ABE CUNNINGHAM On If DEFTONES Will Ever Release Eros Songs Or Their BOB EZRIN Demos: “Who Knows?”

Deftones drummer Abe Cunningham recently reflected on the unreleased corners of the band’s catalog in a recent interview with Moshpit Passion. Two sets of recordings in particular — the Bob Ezrin demos from 2004–2005 and the long-shelved Eros album — stand as ghostly artifacts from turbulent periods in the band’s history, and ones we’ve barely heard.

In the mid-2000s, Deftones tapped legendary producer Bob Ezrin (best known for his work with Pink Floyd, Alice Cooper, and KISS) to shape what would become their fifth studio album, Saturday Night Wrist. The sessions, however, were fraught with tension. Frontman Chino Moreno openly disliked Ezrin’s direction and often avoided the studio entirely, leaving the rest of the band to jam and record without him.

This disconnect resulted in a series of mostly instrumental sketches, later circulating as the Saturday Night Wrist Bob Ezrin Demos/Outtakes. The songs were skeletal, missing Moreno’s signature voice, and largely forgotten until Ezrin himself compiled and leaked them years later.

Cunningham admitted in an interview: “The Bob Ezrin demos, those things were like — I had never heard those except way back when we did them. And I realized that they’re on YouTube and I’m like, ‘Oh shit. Some of it’s actually kind of cool, you know?’ Those songs just went away and we never even thought about re-trying, reusing them. It’s really weird. I forgot about those songs, man.”

Just a few years later, in 2008, Deftones entered the studio again, this time to record Eros. The band approached the project with a newfound sense of purpose, aiming to make something heavier and more experimental than anything before. They laid down several tracks, but tragedy struck when bassist Chi Cheng was involved in a car accident in November of that year, leaving him in a semi-conscious state until his passing in 2013.

The band put Eros on hold, unwilling to release an unfinished record tied so closely to such painful memories. Instead, they regrouped with bassist Sergio Vega and redirected their energy into Diamond Eyes in 2010, an album of catharsis and rebirth.

Cunningham recalls the unfinished album with mixed emotions: “Eros could — I mean, I don’t know. Like I said before, we’ve talked about it quite a bit, but that record was never completed. There’s a handful of songs that are actually really good on Eros. The rest never was completed, so I don’t know what it would have been, could have been. But a box set of all that, I mean, that’s a good idea. Who knows? Right now, we’re just all about [the new album Private Music].”

For fans, Eros has taken on a mythical status, the ultimate “lost Deftones album.” Part of the intrigue lies in knowing it contains some of Chi Cheng’s final recordings.

Cunningham recognizes this curiosity and seems to be open to giving fans what they want, but also acknowledges the heavy emotional baggage tied to that era: “I would like to — that would be great for people to hear those songs for a variety of reasons. Obviously, Chi, his last recordings, and I know people are very curious about that. It’s also attached to a lot of sadness from that time, you know, and so we kind of just went and moved on. But who’s to say?”

For now, Deftones is focused on the present and their latest work Private Music due out later this month.