"I was just shy of crying from pain that was in my right arm. I couldn’t even move it": Stephen Carpenter sheds light on the health struggles that have impacted his playing

Stephen Carpenter's inimitable guitar playing and unmistakable tone has helped define Deftones' repertoire over the past 35 years. However, there were points during the creation of the band’s latest studio album, Private Music, when Carpenter’s contributions were worryingly limited.

“I had no clue what I was going through,” he recalls of the time in an interview with Premier Guitar. “I’d just been so out of it for the past four or five years – all the things that go with poor diet and poor exercise, that’s what I experienced."

After experiencing symptoms and struggling with his health, the guitarist was eventually diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes, which he says impacted him both physically and psychologically.

“During the whole writing process, I was just tired, but I was not connecting how I felt to what I was doing,” he adds.

“When we went in to start tracking the music, thankfully, we got all of our scratch tracks done, because shortly after that, something had got me all messed up. Like, every day, I was just shy of crying from pain that was in my right arm. I couldn’t even move it.”

Carpenter continues, “I did what I could to just take care of myself – at least, as best as I understood what I was going through. And thankfully, when it was time to actually track my guitar parts, my body was feeling better, and I was able to physically do what I had to do.”

And while initially, Carpenter thought it was all down to aging (the guitarist is now 55), it all came to a head during the band's performance at Coachella in 2024.

“I just thought it was old-man life shit,” he admits. “I was self-medicating, hoping I was doing the right thing, and always hoping things would get better so I wouldn’t have to do any of that. But unfortunately, you can only kick a can so far down the road before you run out of road.”

It was only after his bandmates pushed him to seek medical help that the guitarist finally listened, and is now on the road to addressing his condition.

“Type 2 diabetes was affecting me on a number of levels for a long time, and I’m grateful to have that information now and be able to deal with it,” he divulges.

“I’m also really grateful to everyone else in the band – their positive energy really carried me through that period of time, and really carried us through the making of the album.”

As for the rest of the band, Carpenter’s undiagnosed type 2 diabetes forced Chino Moreno to step up to the plate and get more involved in writing Private Music’s guitar parts.