Deftones frontman Chino Moreno has shared his thoughts on the band’s guitarist Stephen Carpenter’s flat Earth and vaccine theories.

Late last year, Carpenter faced widespread criticism for the remarks he gave during his recent guest appearance on the conspiracy theorist podcast Tin Foil Hat with Sam Tripoli, in which he voiced his support for the widely debunked ‘flat Earth’ conspiracy theory and disputed the effectiveness of vaccines.

“I’m surprised he’s not more of a meme… I think there may be a couple,” Moreno said when asked about Carpenter’s views in an appearance on The Peer Pleasure Podcast. “But, it was actually tough for a minute, because obviously I’ve been friends with him since I was 10-years-old. And you know he wasn’t always this way.”

He added: “I will say that the weed probably has a ‘lil bit to do with his conspiracies and this and that and whatever, because he just, you know… And then probably sitting at home, just looking on whatever sites he looks at. [It] probably doesn’t help being smoked out and all that stuff and whatever.”

Moreno added that “when we’re together it’s like we don’t even talk about any of that stuff,” adding: “We play music, we laugh, we have a blast playing music. [We’re] still friends the way we were when we were kids.

“But it’s not like I haven’t heard him go on his tangents before and it’s just like I’ll listen for two minutes and then I just can’t, you know what I mean? ‘Cause he’ll just go off into no man’s land.”

The frontman went on to describe some of Carpenter’s “views on the world” as “a little outlandish,” but maintained that he still “fucking loves” the guitarist.

“He’s really, really sincere… And he’s smart—which is crazy—he’s very loving. He’s probably one of the most generous people that I’ve ever known in my whole life.”

Of the backlash to the comments, he added: “You can have your opinion but you gotta know the consequence once you say it. And the consequence is probably gonna be a lot of people talking shit.

“Sometimes it’s like just keep it to yourself, you can believe in whatever—I’m saying for his own good. I’m not saying that he has to keep it to himself because we don’t want to hear it. I’m just saying if you don’t want to get ridiculed sometimes just don’t say some outlandish shit.”

“But I will say that I don’t think anything that he says is coming from a negative place either. Because he’s like really worried about society.”

After his comments were spread widely online, Carpenter said he “never had the intent to upset anybody” with his views, and that he was “just giving my opinions”.

Meanwhile, Deftones recently postponed their North American tour until 2022. Originally set to take place this August, the band said that due to “the imminence of the tour, and the pandemic lasting longer than we anticipated, we came to the realisation that uncertainty still remains in different markets throughout the country”.