It’s hard to predict what bands become famous.
As much as nu metal was exploding, only the heavyweights like Korn and Limp Bizkit could make it onto TRL.
Deftones had an amazing run of albums like White Pony, but Chino Moreno wasn’t too happy seeing his peers rise to the top.
When promoting their album Gore, Moreno had talked about feeling dissatisfied with his place in metal history saying,
“I had mixed feelings about it. Some things are hard to swallow. When a band like Limp Bizkit — who definitely were a good band, they wrote f**king hit songs… But to me, I was looking at, ‘Okay, if it wasn’t for us, if it wasn’t for something that we started doing, there would be no Limp Bizkit, straight up.’”
While it sounds angry, you can see where he’s coming from. The sound of albums like Adrenaline and Around the Fur set the template for nu-metal, so seeing other bands getting more attention had to sting a little.
Moreno even admitted being grateful for what he had too saying,
“What hurt me was, okay, yes, we are successful, but the success is like a whole other level with a band like that. Where with White Pony, which is our most successful record, we barely sold a million records. Limp Bizkit sold about seven million records. Those dudes don’t need to work for the rest of their lives and make that much f**king money. And us, we’re still hustling to do it. So a part of me wanted to just be mad about it, but at the end of the day, it is what it is.”
As the band went forward though, Moreno did tend to mellow out. Talking about their position on the charts, Chino started writing for himself saying,
“That was the start of everybody sort of taking a really relaxed position as far as making records. One of the bad things that came from White Pony was the fact that we were successful and we really took our time and spent too much money.”
It might have mattered back then, but Moreno isn’t looking to chase the charts for the rest of his life.
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