a date with destiny

White Pony’s producer, Terry Date, remembers how they created such an influential record

YOU’D ALREADY WORKED WITH DEFTONES ON ADRENALINE AND AROUND THE FUR. HOW HAD YOU SEEN THEM GROW?

“They were really excited in the beginning, because they said that they now had a ‘brand name producer’. Ha ha ha! I felt like a box of cereal or something! But it’s alright, it was good. As was typical with a lot of younger bands that I worked with, the first record was all energy, very little thought. The second record, more thought was put into it, they still had the energy – to this day they still have the energy, so they never lost that. But the energy versus thought ratio shifted a little bit more toward thought, and then on White Pony, even more so.”

WHY DID YOU SUGGEST DEFTONES MIGHT WANT TO WORK WITH A DIFFERENT PRODUCER FOR WHITE PONY?

“When I had worked with Chris Cornell and Soundgarden, we always had these conversations where he felt that if a band worked with the same person too long, they may not have been able to see some new things or get some new ideas. And so as much as I would have selfishly wanted to work with them forever, I felt like it would have been really good for them to branch out. I can’t remember if it was White Pony or the self-titled one [Terry also produced their fourth record, released in 2003].”

HOW DID YOU FEEL ABOUT GOING BACK FOR ALBUM NUMBER THREE? THEY JOKED THAT THEY ALWAYS TRIED TO MAKE YOU QUIT!

“That’s never changed from day one! Matter of fact, a little story from the first record, Adrenaline. Back then they were really young and they had a lot of chains coming out of their pockets, and they made a lot of noise when they moved around. Not just their mouths, but that part too! And I was trying to mix the record, and they were making all kinds of noise, so I had to take some tape and make a circle behind me that was early social distancing, I guess. But it was six feet behind me, and they were not allowed to cross that line into my zone. So of course, they’d stand right on the line the whole time and rattle their chains. I never let them know that I was irritated, just because I couldn’t give them that satisfaction!”

DID YOU KNOW THEY WERE GOING TO CHANGE DIRECTION ON WHITE PONY?

“No. I don’t try to get in the way of what their creative impulses are. My job I feel is just to focus on where they wanna go, and if they’re going down a rabbit hole that I think is wrong,

then I’ll tell ’em. But they could put out an album of handclaps and I’d be happy to be there, you know, if that’s what they felt like doing.”

HOW DID FRANK CHANGE THE DYNAMIC?

“The textures that Frank brought, to me added a whole lot. There was a lot of atmospheric stuff that wasn’t in the first two records as much, definitely not the first record. Instead of just bludgeoning the whole time, we were able to have more dynamics and open areas.”

CHINO AND STEPHEN CLASHED IN THE STUDIO. WHAT DO YOU REMEMBER OF THAT?

“They were brothers fighting. They were having fun! And also, getting back to that third record thing, there are a lot of outside things pulling people – family stuff, business stuff – and that all added to whatever tension was going on. But I really feel like that tension is what made that record special. That raw emotion, that was kind of hidden, was coming out on the surface there.”

DO YOU REMEMBER SOME OF THE BAND DOING COCAINE?

“No, because they hid it from me really, really well. I was like dad. I didn’t see anything going on, it never affected how they worked at all. I caught ’em a few other times on a few other records, but you know, that was their deal.”

DID IT FEEL LIKE DEFTONES WERE DOING SOMETHING DIFFERENT TO ALL THE NU METAL BANDS?

“I think Deftones kind of unfairly get lumped into 90s nu metal, because Deftones aren’t like Korn, and they’re not like Limp Bizkit. They’re similar audiences, but when your influences are Meshuggah, and Fiona Apple, and PJ Harvey, it’s going to be different.”

HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT WHITE PONY TODAY?

“It was a very special record to me, because first of all my daughters were very young at the time. So, my kids grew up with them pretty much, they had little nicknames for all of ’em. Plus,

The Plant was a really special place. I recorded a Mother Love Bone record at that same studio. It’s always bittersweet listening to all those first four records, because we miss the big guy [he points to a photo of late bassist Chi Cheng].

But anyway, we want to make a record that is valid in 20 years. We want it to last. And so we accomplished I think what I wanted to accomplish out of that, which is for these guys to have a record that people still enjoy down the road.”