When he joined the Deftones in 1997, Frank Delgado was nothing more than the DJ — he’d never played an instrument, and anything he sampled was from an existing record. But since 2000’s “White Pony,” he started dabbling with synthesizers, which led him to write songs on keyboards even though he doesn’t read music.

“We all get together and we make noise. And when there’s something good there, we all start building on it. That’s kind of how it is still. It’s a matter of me figuring out stuff that works and sounds good, and being able to play it again,” Delgado says, laughing, admitting that so far he’s had luck remembering riffs and melodies.