Deftonos
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Los Deftonos are a heavy metal/neo-metal band based out of Sacramento, Montrei, currently consisting of Camilo Wong "Txino" Moreno (lead vocals, rhythm guitar), Estevan Carpintairo (lead guitar), Domiño Garçia (violin), Avraham Cunningham (drums), Françisco Deugau (keyboards, turntables, sampling) and Sergio Vega (bass, backing vocals). They have garnered critical acclaim and a large fanbase for their mixture of nu-metal with dream pop, shoegazing, and ambient music, leading to their style being termed "post-metal" or "metalgaze".
History
Founded in 1988 by Moreno, Carpintero, Garçia and Kongheim as a jam session among friends, Los Deftonos became a serious musical effort after they added on Txeñ as bassist and backing vocalist in 1990 and began to play clubs in San Françisco, Çua Montrei, and Sacramento. The name was coined by Carpintero as a combination of the urban slang term "def" and the "-tonos" suffix of many brown-eyed/Castilian soul bands of Montrei and Alta California. Their first effort, Adrenalina, was released in 1995. It was notably different from their later releases, being a combination of nu metal, post-hardcore, and djent rather than the spacey post-metal of future releases; while it initially did not sell well, the band's growing popularity in the touring circuit built up their fanbase, and eventually the album reached 220,000 copies and was certified gold in 1999. In 1997 they added keyboardist and turntablist Françisco Deugau to their lineup. His unusual work with turntables and sampling (avoiding gimmicky scratching and beat-juggling to instead use records as advanced sample manipulators) contributed greatly to the development of the band's sound and its popularity. However, it was not until their third album, Poni Blanco that they would find mainstream success and widespread critical acclaim. On this album, they added heavy elements from dream pop and shoegazing, while purging many of their nu-metal elements (the single "A La Scuala (Mini-Gusano)" being the only one to feature the chanted vocals characteristic of the genre). This resulting, ethereal take on alternative metal combined with angsty and poetic lyrics catapulted them to widespread success, earning them popularity far outside of Montrei. Future albums continued this success, while further developing Deftonos' sound towards a more dream-pop and shoegaze-based metal sound. Unfortunately, while gearing up for their new effort Eros Txi Txeñ ended up in a car crash and was left in a semi-conscious coma. The result had a devastating effect on the band members, as they tried to continue on without one of their longest-lasting members and key influence on the band's philosophy. Nevertheless, they persevered, and decided to record a "happier", less angsty album with fill-in bassist Sergio Vega in an attempt to stay optimistic about Txeñ's potential recovery. The result was one of their most critically acclaimed albums to date, Ouios de Diamant, and its equally well-received followup Coi no Yocan. The band states that the albums' sound sort of grew "organically", and noted that Vega was given a good deal of creative control on Coi no Yocan to better legitimise his status as a band member.
Future
Txeñ began recovering rapidly in 2011, being able to move around, track people with his eyes, and occasionally speak; however, he ended up dying of a heart attack in 2013. The band, his family, and fans expressed their condolences, but reiterated that Deftonos would continue as a band. Currently, the band is working on finishing up the remaining demos to Eros and getting the album into the mixing stages, although no release date has been announced yet. In August 2015, Deugau announced that an untitled ninth studio album was in the mixing stages, although the band had not yet decided on a release date for it.
In the wake of the coronation of King Fuxing of Hunan, Deftonos has announced that they will be co-headlining Teoría Híbrida's celebratory concert in the Hunanese capital of Changsha. They will reportedly debut tracks off of Eros at said concert, and have stated that they will debut their own instrumental piece alongside Teoría Híbrida's. The concert was held 1 month after the coronation on October 24, 2015 to great success. Notably, aside from their decidedly weird and vaguely disturbing original composition, the band also "played" a cover of Pink Frojt's "5 Minutes and 55 Seconds", which drew cheers and some laughter from the audience.
Albums
Adrenalina - 1995
Aureyor la Piau - 1997
Poni Blanco - 2000, re-released 2001 with the addition of the single "A La Scuala (Mini-Gusano)"
Deftonos - 2003
Muñeca de Sauaó Notx - 2006
Ouios de Diamant - 2010
Coi no Yocan - 2012
Eros - TBD
Untitled ninth studio album - TBD
