Stephen Carpenter to Return to Live Performing at Dia De Los Deftones Festival
Deftones guitarist, actual flat-earther, and overall conspiracy theory nut Stephen Carpenter has been absent from a lot of shows with the band lately. Back in July we reported that Carpenter had some anxiety around getting on airplanes, and it actually wasn’t related to him being scared of flying off the edge of the earth or accidentally landing in Australia and disproving his entire worldview. His anxiety, it seems, might have been anti-vax related, but considering that I have panic attacks on airplanes for things that are also statistically unlikely, I guess I’ll give him a little bit of a pass.
But while Carpenter originally said he was just skipping international shows with the band, The PRP reports he’s missed several U.S. shows, including the band’s appearance at Lollapalooza, with Lance Jackman replacing him on guitar, with all of it being chalked up to a “sudden illness.” Well, whatever it is that was keeping Carpenter from playing with the band, it seems he’s going to be at the upcoming Dia De Los Deftones festival after all.
The announcement came on the Instagram account of Carpenter’s side project Sol Invicto, with the post from Carpenter reading:
“Thank you for all your kind words, feeling good and excited for you all to hear the new Sol Invicto record Loosely Aware. See you all at [Dia De Los Deftones]!”
By the way, this isn’t the point of the article, but on the same Instagram for Sol Invicto is this hilarious statement in reference to the Linkin Park controversy:
“We may have a flat earther in the band but…we definitely don’t have any Scientologists…”
Sadly, that’s…actually something I guess.
The 5th annual Dia De Los Deftones festival will be in San Diego on November 2, and it will feature performances from an eclectic list of artists including IDLES, Sunny Day Real Estate (performing Diary in its entirety), HEALTH, Paris Texas, Duster, Gel, and Qendresa. It’ll be good to see Carpenter playing with the band because, for all the batshit nonsense he believes, his guitar playing is crucial to the band’s unique alt-metal-meets-shoegaze sound and it just wouldn’t be the same without him.
Get your tickets to Dia De Los Deftones here.
