The Weeknd, the pop star who dazzled at the Super Bowl halftime show earlier this year, clearly has a penchant for rock and metal — the kind of music that falls just outside the scope of his usual R&B-based fare. He revealed as much this week when he praised Deftones and seemingly paid tribute to late Linkin Park singer Chester Bennington in pair of tweets.
The rock nods arrived as The Weeknd, the Canadian singer whose real name is Abel Tesfaye, was broadcasting a live installment of his Apple Music show, Memento Mori. Since the episode celebrated the 10th anniversary of The Weekend’s 2011 mixtape, Thursday, the entertainer looked back at the music that moved him around that time.
“DEFTONES HUGE INSPO DURING [TRILOGY] ERA,” The Weeknd tweeted on Wednesday (Aug. 18), referring to Trilogy, the compilation that collects his first three mixtapes. He added a hashtag for Memonti Mori, which he would append to each mid-episode tweet.
Before that, the singer shared a message that said “R.I.P CHESTER,” presumably in honor of the influential Linkin Park member who died in 2017.
Listeners of both The Weeknd and Deftones may have already drawn a parallel between each artist’s unique brand of sensuality. However, a creative connection between The Weekend and Linkin Park is perhaps a bit harder to ascertain, though one’s influences don’t always convey clearly.
The Weeknd started Memento Mori in 2018 while “hiding out in Paris” when he “decided to start a radio show and present all of you the music [that’s] inspiring some late nights,” as the singer then shared of the podcast launch that was covered by Billboard.
Deftones will hit the road next year on a joint tour with fellow metal act Gojira that initially was plotted for 2020 before being first postponed to 2021 because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The Weekend’s The After Hours Tour also begins in 2022.
