There’s no doubt that Chino Moreno is a busy man. Aside from his main gig in Deftones (who have a new album coming this year) he is also the frontman for Crosses, Palms, and the band that brings us here to day – Team Sleep. And in a recent interview with Artistdirect, he had a lot to say about just that.
Team Sleep just released “Woodstock Sessions Vol. 4” – a collection of live sessions for old songs. However, they have a lot of brand new content up their sleeves currently. They may even have a brand new album dropping next year! Like we just said, Chino had a good bit he said to Artistdirect about this. So check out some of that just below or head over for the full interview:
“I think I was most excited about that stuff as well. One of the biggest reasons for that is the addition of the two newest members of Team Sleep, which would be Gil Sharone [of Marilyn Manson] on the drums and Chuck Doom [of Crosses] on the bass. For one, out of the whole crew, I think it’s okay for me to say that those guys are probably the most polished, well-rounded musicians. Todd and myself are very self-taught, and we go with the flow. Those dudes actually know what they’re doing [Laughs]. So playing with them totally elevates everybody else’s playing. To me, a lot of the new songs are insane. There’s so much crazy musicianship going on that it makes me as a musician rise to the occasion. That’s what makes me really excited about Team Sleep and the second record, which will hopefully see the light of day in 2016.
Making this album was something that we needed to happen for us to get together and play. It made me realize, “Wow, this is something that works, and I’m very interested in doing.” I work with different people a lot obviously, but I really learn and take something from these experiences. It’s not just me trying to make more records for the sake of making records; it’s basically a learning experience. It’s a schooling for me to play with different people, especially musicians who play at a higher caliber than myself. It’s not me sitting there dictating what’s going to happen. In a way, it’s me learning different ways of approach, which I think is always awesome.”
“…Out of any project, I have including Deftones, I feel like I have been involved with Team Sleep more, especially with the songwriting. Obviously with Deftones, I write some of the songs. We sort of split it between Stephen [Carpenter] and myself—and now Sergio [Vega]. It’s a very collective thing in a way. Although Team Sleep is a collective, the roots of the songs usually start with Todd and myself. In ††† (Crosses), I had very little to do with the songwriting other than my vocals over the music that Chuck [Doom] and Shaun Lopez made and a few arrangement things. With Palms, I had absolutely nothing to do with the songwriting. They sent me the music and the instrumental record pretty much, and I put my vocals over that.
Team Sleep is the one thing I feel like I dig in the deepest with the inception of the songs themselves, which is similar to Deftones. I won’t say it’s that different. We don’t go in with a preconceived idea of what we’re going to do. It’s very much in the moment. We start making sounds together and then things blossom. That’s one of my favorite things about making music, going in and not having a clear idea of what you’re trying to do.
I think that might add to some of the cryptic vibe that exists in it. It’s like trying to unlock something you don’t know the code to. It’s trial and error and figuring things out as they come along. When you do figure it out by the end, how we got here is amazing to me. It’s a very organic experience because of that.”
“It’s so awesome. It’s some of my favorite stuff to listen to. Pretty much everything is done instrumentally. Now, it’s time for me to tackle the vocals on it. I finished the Deftones record last week, so now I have time to dedicate to it. I usually make it a point to not overlap projects vocally. I don’t like to be working on two different records vocally at the same time because I didn’t want to crossbreed ideas. That’s bound to happen.
Basically, when I’m making a record, I feel like whatever that album is, no matter what band that is or what the music sounds like, I’m going to mirror where I am in my life—what emotions or what vibe I’m feeling—and it’s going to show through the music I’m working on at the time. It’s a snapshot of that time in my life.
If I’m working on two records at the same time, it’s inevitable that the vibes are going to cross in those two records. With that being said, I try to not work on vocals on any two projects at the same time. Musically, I don’t mind working on different things. I usually wait until I’m completely done with something until I start another project vocally. Now that’s done, I think I’m going to start working on Team Sleep. Some of it may remain instrumental. It’s so awesome instrumentally that I think it might stay. I’m going to feel it out.
We’ve got like 20 songs. There’s some stuff that dates back to maybe 2004 and 2005 even. There’s some sample stuff from back in the day up to material written and recorded a couple of months ago, a lot of it with Gil playing on. A lot of it was recorded in Woodstock prior and up till a couple of weeks ago. That’s amazing, and it’s what I’m going to dig into next.”
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