Deftones Will Release New Version of ‘White Pony’ Called ‘Black Stallion’

Deftones will be realizing a 20 year old dream when the reissue of their White Pony album arrives. During a global Zoom press conference, frontman Chino Moreno confirmed that the band will have a remix companion to the classic disc titled Black Stallion.

"We're gonna be releasing later in the year a reissue of the record and we're going to do sort of a split side of the record, a remixed version of it titled Black Stallion," he revealed. "So we have a bunch of different people on it, some that actually inspired some of the writing of the record itself, the original album. So it's kind of come full circle."

Moreno said the idea for a Black Stallion remix is something that even preceded them recording the White Pony album, so he's thrilled to see it coming to fruition a full 20 years later. An official release date has not been announced as of yet though.

Looking back on that time, turtablist/keyboardist Frank Delgado revealed just how excited the band is to see this Black Stallion remix record finally be realized after all this time. He shared, "We would talk about our new record, how good it was going to be and we'd immediately jump to, 'It's going to be so good, we're going to have [DJ] Shadow remix it and we'll call it Black Stallion.' I think one time we actually hit him up. He was playing here in town and I was opening DJing and me and Chino [Moreno] kind of cornered him. We were like, 'Hey man, we're the Deftones,' and he looked at us like we were fucking crazy. We were like, 'We want you remix our record,' and he was like, 'Deftones? Are you guys ska?' But he was like, 'Well, send it to me,' kind of like trying to get rid of us and we were like, 'Well, we haven't actually recorded it yet.' It was kind of batshit crazy of us."

But, as revealed during the session, while DJ Shadow may not have been aware who they were then, he will actually be part of the upcoming Black Stallion release. "It's funny because now he's involved in that and I think that's kind of special," said Delgado. "This record was just embedded in our brains before we put it down on tape. It's crazy. I think it has a lot to do with the hangs we were doing. We were just friends hanging out and making shit happen."

The Deftones' White Pony album will celebrate its 20th anniversary this Saturday (June 20). Looking back now on the record, Moreno stated, "It was definitely a special time. We took a lot of chances and were living life to its fullest at that moment and just trying to capture that on the record." He added that the songs weren't very personal, as he was more telling stories with the tracks on the album, but that the vibe and the sound will always put him right back in the place of the feeling of recording it.

Asked if there were any plans to do special shows for the White Pony anniversary, Moreno stated that they still planned to have a mixed set of White Pony cuts with some of the rest of their catalogue, but added, "Eventually, I wouldn't be against doing the whole record in its entirety at some point or another … We'll see though, maybe one day."

While the White Pony anniversary celebration is very much on their minds, it was recently revealed that the band has completed recording for their next studio album. Release details have not been announced though as of yet.