An artist needs to carry plenty of clout to establish their own music festival. Only a small selection of acts have done it successfully, including Slipknot, Ozzy Osbourne and Deftones.
The latter group’s Dia De Los Deftones event, now in its sixth year, will take place November 1 at PETCO Park in San Diego. In addition to Deftones, the lineup includes Clipse, 2hollis, Rico Nasty, Deafheaven, Régulo Caro, Ecca Vandal, Glare, and University. During a recent conversation with Revolver, Chino Moreno admitted he proudly keeps things eclectic.
“We’re fans of lots of different music,” the frontman explained. “When I was in high school, I thought I was kind of weird because I listened to goth music and Rush at the same time. Now it seems like you’re not judged as much for liking a variety of things.”
Deftones are no stranger to festivals – this year alone they’ve played Aftershock, Louder Than Life, Shaky Knees, Primavera Sound and many others. Still, having their own distinctive event
“Obviously, I gravitate towards doing our own shows: You’re playing to your crowd and you’re playing the set that you want to play, and you maybe lean into deeper cuts. When playing something like Coachella or Lollapalooza, it’s almost like a mini-commercial. You have an hour set, and for a lot of the people it could be their first time seeing us, so you lean on the “greatest hits.” It’s this little 50-minute, hour commercial of what our band is.”
“What’s cool about our festival is that it’s our festival and we get to curate it,” Moreno continued. “I equate it to making a mixtape, but with live groups, bringing different genres together. It is a balancing act, but when it works out, it’s great. We’re never going to make everybody happy. There’s still going to be people that complain, like, ‘Why isn’t this band playing?’
“But honestly, it’s very gratifying to see that you could bring all these people together from different music.”