Former Deftones bassist Sergio Vega recently joined Talk Toomey for an interview during which he said he left the band due to lacking a sense of belonging.
Sergio Vega joined Deftones in 1999 to fill in for the bassist Chi Cheng who couldn’t perform with the band due to surgery. Later on, Cheng received fatal injuries after a car accident and entered a coma-like state in 2008. Due to this unfortunate incident, Vega became Deftones’ full-time bassist.
Throughout his career with Deftones, Sergio Vega contributed to the band’s success with his bass-playing in ‘Diamond Eyes,’ ‘Koi No Yokan,’ ‘Gore,’ and ‘Ohms.’ In March 2022, Deftones uploaded a band photo without Vega to Spotify, and this raised eyebrows.
Fans began to question whether Vega quit the band, but Deftones didn’t make any official announcement. So, Vega posted a video on his Instagram to clear the air about the rumors. In his statement, Vega announced that he left the band early last year because they didn’t renew his contract as an official member.
Recently, Sergio Vega gave an interview to Talk Toomey to explain his decision to leave. Vega stated that he wanted to belong to Deftones, but they were good with the status quo. He then said he left the band due to lacking a sense of belonging rather than a financial issue and mentioned this as a reason for the canceled contract.
In the interview with Talk Toomey, Sergio Vega said about his decision to leave Deftones the following:
“It started to become more of a thing of, ‘Hey, I would like to belong to this.’ Whenever it would come up, it was more like they were good with the status quo. But it was not financial because they were like, ‘Oh, here’s more money, here’s a raise.’ It was never about money; it was about a sense of belonging.
Ultimately, in parting ways, it was not a function of me trying to renegotiate during the pandemic. It was a function of the contract being canceled. And me having a little conversation with Chino Moreno and then another discussion with a couple of the guys in the band.
When they wanted to reinstate the contract, I was like, ‘Now would be the time to get off of this type of structure because it’s not really working for anybody. It’s been 12 years at this point. Let’s make good on that.’ And that was it. We couldn’t really come back on that.”
Vega asked Deftones to become an official member at the beginning of every album cycle, but instead, they improved his contact. So, he began to question his place in the band, resulting in his departure.
