Terry Date had produced Pantera, Soundgarden and Sir Mix-a-Lot and had just finished White Zombie's sample-heavy Astro Creep: 2000 when four kids from Sacramento hired him and immediately tied his hands. Deftones told him they did not want to sound like Pantera, did not want Pro Tools, samples or triggered drums, and wanted everything on 2-inch tape. The result, Adrenaline, is the Deftones record Chino Moreno would later call his least favourite sonically.
It is also the record that made everything after it possible. Adrenaline came out on Madonna's Maverick label in October 1995, peaked at No. 23 on Billboard's Heatseekers chart, got almost nothing from radio or MTV, and still went platinum the slow way, one support slot after another. Along the way the band nearly lost their name, very nearly signed to Roadrunner instead, and opened arenas for Ozzy Osbourne while still, by Moreno's account, playing clubs to five people.
Adrenaline Album Facts
| Field | Detail |
|---|---|
| Artist | Deftones |
| Album | Adrenaline |
| Release Date | 3 October 1995 |
| Label | Maverick (marketed by Warner Bros.) |
| Producer(s) | Terry Date and Deftones; Ross Robinson ("Fist") |
| Studio(s) | Bad Animals, Seattle; Sound City, Van Nuys ("Fist") |
| Genre / Subgenre | Nu metal, alternative metal, post-hardcore |
| Track Count | 10 listed, plus hidden track "Fist" |
| Total Runtime | 43:31 (listed tracks); about 47 minutes with "Fist" |
| Billboard 200 Peak | Not found |
| UK Albums Chart Peak | Not found |
| Other Notable Chart Peaks | US Heatseekers 23 (21 weeks); US Catalog 46; Greece 21 (2025); UK Rock and Metal 34 (2026) |
| Certifications | RIAA Platinum (2008); BPI Gold (2013); ARIA Gold (2025) |
| Estimated Sales | Over 220,000; US platinum (1 million units) by 2008 |
| Key Singles | "7 Words", "Bored" |
The Deftones Story Up to Adrenaline
Stephen Carpenter, Abe Cunningham and Chino Moreno met as skateboarding friends at C.K. McClatchy High School in Sacramento, and by around 1988 they were playing in Carpenter's garage. The gear came courtesy of Carpenter's compensation money after an accident; Moreno told Guitar School that his friend had been hit by a drunk driver and his mother let him spend the payout however he liked. Moreno's audition was accidental. He walked in while the others were playing a Danzig song, sang along, and was told he sounded like Danzig and should join.
Their tastes barely overlapped. Moreno loved Bad Brains, the Misfits, the Cure and the Smiths; Carpenter grew up on Metallica, Slayer, Anthrax and Faith No More. The rhythm section took a while to settle. Dominic Garcia started on bass, moved to drums when Cunningham left to join local metal band Phallucy, and then left himself. Chi Cheng came in through an ad he and his brother Ming had placed offering two bass players, one metal and one funk, and Cunningham eventually came back to the drum stool.
What followed was unusually patient. Indie labels offered to fund a release and the band turned them all down. "We didn't want to get locked into anything," Moreno said in 1997, and Cheng reckoned that by the time they finally made an album they had six or seven years of songs to pick from. Kerrang! counts five extended demo tapes in the first half of the decade. The third, from August 1993, carried just two songs, "Engine No. 9" and "7 Words", misspelt on the cassette as "Engine Number Nine" and "Seven Words".
Pre-production, Demos and the Name That Nearly Went
That summer, manager Dave Park sent a Deftones demo to Monte Conner, the Roadrunner A&R man who had already talked Xecutioner and Amon into becoming Obituary and Deicide. Conner was hooked, brought Park and Carpenter to New York (Moreno was ill), and made an offer with one large condition: the name had to go. Rick Rubin had just staged a mock funeral for the word "def", and with ska everywhere, Conner thought "tones" made them sound like a ska band. The band, he said, did not even argue.
"During the contract negotiations they would regularly run new names past me, even suggesting at one point that maybe they should call themselves Engine No. 9, named after the best track on the demo."
Monte Conner, via Metal Injection, 2024
The deal died anyway, because Roadrunner wanted the band's publishing and merchandising too. Six months later, according to Conner, they were on Maverick instead. That route opened through a sparse gig: their first Los Angeles show, closing for a band that was showcasing for labels. Moreno later told Rolling Stone there were about ten people left for their set, "basically Korn and their friends". Somebody in the room knew somebody who knew Madonna, and a two-song demo found its way to her label.
Moreno was at work at Tower Records when Maverick called to say Madonna wanted to see them play. The band flew back to LA, set up in a little rehearsal room with rented gear in front of Guy Oseary and Maverick co-founder Freddy DeMann, and by Moreno's account got about two songs in before DeMann stood up and asked where he signed. Back at the office, Madonna herself walked in. Maverick also wanted a new name, but never found one it liked, so Deftones stayed Deftones.
By 1994 the label was promoting the debut with an advance cassette of "Root" and "Nosebleed", recorded with Ross Robinson. Its notes promised the album in spring 1995. It would arrive in October.
Creating Adrenaline at Bad Animals
When Maverick asked who they wanted as producer, Moreno, then about 20, had no idea. Carpenter suggested Terry Date. Date first saw them at a rehearsal in Sacramento, about six months before the sessions, after Warner Bros. invited him along.
"They rode to rehearsal on their bicycles. They still do, actually. But when we went into the space, which was probably a 20-by-20-foot square room with basically everyone on top of each other, I was amazed at the energy."
Terry Date, Kerrang!, 2020
The band then took most of his toolkit away. Date was moving into Pro Tools and had just made a White Zombie album full of samples and triggered drums. Deftones wanted the opposite: a raw record cut to 2-inch analogue tape at Bad Animals in Seattle. Carpenter played six-string guitars in standard tuning; the drop-D and extended-range guitars came later. Date and Ulrich Wild recorded it, with Tom Smurdy as second assistant, and Date mixed.
"We wanted to sound raw, we wanted to record to 2-inch tape, and we didn't want the technology. As a result, I think that first record [Adrenaline] is my least favorite sonically."
Chino Moreno, Tape Op, 2018
Moreno sang every vocal live with the band in the room, holding a Shure SM58, and later described the whole thing as recorded "really fast". Cunningham told Modern Drummer in 1997 that they had been playing most of the songs for so long, and were so happy just to be making a record, that "we didn't really think a whole lot about making the songs better". Frank Delgado of Socialistics, a band that often opened for them, came in to add effects. He went uncredited here and joined Deftones as a full member in 1999.
One track came from somewhere else entirely. "Fist", tucked away as a hidden track, was produced by Ross Robinson at Sound City in Van Nuys, the same producer who had cut the Root and Nosebleed promo. Ted Jensen mastered the album at Sterling Sound in New York.
Personnel and Credits
| Role | Player | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Core band | ||
| Lead vocals, lyrics | Chino Moreno | All vocals cut live in the room |
| Guitar | Stephen Carpenter | Credited with "Infinite Wisdom" |
| Bass, backing vocals | Chi Cheng | |
| Drums | Abe Cunningham | Credited with "Caffeine Beats" |
| Uncredited | ||
| Audio effects | Frank Delgado | "Minus Blindfold" and "Fireal" |
| Production and engineering | ||
| Producers | Terry Date, Deftones | All tracks except "Fist" |
| Producer | Ross Robinson | "Fist" only |
| Engineer, mixer | Terry Date | |
| Assistant engineer | Ulrich Wild | |
| Second assistant | Tom Smurdy | |
| Mastering | Ted Jensen | Sterling Sound, New York |
| A&R | Guy Oseary | Maverick |
| Artwork | ||
| Cover photo | Victor Bracke | |
| Photography | Michelle Shuman | Plus Rick Kosick (Chi) and Julia Carroll (Chino) |
| Art direction, design | Kim Biggs | |
The one name missing from the sleeve is the most significant. Delgado's contribution went uncredited on Adrenaline, he was listed as a guest on Around the Fur, and by 1999 he was a member. The jokey credits for Cunningham and Carpenter are the only hint of the band's humour anywhere in the package.
The Songs on Adrenaline
| # | Title | Writer(s) | Length | Single? | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Bored | Moreno (lyrics), Deftones (music) | 4:06 | Yes | Written in half an hour, per Carpenter |
| 2 | Minus Blindfold | Moreno, Deftones | 4:04 | Uncredited effects from Frank Delgado | |
| 3 | One Weak | Moreno, Deftones | 4:29 | ||
| 4 | Nosebleed | Moreno, Deftones | 4:26 | On Maverick's 1994 advance cassette | |
| 5 | Lifter | Moreno, Deftones | 4:43 | Singled out by Kerrang! for its crisp guitar | |
| 6 | Root | Moreno, Deftones | 3:41 | On Maverick's 1994 advance cassette | |
| 7 | 7 Words | Moreno, Deftones | 3:44 | Yes | On the 1993 demo; written when Moreno was 16 |
| 8 | Birthmark | Moreno, Deftones | 4:18 | ||
| 9 | Engine No. 9 | Moreno, Deftones | 3:25 | On the 1993 demo; once a candidate band name | |
| 10 | Fireal | Moreno, Deftones | 6:35 | Longest track; more Delgado effects | |
| 11 | Fist (hidden) | Moreno, Deftones | 3:35 | Ross Robinson production; misspelt "First" digitally |
Bored
Carpenter said the opener came "out of nowhere" in half an hour. Moreno called it "a smooth way of being pissed and aggravated", the slow-burn counterpart to "7 Words". It nearly had another name. Moreno liked titles that never appear in the lyrics; the label argued that a chorus of "I get bored" made the title obvious for radio requests. "He actually won in the end," Moreno told Spin in 2016. Kerrang! later ranked it Deftones' 12th-greatest song.
7 Words
Already on the August 1993 demo, "7 Words" was written when Moreno was 16 and arrived, like "Bored", out of a jam. Moreno described it as "a straightforward way of being aggravated". Kerrang!'s Paul Brannigan, reviewing the album in November 1995, praised Date for letting "the crisp guitar on 'Lifter' and '7 Words'" shine, and a quarter of a century later the same magazine put it fifth in its list of the band's greatest songs.
Root, Nosebleed and Engine No. 9
These three did the early legwork. "Engine No. 9" sat beside "7 Words" on the 1993 demo and was good enough that Monte Conner called it the best track on the demo he was sent; the band briefly considered naming themselves after it. "Root" and "Nosebleed" were the songs Maverick chose to put on its 1994 advance tape, and Brannigan heard "Nosebleed" and "Bored" as "just as blunt and angry, slabs of guitar crashing down on swirling, hypnotic rhythms."
Minus Blindfold, Fireal and Fist
Delgado's two tracks are an early glimpse of the member he would become. "Fireal" is the longest thing on the record at 6:35. "Fist" is the odd one out in every sense: produced by a different man in a different studio, hidden at the end, and listed on several digital editions and Japanese copies as "First".
B-sides, Outtakes and Lost Songs
- "Please, Please, Please, Let Me Get What I Want": the Smiths cover on the "7 Words" promo CD.
- "Teething": an early song that missed the album and surfaced in 1996.
- "Simple Man": a Lynyrd Skynyrd cover recorded before the album, when Moreno was about 17.
The Smiths cover was Moreno's taste showing through, and Date wanted no part of it. Cunningham told Rock Sound that Date "was a metal guy… and he wanted nothing to do with it, so we did it on our own real fast". It later turned up on the band's 2011 Record Store Day Covers LP, limited to 5,000 copies, alongside "Simple Man".
"Teething" got a bigger stage. It went on the soundtrack to The Crow: City of Angels in July 1996, and when the film opened the following month, Deftones were on screen playing it during the Day of the Dead scene.
Album Artwork and Packaging
The cover is a soft-focus photograph by Victor Bracke of a pale pink rubber bulb syringe, lying on its side against a white background. "deftones" sits in teal lowercase script at the top left and "adrenaline" in the same script at the bottom right. There is no band photo and no explanation. Monte Conner, the man who nearly signed them, only worked out decades later what it was: an infant nasal aspirator, the snot-sucking device that usually comes in pink or blue.
Kim Biggs handled art direction and design. Inside, Michelle Shuman took the band photographs, with Rick Kosick shooting Chi and Julia Carroll shooting Chino. Collectors can date a CD by the front of the booklet: on the first pressing the text is a reflective silver grey and the case carried a black hype sticker; on the second the text is matte grey and the sticker is blue.
Release and Reception
Kerrang!'s Paul Brannigan gave it four out of five in November 1995, placed the sound "between Quicksand and Tool" and summed it up as "Impressive". The Los Angeles Times was just as taken in January 1996.
"Chino Moreno rants, sobs, croons and even works some Middle Eastern overtones into his vocals while Stephen Carpenter's guitar shifts from coarse outbursts to crisp Helmet-ine precision. A bracing blend of extremes."
Sandy Masuo, Los Angeles Times, 1996
Later verdicts were more mixed. AllMusic gave it three stars and called it "a promising debut", and The Rolling Stone Album Guide gave it two. Sales were slow at first. With almost no radio or MTV, the band sold it by hand from the stage. By 1997 Guitar School reported more than 170,000 copies sold without help from either, and when asked why, Cheng had a one-word answer: "perseverance".
The record logged 21 weeks on Billboard's Heatseekers chart, peaking at No. 23, and sold more than 220,000 copies, helped along by extensive touring and word of mouth. The RIAA made it gold on 7 July 1999 and platinum on 23 September 2008. It went gold in the UK in 2013 and in Australia in 2025, and in 2025 and 2026 it was charting again in Greece and on the UK Rock and Metal chart.
Singles and Music Videos
| Single | Released | Format | Extra track |
|---|---|---|---|
| 7 Words | September 1995 | Promo CD | Clean edit; Smiths cover |
| Bored | May 1996 | Promo CD | Album version only |
The "7 Words" video was never meant to be one. "They came and shot ('7 Words') for 12 grand," Cunningham told Blabbermouth. It was supposed to be an electronic press kit, filmed at Sacramento's Cattle Club and around town, and it came out well enough to use as the video.
"Bored" stayed just as close to home: Moreno's house and Matt Erich's rehearsal studio downtown, with family and friends everywhere. Cheng remembered it fondly but not clearly, having taken his first ever Benadryl for allergies that day.
Touring and Live
Maverick wanted them on the road, and they barely stopped. The run, as Exclaim! logged it:
- Summer 1995: the first Warped Tour, plus dates with Bad Brains
- Late 1995: opening for Life of Agony and Anthrax
- Early 1996: opening Ozzy Osbourne's arena tour, below Korn
- July 1996: back on Warped
- August 1996: opening for Pantera and White Zombie
- October 1996: dates on the KISS reunion tour
"We were playing small clubs at the time, to like five people some nights. We got asked to do the tour, with Ozzy headlining, Korn as main support, and us as the opening act."
Chino Moreno, The Quietus, 2016
Ozzy's crowds mostly did not care, Moreno admitted, and the band felt like a club act stranded in half-full arenas. Moreno was still playing every show as if there would never be a second album, flips onto the drum kit included. That chaos peaked at Phoenix's UFest on 5 October 1996. Fires had already been lit around the grounds, Moreno was visibly drunk and feuding with Cunningham, who walked off a few songs in, and when the soundman pulled the power the crowd stormed the stage and caused $150,000 of damage. Deftones took the blame.
Eight days later, on 13 October 1996, a set at Buffalo's Memorial Auditorium was taped. It would come back seventeen years later.
Reissues, Remasters and Anniversaries
On Record Store Day, 20 April 2013, Deftones released Live: Volume 1 - Selections from Adrenaline, a 12-inch with four songs from that Buffalo show: "Minus Blindfold", "Teething", "Nosebleed" and "Engine No. 9". Bernie Grundman mastered it from the original analogue live tapes, Eliot Lee Hazel shot the cover, and it was billed as the first of seven planned live vinyl releases. A 96kHz hi-res remaster followed on HighResAudio in April 2016.
The Legacy of Deftones' Adrenaline
The shape of the band's next decade came straight out of the Adrenaline sessions. Date stayed on, but this time Deftones let him do what he wanted, and Around the Fur, made in the basement of Stone Gossard's Litho Studio, debuted at No. 29 on the Billboard 200 in 1997. Moreno calls it his favourite-sounding Deftones record, the exact opposite of his verdict on the debut. "We were already way more successful than I thought we should have been, with Adrenaline," he told The Quietus.
The debut's reputation has grown since. The Rough Guide to Heavy Metal said it "still stands as one of the best examples of nu-metal", and Metal Hammer put it at No. 21 among the 50 best nu metal albums, calling it "one of the great debuts of the 90s". Other critics heard something harder to pin down. Diffuser's Tim Karan argued that Deftones "never really were a true nu-metal band", and Stereogum said Adrenaline sounds "far more 'damaged' than 'art-damaged'". It is the sound of a band before the shoegaze and new wave fully came through, with the melancholy already there underneath.
It also stands as a record of the original four. Chi Cheng died on 13 April 2013, a week before Live: Volume 1 reached the shops.
Things You Might Not Know About Adrenaline
| Fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| The death of "def" | Conner's case against the name leaned on Rick Rubin, who held a mock funeral for the word "def" in Hollywood on 27 August 1993. |
| The only offer | Conner says he was not just the first A&R man to offer Deftones a deal in 1993 but the only one. |
| Maverick's early roster | Moreno recalls that when Maverick called, the label had signed only Alanis Morissette and Candlebox. |
| Madonna's surprise | Moreno has called it "absolutely surreal" that Madonna pushed so hard to sign a nu-metal band. |
| Robinson's verdict | Ross Robinson, who produced "Fist", has called Deftones "always highly skilled songwriters and visionaries". |
Hear More on the Riffology Podcast
The story of Deftones does not stop at the debut, and neither do the conversations. The Riffology podcast digs into the records, rows and rehearsal-room stories behind the albums that shaped heavy music, and it is available on all major podcast platforms.
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