ONE LOVE FOR CHI
I feel it is only right for me to write an article about a musician that I grew up listening to and will truly miss…this is about the Life of Chi Cheng. If you have been living under a rock for the last few weeks, Chi Cheng was one of the founding members of the Nu Metal band Deftones who passed away April 13th, 2013 most likely from complications stemming from his car accident in 2008.
I have been jamming out to the Deftones since 1998 and have always considered them one of my all-time favorite bands. I have been honored to have seen them live numerous times and every time, you could see that the whole band was playing for the fans, not a paycheck. When you have been following someone’s music for the past 15 years and they suddenly leave this world, it feels like you have lost a best friend. I have been one of the many, many people all over the world following Chi’s recovery from his accident, mainly from the oneloveforchi.com website, which is run by family and friends of Chi. I was ecstatic to see the video of him moving some of his toes in his hospital bed and then later, hearing that he was being discharged. He definitely had his bumps in the road, but every time, he seemed to conquer it and have that will to live. So, when it was released that Chi had been rushed to the hospital and his heart ultimately stopped, myself and thousands around the world were devastated because we all thought that we would be seeing him again on the stage sometime in the future.
I don’t want this article to be just about that devastating day, because I would rather remember him as the talented musician and a true role model for young kids to look up to. If you want to really see the type of person Chi was, go over to the one love for chi site and see the blog posts that have been posted right before his accident. He puts his heart on his sleeve for everyone to see and read. You can tell that he was extremely proud with the people he had in his life including all of his fans just by reading his blog posts.
I hope that Chi is ultimately remembered for his contribution to the music world with some of the greatest metal/rock songs constructed in the last 25 years and also for the person he was to his friends, family and fans. Even though he is no longer on this Earth to give us new music (unless Deftones decide to release the unfinished album Eros which is the last album Chi was featured on), we all know that wherever he is now, he has his bass in his hands and he is still producing music for us to hear when it is our time to visit him again.
“We’re allowed certain idiosyncrasies as musicians, so I become a little more eccentric by default. If I feel like wearing pajamas and bedroom slippers for a week straight, I’ll just do it.” ~Chi Cheng
By: Trevor R
