Chi Cheng (musician)

Chi Cheng, (born Chi Ling Dai Cheng July 15, 1970) is an American musician, the bassist in the rock band Deftones.

Personal life

Cheng holds a BA in English Literature from UC Davis and is the only member of the band with such an accomplishment. He is the author of a collection of poetry entitled The Bamboo Parachute released in 2000 as a spoken word album. He is also a practicing Buddhist, and maintains an interest in Taoism and Shamanism. Cheng also sponsors a community service group based out of the band's hometown of Sacramento, California. The group aids homeless citizens in developing their musical talents, among other things. Cheng is also a vegetarian. During college, he read No Denial by Neil Cohen and decided to make the switch. Some of the Deftones' lyrics can be interpreted to reflect this practice. Many songs make reference to animals or the consumption of meat, implicitly portraying the practice in a bad light. The song "Elite" on White Pony repeats "when you're ripe you'll bleed out of control." This perhaps describes, in a criticizing manner, the way in which animals are treated in meat packing plants.

Equipment

Chi began touring using two '57 Fender Precision Bass Reissues, made by Alex Perez of the Fender Custom Shop. Chi has about 20 Fender P-Basses of recent vintage, each of them which has a rosewood fretboard and stock double-humbucker pickups, all passive. Recently he uses a Fender Telecaster Bass tuned in EADG, for Adrenaline songs. Cheng uses heavy-gauge (.065-.120) Fender strings on his instruments. Although he generally perfers to stick to four strings, Cheng acknowledges that he pulled out a couple of Fender five-strings during the making of Deftones. During the Adrenaline and Around the Fur Era, Cheng ran two Hughes & Kettner Bass Base 600 heads through four Hughes & Kettner 300-watt 4x10 cabinets. He also plugged in a SansAmp GT2 pedal. Currently, Chi uses two 300-watt, all-tube Ampeg SVT 2 Pro heads, two Ampeg 8x10 cabinets and a rack-mounted Tech 21 SansAmp PSA-1 for extra distortion. Also is using Boss OD-3 OverDrive and Boss CE-5 Chorus Ensemble pedals.

Trivia

• Korn named their song "Chi", from 1996's Life is Peachy, after him.