Last month, Deftones bassist Sergio Vega revealed he was no longer in the band after posting a photo of the foursome on Spotify. Now Sergio has explained his departure from the band and revealed he’s been working with former Every Time I Die singer Keith Buckley on something new.

Speaking to Joshua Toomey via his Talk Toomey podcast (as transcribed by The PRP), Sergio went into lengthy detail about his involvement with Deftones and what led him to apply for a more secure position – and not receive one.

“It was a function of the cancellation of the contract. And me having a little chat with Chino, then another chat with a few guys saying “hey” when they wanted to re-enter [the contract.]

“I was like, I think the way forward is we can all be in this together. It’s time to get out of that kind of structure. Because it’s not really working for anybody, especially now that we’re not not on tour, we don’t do anything. And it doesn’t make sense to have this type of structure, it’s been twelve years [since Vega joined the band] at this point and let’s fix this.

“…We don’t have to deal with it now, I just can’t…I just can’t address the salary issue because it’s not working for us. And that was it. We really couldn’t go back on that.

Vega goes on to explain that it wasn’t about the money for him, but more about knowing that he was secure in his position within the band:

“It’s the security and stability of feeling like you’re part of something you invest in and belong to. For me, the key word is this feeling of belonging. Something you invest in.

“Now if it had been from the start – ‘this is the vibe, this is the help we need’ – then that’s cool… So for me it was a bit to hear some things like “Sergio is out of pocket” [in reference to a comment reportedly made online by Chino Moreno regarding Sergio‘s exit] you know, ‘we fired him, it’s about the money.’ It was never about money for me.

“But at the end of the day, I guess the perception that he’s impinging on anyone’s income might have been the thing that made it possible not to reunite.”

Sergio also revealed he’s been working on a new project with former Every Time I Die singer Keith Buckley and Spotlight drummer Chris Enriquez:

“You don’t have the trick of trying to build the group. You don’t have to deal with time conflicts with the people you want to work with, it opens up a lot. So we currently have a song in progress. We have [another] one almost done. And then last week we started working on a track with Keith Buckley.

“…It’s super exciting because we called each other and just talked about life. Him, Chris and I had a quick FaceTime. We hadn’t met, of course [we’re] well aware of each other. And we got on really, really well. So it’s a rare time that I feel compelled to mention the person because of the situation.

Check out the full interview here: