Deftones frontman Chino Moreno has admitted it was “tough” to hear bandmate Stephen Carpenter’s views on COVID-19 vaccines last year.
“I’ve been friends with him since I was 10 years old and you know he wasn’t always this way,” Moreno said during an appearance on The Peer Pleasure Podcast. “I will say the weed probably has a ‘lil bit to do with his conspiracies and this and that and whatever, because he just, you know… and then probably sitting at home, just looking on whatever sites he looks at.”
Last year, on the Tin Foil Hat with Sam Tripoli podcast, Carpenter said he believes the Earth is flat (“I know we’re not on a spinning, flying space ball”) and claimed there has “never been one single vaccine that’s ever worked ever.”
The 51-year-old guitarist went on to share misinformation about vaccines and viruses. “You are not capable of catching a virus from somebody,” he claimed. “You develop viruses because you have some type of poison or toxin within you.”
Moreno said he and Carpenter don’t talk about his beliefs. “We play music, we laugh, we have a blast playing music,” he said. “But it’s not like I haven’t heard him go on his tangents before and it’s just like I’ll listen for two minutes and then I just can’t, you know what I mean? ‘Cause he’ll just go off into no man’s land.”
Moreno said his friend needs to understand there are consequences to espousing conspiracy theories.
“Sometimes it’s like, just keep it to yourself. “If you don’t want to get ridiculed sometimes just don’t say some outlandish s**t.”