2017:
“We did make a very conscious choice of who we were going to play shows with. It was hard to be this young band and having to turn down tours. I can’t remember how many times I turned down Korn! And they got pissed at us.”
Sharing the conversation between him and Jonathan Davis, the vocalist continued:
“Jonathan [Davis, Korn frontman] would say, ‘Why do you hate us?’ and I didn’t know what to say. I’d tell him, ‘Dude, I don’t hate you. I love you, guys. You’re my friends. But I don’t want to tour with you. I don’t want to be on the ‘Family Values’ with you and Limp Bizkit.'”
In a 2010 interview with BangerTV, Moreno again expressed his complaint about being labeled a nu-metal band in their early days, saying:
“A lot of the press put us in the category, and our first instinct was to push it away. When they called it nu metal, I was like, ‘Well, if you’re putting the word ‘new’ in it, it’s gonna be old in a couple of years.'”
However, when asked which band he’d like to tour with the most during an interview on BBC Radio 1’s Rock Show in 2017, the Deftones singer named Korn. They wanted to establish themselves separately in the beginning but would be interested in touring with them now.
