Deftones recently released their ninth album Ohms back in September. The release was the band’s first full-length effort in over four years. Less than two months after the album, the band is still pushing and promoting the project while working on their next release, a 20th-anniversary re-release of their third album White Pony. Unfortunately, the task does not come without a bit of controversy which comes as a result of comments made by guitarist Stephen Carpenter.
The guitarist recently joined the conspiracy theory podcast, Tin Foil Hat With Sam Tripoli, as a guest. During his appearance, Carpenter suggested that there has yet to be an effective vaccine and that the Earth is flat while casting doubt on the coronavirus pandemic and the effectiveness of wearing masks to prevent its spread.
Regarding his thoughts on vaccines, Carpenter said, “[There’s] never been one single vaccine that’s ever worked ever. All poisons, you can never get it out of your body, [your] body has no means to expel it.” He added, “It’s stuck in you forever and you just suffer with whatever it becomes.”
As for his Earth theory, the guitarist said, “If you think you live on a spinning, flying space ball, you’re in a cult.” He continued, “The simplest terms for my perspective with flat Earth is simply, I know we’re not on a spinning, flying space ball. Now, what it actually is and all that and, and, and to what depths it goes to, that’s all still to be discovered and people are working on those things.”
Last but not least, Carpenter’s comments on masks and the coronavirus pandemic was the lengthiest of them all as he labeled it as “bullsh*t” and that most people know the masks are “worthless.” He also said the mass participation in mask-wearing is similar to a “clown show” and asked people to stop “embarrassing” themselves.
All propaganda all the time. No matter how many times you want to present to people that it says right on the box that it says that this protects you against nothing, you know it won’t matter. I mean they could read it themselves and who wants to admit they’ve been played? I mean who wants to own that they were the sucker. That’s hard I guess for most people, because that’s what we’re going through.
Most people know that it’s bullshit. The germaphobes we’re not… we can’t do anything but try to help them out because they genuinely believe that there’s a deadly virus going around and they would have believed it already. They already thought life was deadly and dangerous. So this is no help to them. But everyone else part-time wears the mask, they already know it’s worthless. You know they all got their little favorite little logo matching their outfits. It’s like clown show. Please stop, you’re embarrassing yourself.
And that’s no disrespect to those who’ve fallen ill and even those who died from whatever they may have died from. Obviously none of that is disregarded, but I do not connect that to what this is, you know? What this is some, this is just some mental trickery.
And it’s unfortunate that everybody just gave in. It was a two week event when it started, and then it just now it’s forever… Thank you to all your mask wearers for making this permanent, good job.
If your heart desires to listen to the Tin Foil Hat With Sam Tripoli episode, you can find all one hour and 49 minutes of it here. Ohms is out now via Warner Records. Get it here.
Deftones is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.