Former Deftones bassist and drummer Dominic Garcia has revisited his history with the influential alternative metal band, offering new insight into their earliest years and how his departure from the group unfolded.
Garcia, a co-founding member of the Sacramento outfit — then known as The Deftones, as he clarified — recently spoke with Metal Hammer as part of a feature highlighting former members of notable metal and rock acts.
According to Garcia, he was not simply an early collaborator but present at the band’s formation alongside drummer Abe Cunningham and guitarist Stephen Carpenter, whom he met during their teenage years.
“I’ve read on the internet that I was invited to play with the band as the first bass player. That’s not true – I’m a founding member. Abe and I met in high school together. We were in the marching band, and every day we would go to his house after school and jam.”
Garcia recalled Carpenter discovering the pair while they were rehearsing and inviting them to jam, forming the earliest version of the group. He also credited Carpenter with naming the band, inspired by his admiration for Def Jam Recordings.
As the band began developing its sound, they auditioned vocalists before ultimately bringing in Chino Moreno, whom Garcia had known since childhood.
“Word had got around that he could sing – he’d go to parties and sing The Smiths. We auditioned him with a Danzig tune… and it was great.”
During the early years, Garcia initially played bass before transitioning to drums when Cunningham temporarily left to join local band Phallucy. That shift opened the door for the late Chi Cheng to join the lineup — a moment Garcia described fondly.
“I loved Chi, he was really cool – he was into poetry and all this stuff. Just a wonderful, kind-hearted person.”
Despite popular belief, Garcia insists he never formally quit the band. Instead, he says he learned indirectly that he had been replaced after attempting to balance commitments between two groups.
“I never actually left The Deftones… I found out from a third party that Stephen had got a guy named John Taylor to play drums… I was a little bit heartbroken because I’d started the band, but we were still friends.”
Following his time in rock music, Garcia shifted toward world and ethnological music studies, eventually developing a passion for Latin musical traditions. He revealed he recently received a grant to learn how to carve sacred Batá drums used in Yoruba spiritual ceremonies.
Despite the complicated ending, Garcia says he holds no resentment toward the band and still supports them — even joking that he was once escorted out of a Sacramento show after getting too involved in the crowd.
“I enjoyed the show a little bit too much — I wound up getting kicked out of the show ’cos I was being too aggressive in the pit… I was like, ‘I used to be in this band!’”
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