"I was like, 'I can't handle this.'" Deftones' Chino Moreno reveals why he gave up booze

Chino Moreno smiling on stage — (Image credit: Getty Images)

Chino Moreno has revealed the moment that led him to decide to give up drinking for good. The Deftones frontman, who has now been sober for three years, reveals what pushed him to drop booze entirely in a new interview in the latest edition of Metal Hammer magazine.

“I’ll be pretty candid here," he starts. "I’d already quit drinking for a few weeks – I didn’t tell anybody, it was just something I was doing for myself – and I was having a bad day,"

"So I went down into the garage, and I have a little fridge in there with beers in it, and I cracked a beer, and I sat on an ice chest, and my wife walked in. She’s like, ‘What are you doing?’ And I was like, ‘I can’t handle this, whatever.’ So what am I doing? I’m opening a beer because I can’t handle this. So I was like, ‘Oh, well, that’s pretty telling right there, right?’ So, the very next day, I was like, ‘Alright. I’m going to try to make a change.’

Moreno adds that he wasn't sure how long his sobriety would last, but felt the positive effects pretty quickly after years of casual drinking.

“Even still then, I wasn't 100% committed. I was just like, ‘I'm just going to try it', he says. "But then once I got a month into sobriety, I was like, ‘Wow’.”

“I’m still a work in progress, obviously," he admits. "I don’t want to sit here and say, ‘Everything’s rainbows every day’, but it’s definitely a way better place to be.”

Deftones released their critically acclaimed new studio album Private Music last week. In a sparkling 9/10 review for Metal Hammer, Stephen Hill wrote of the record: "Private Music feels like the most complete and essential album they’ve made in a very long time. The perfect record for a late-period career renaissance."

Read more from Chino in the new issue of Metal Hammer, out now. Order your copy here.

Merlin was promoted to Executive Editor of Louder in early 2022, following over ten years working at Metal Hammer. While there, he served as Online Editor and Deputy Editor, before being promoted to Editor in 2016. Before joining Metal Hammer, Merlin worked as Associate Editor at Terrorizer Magazine and has written for Classic Rock, Rock Sound, eFestivals and others. Across his career he has interviewed legends including Ozzy Osbourne, Lemmy, Metallica, Iron Maiden (including getting a trip on Ed Force One courtesy of Bruce Dickinson), Guns N' Roses, KISS, Slipknot, System Of A Down and Meat Loaf. He has also presented and produced the Metal Hammer Podcast, presented the Metal Hammer Radio Show and is probably responsible for 90% of all nu metal-related content making it onto the site.

You must confirm your public display name before commenting

Please logout and then login again, you will then be prompted to enter your display name.