On June 20th, 2000, Deftones released their third full-length, White Pony, which represented a massive creative leap for the Sacramento group outside of the nu-metal box into something much more expansive, ethereal and challenging to categorize. Less than a year later, the band appeared as the musical guests on the February 9th, 2001, episode of The Tonight Show with Jay Leno and played standout single "Digital Bath." It's a great performance capturing the band at the height of their powers, and it's punctuated by a funny little interview at the end, where Deftones replace the night's main guests, Pamela Anderson and Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, on the couch. Watch above.
"Digital Bath" stands as a landmark song for Deftones, one of the breakthrough moments for the band. Singer Chino Moreno felt that as soon as they recorded it. "It was at night and I was just driving through Hollywood," Moreno told us of the listening back to the song in his car, fresh from the studio. "I was just thinking to myself, 'This sounds futuristic to me. There's little elements of things that I love, but it sounds like something new.' And we just made it an hour ago. So there was a feeling of accomplishment. I sort of felt like, yeah, we're onto something."
