An entire year after the unfortunate death of Chi Cheng, bassist of Deftones, the frontman, Chino Moreno decided to honor Cheng’s memory in a fitting way—by releasing “Smile,” one of the last songs the band ever recorded with him.
Cheng suffered from a car collision in November of 2008. He remained comatose until his passing in April 2013—halting the music production for quite some time, reports Rolling Stone.
The band was working on their album Eros, which contains the song “Smile,” when Cheng took a turn for the worst. Moreno was not ready to release the album and scrapped it, according to Radio.com They began fresh with Sergio Vega and continued to release two more albums.
The band has yet to sit and listen to the entire Eros album due to the high volumes of great music paired with immense human emotion.
Chi, We miss you today and everyday. -deftones. https://t.co/M4hGNuAkZf
— chino (@chinomoreno) April 13, 2014
“Smile,” is a gloomy track that Moreno decided to share in a tweet that said “Chi, We miss you today and every day. – deftones.”
Listen to the heartfelt track here: