Former Deftones bassist Sergio Vega has opened up about leaving the band a few months back, saying it had nothing to do with money. According to Blabbermouth.net, during an interview with The Jasta Show, he said, “On a creative level, they were always super open and super cool.” He continued, “But it was never even about money. Because even the publishing was there; that's fine. It's purely about belonging; it's purely about just wanting to feel like you're in it.”
He went on, “At the beginning, I was up for anything. I was just, like, 'My friends are in trouble, and I just wanna help.' . . . Being a hired gun, there's no room for creative input — that's fine. That would have been a thing, and you wrap your head around that. Initially, my only goal was to put my best foot forward and be a help to people in need and people that I cared about. And it was only because of the way that it was presented to me as, 'This is how it's gonna go down,' where something that I started to go, 'Hey…'”
Again, Vega denied that his unhappiness had anything to do with money, saying, “It was never about money and it was never about any of that. It was just about literally being in the same situation so that it didn't create these opportunities for dissonance, where it was, like, 'Oh, you're doing this, but we're paying you while you're doing this.' I got a call that was, like, 'We're hemorrhaging a lot of money on storage space and you.' And I was, like, 'That's my problem. I'm compared to a storage space. I'm a line item.' It's not the money. It's just the dynamic.”
Vega continued, 'So it wasn't me asking for anything during the pandemic; it was the contract being canceled, which is their right. And then I was, like, 'Okay, cool. This doesn't work for anybody. We can finally address a total restructure.' But at the end of the day, we weren't able to really come to terms on that. So that's fine. Basically, everything that I had said in my initial video statement is what kind of happened. And I totally understand their position. But mine is I have to respect my situation and my position as well, that it wasn't something that… having that dissonance, for lack of a better word, was something that was pervasive, and it was something that ultimately was affecting me mentally as well.”
