The Deftones secured a recording contract with Empire Records.
=== Ohms, Black Stallion, and Vega's departure (2017-2023) ===In 2017, Chino Moreno revealed that Deftones had begun writing material for their ninth studio album, which he stated hoped would be out sometime in 2019
Carpenter created the band's name by combining the hip hop slang term "def" (which was used by artists such as LL Cool J and Public Enemy) with the suffix "-tones," (which was popular among 1950s bands such as the Delltones and the Harptones)

