Deftones’ Chino Moreno on Guitarist Stephen Carpenter’s Conspiracies: “The Weed Probably Has a ‘Lil Bit to Do With [Them]…”

Silvio Tanaka from Sao Paulo, Brazil, CC BY 2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons
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Last year, Deftones guitarist Stephen Carpenter revealed to the public that he’s a believer in several widespread conspiracy theories. Specifically, Carpenter is a flat-earther — someone who believes the planet Earth is flat, and that the scientific community is lying about this fact — and also believes that no vaccine has ever worked. Now, frontman Chino Moreno has spoken out about Carpenter’s beliefs — and thinks maybe his axeman ought to lay off the bong.

As reported by Loudwire, Carpenter spoke to podcast ‘Tin Foil Hat With Sam Tripoli’ last year, and said, “The simplest terms for my perspective with flat Earth is simply, I know we’re not on a spinning, flying space ball. Now, what it actually is and all that and, and, and to what depths it goes to, that’s all still to be discovered and people are are working on those things. And it’s just exciting, you know, seeing it from… it’s a much clearer perspective once you acknowledge it, because it’s something that’s blatant and it’s in everything. And you just have to, you know, understand what you’re looking at. You don’t feel it, I mean if you’re walking on a treadmill, a half a mile per hour, and I unplugged it, you would feel it.”

The guitarist went on to say, “We never eradicated it [Polio]. It was… we’ve never actually learned… I’m grateful for COVID, for teaching me the actual germ theory, and that is the virus is something the body creates. You are not capable of catching a virus from somebody. You develop viruses because you have some type of poison or toxin within you. And that’s your poisoned and toxined cells secreting the virus to clean them from the body.”

But speaking to the Peer Pleasure Podcast, Moreno couldn’t help but think that Carpenter is living in a bubble — and that he’s probably hot boxing it, too.

“I’m surprised he’s not more of a meme,” said Moreno, as transcribed by The PRP. “I think there may be a couple. But, it was actually tough for a minute, because obviously I’ve been friends with him since I was 10-years-old. And you know he wasn’t always this way.

“I will say that the weed probably has a ‘lil bit to do with his conspiracies and this and that and whatever, because he just, you know… And then probably sitting at home, just looking on whatever sites he looks at. [It] probably doesn’t help being smoked out and all that stuff and whatever.

“It’s weird though, when we’re together it’s like we don’t even talk about any of that stuff. We play music, we laugh, we have a blast playing music. [We’re] still friends the way we were when we were kids. But it’s not like I haven’t heard him go on his tangents before and it’s just like I’ll listen for two minutes and then I just can’t, you know what I mean? ‘Cause he’ll just go off into no man’s land.”

On the one hand, this makes sense — anyone who has pothead friends knows a thing or two about them showing up at your house with a bunch of underlined texts about how the government is lying to us. On the other, this reporter smokes a lot of weed, and has never once questioned that the earth is round.

Anyway, catch Deftones live on a disc suspended on a cosmic turtle’s back at one of the following dates next year:

04/14 Portland, OR – Veterans Memorial Coliseum
04/16 Seattle, WA – WaMu Theatre
04/18 San Francisco, CA – Bill Graham Civic Auditorium
04/20 Los Angeles, CA – Greek Theatre
04/22 Las Vegas, NV – The Cosmopolitan (new show)
04/23 Phoenix, AZ – Arizona Federal Theatre
04/25 Denver, CO – Ball Arena
04/28 Albuquerque, NM – Isleta Amphitheatre
04/30 Houston, TX – White Oak Music Hall
05/02 Irving, TX – The Pavilion at Toyota Music Factory
05/03 San Antonio, TX – AT & T Center
05/06 Atlanta, GA – Cadence Bank Amphitheatre at Chastain Park
05/07 Nashville, TN – Municipal Auditorium (new show)
05/08 Cincinnati, OH – ICON Music Center (new show)
05/10 Indianapolis, IN -TCU Amphitheater at White River State Park
05/11 Pittsburgh, PA – Petersen Events Center
05/13 Boston, MA – Agganis Arena
05/14 Asbury Park, NJ – Stone Pony Summer Stage
05/15 New York City, NY – Pier 17
05/17 Washington DC – The Anthem
05/18 Philadelphia, PA – The Met
05/19 Uncasville, CT – Mohegan Sun Arena
05/21 Laval, QC – Place Bell
05/22 Toronto, ON – Echo Beach
05/24 Detroit, MI – Michigan Lottery Amphitheatre at Freedom Hill
05/26 Milwaukee, WI – Eagles Ballroom
05/27 Chicago, IL – Huntington Bank Pavilion at Northerly Island
05/28 Minneapolis, MN – The Armory

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Words by Chris Krovatin