"We always like to try new things..."

Kerrang!'s 250 Greatest Rock Songs Of 2012, which we unveiled today, has certainly got people talking - including Deftones' Chino Moreno, who filled Kerrang.com in on their track Goon Squad.

The song, taken from forthcoming album Koi No Yokan, features in our comprehensive list of the year in rock, but what is it alongside? Pick up this week's issue and join the debate below!

But for now, over to you, Chino...

Where and when was the song originally conceived?
Chino Moreno (vocals): "That was one of the first things that we wrote. In the first couple of weeks of writing for the new album we laid down about 25 songs and Goon Squad was one of the songs that survived the cutting down process. It just sort of unfolded from this guitar melody, soundscape kinda piece that builds and builds and then goes into this single note riff. It was a real collaboration between all the guys in the band. It wasn't like somebody came in and said, 'Hey, I have a song idea'. It grew between all of us."

You mention the riff - does that heavy downtuned feel evoke the feel of (2000's) White Pony for you?
"Possibly. I really like the sound of that riff and I guess you could say it's Deftones-esque. If you'd heard us before you could recognise that sound but on this record as a whole we've felt able to dip into different moods and sounds that reflect our whole catalogue and our whole career. We always like to try new things but at the same time still capture the emotion and excitement that we had when we first started out."

Do you enjoy using that sudden tempo shift between the dreamy intro and the heavy riff and dynamics?
"Yeah, absolutely. I love songs that take unexpected shifts. Too many songs, you hear the first 15 seconds and you've pretty much heard the whole song. That can work for some songs and artists but I like different textures and songs that pull you in different directions. This is probably one of our more straightforward songs to be honest but there are still a lot of different things going on in there."

Can you see Goon Squad being a big hitter live?
"We haven't actually played this one live yet. The album's only just come out and we've started easing a few songs like Poltergeist and Rosemary into the live set but we'll try out different songs as time goes on. It doesn't really come into our thought process when we're writing a song. We don't sit around and go, 'You know what would sound good live..?' But different songs do have a different impact when you play them live and I'm looking forward to trying this one out."

Lyrically, is it a bit of a dig at trends and musical fashionistas?
"It's tongue-in-cheek but yes, it's about that sort of thing - trends and fashions. In fact the title comes from the David Bowie song Fashion. There's a line in there where he sings, "We are the goon squad" and there's a little bit of a homage going on there."