Our path is this, and I've been saying this for years: My idol growing up musically and business-wise, has been Metallica. And although I don't listen to a lot of Metallica nowadays, there is no larger band out there. I don't know how many records they sell. But from the start, their whole attitude was: "Screw the radio. Screw MTV". And not because they don't like it, but because there's just too muchcheesy crap on it, and they didn't want to be a part of that. A lot of people will go "Well now they're on there. They sold out!" But Metallica didn't "sell out". Metallica just ended up on MTV because there was nowhere else for them to go. Metallica had already invaded everything they could invade outside that "commercial world". And they always did what they wanted to do, regardless of what anything thought, liked or wanted.

When the "Black" record came out, it was no less heavy than ...And Justice for All or any record before that. But those forums had to play it. If they didn't, they looked stupid for not playing it. Now, Metallica can say and do whatever they like because even if you don't like it, radio and MTV are still going to play it because of who they are. They've already passed by all the bullshit.

And that's how I see Deftones. Our drummer Abe and I always joke around, like: "Yeah! We're on our Master of Puppets right now! It's our third record! But it's really like our "Black" record. We skipped a couple records. It's gonna have to go to radio!" [Laughs] I mean we joke around like that, but we know we're gonna get played on the radio, and we know we're gonna get played on MTV - and for no other reason than the fact that we can't be denied any longer. These people will have to play it because there will be such a fan base that they can't ignore it - on a business level, not because they like the music and they wanna play it. So the game that commercial media plays eventually comes back and bites them. They could've used that in a positive way and supported it from the start.