This feature is from the fall 2025 issue of VICE magazine, THE BE QUIET AND DRIVE ISSUE. You can subscribe to get 4 print issues of the mag each year here.
People love to say that The Sopranos is multi-faceted; that what truly makes it a masterpiece is its ability to operate on many different levels at once. For instance, while others have lauded its thoughtful examinations of male fragility and the slow death of the American Empire, I got into it because of a meme page chronicling the various T-shirts worn by the main character’s teenage son.
Like most adolescent boys in the early 00s, AJ Soprano loved skateboarding, PlayStation 2, shouting “fuck” at his mum, Jackass, and alternative rock bands on cable TV. Chief among those acts were Deftones, yet I could not for the life of me remember them ever being referenced in the show. So I speed-ran every episode of The Sopranos, slowing down the tapes every time AJ’s bedroom came into shot, hunting for signs of them. This is what I found.
SEASON 1
What’s in AJ’s bedroom? Vans Ehkks shoes; Marilyn Manson T-shirt; dirt bike memorabilia; posters for the bands Stuck Mojo, Ulver, Moonspell, and Nevermore; verbal references to South Park; the concept of something being “dicked up”; an ADHD diagnosis.
The pilot opens on AJ’s 12th birthday, which is rained off, and he is extra sad because no one brings him any ziti. When he’s not downstairs playing Mario Kart, young AJ is usually huffing about up in his grotto, which is home to a desktop computer the size of a space station and the kind of baggy jeans and windbreakers that made up Chino Moreno’s own late 90s wardrobe. At this point IRL Deftones were on an Ozzfest tour of the U.S. and the logo of Slipknot, an opening act on the same tour, appears in one episode. Sadly, though, there is no Deftones at any point in series 1, which seems weird for a kid who’s got a Moonspell poster on his wall.
SEASON 2
What’s in AJ’s bedroom? Limp Bizkit poster; backwards cap; “No sisters allowed” sign; big fat skate shoes he wears to visit his grandma in hospital; N64.
Tony officially takes over as head of the DiMeo crime family. Meanwhile, what’s his male heir doing? Joyriding in his parents’ car, hanging out at the mall, smoking weed in the garage, and experimenting with nihilism. As Chino Moreno himself sang: big mood. Exactly what a Deftones fan would be into. But where is the merch, bro? In this season, Limp Bizkit’s Significant Other artwork features prominently on the wall next to AJ’s window while a toy snake dangles opposite… could this be a private music precursor? Absolutely not.
SEASON 3
What’s in AJ’s bedroom? Osiris hat, worn backwards; Slipknot merch (1 x poster, 1 x T-shirt); Adio shoebox; wallet chain; Coal Chamber hoodie.
Shot in 2000 and airing in 2001, season 3 dovetails beautifully with the release of White Pony. Conditions were primed for the iconic logo to appear on something, somewhere. Following the death of his grandmother, we see him blasting Slipknot at his desk (various forms of Slipknot merch notably enter his wardrobe this season, including the iconic maroon windbreaker). In the next episode, he’s in a Coal Chamber hoodie. And yet, again, no Deftones. This is beginning to get frustrating. The pool party scene in the “Back to School (Mini Maggit)” video could literally be a shot from episode 9, when AJ and friends break into the school pool and trash it.
SEASON 4
What’s in AJ’s bedroom? Pantera T-shirt; Fear Factory poster; Ouija board; farts.
Things take a heavy turn for the rest of the cast in this season, but life is on the up for Anthony Junior. After narrowly escaping military school, he bags Devin, his first ever baddie. Their storyline in episode 6 revolves around trying to find a moment to get frisky in peace, but Carmela keeps interrupting, so they go to “study” in Meadow’s dorm room at Columbia. The uncharacteristically smooth “How Does It Feel” by D’Angelo plays as they make-out, which feels jarring and inappropriate for a boy who was listening to Coal Chamber just a few episodes ago. Couldn’t a “Knife Prty” or a “Digital Bath” moment have worked here?
SEASON 5
What’s in AJ’s bedroom? Mudvayne concert tickets; drum kit; a complete lack of eyebrow.
It’s 2004 when this season drops and Deftones’ self-titled album had been released the summer before. This is the era of AJ’s life when he starts playing the drums, almost gets eaten by a bear in the yard, and returns from a Mudvayne concert in NYC with both eyebrows shaved off before moving out to live with Tony in his dead nan’s house. Spoiler alert: He does not turn his new bedroom into a shrine to Deftones. But there is one other potential route worth exploring: Mudvayne only made one appearance in New York in 2003, when the season was being scripted. On Tuesday, March 11, at Northern Lights in Clifton Park. It seems too far from the city to be the same one AJ attended—but Metallica’s Summer Sanitarium tour did have Mudvayne opening, and guess what: Deftones played just after (with Linkin Park, Limp Bizkit, and Metallica following in that order). Sadly, of course, this was in real life, not an episode of The Sopranos.
SEASON 6
What’s in AJ’s bedroom? Blockbuster Video job; Aqua Teen Hunger Force; A T-shirt with a snake on it that says “Immortal”; a long-sleeve shirt that says “Underground”; Trivium and Tool posters; a Quiksilver sticker; full-blown hatred for the state of the world.
The final season isn’t too kind to AJ, who starts out as a long-haired 20-year-old and ends up aged 22 with gel spikes and a goatee. Tony is in hospital, AJ unsuccessfully tries to take out a hit on his Uncle Junior, develops a coke problem, loses his job at Blockbuster Video, almost joins the army, then regrettably tries to drown himself in the family pool swimming after his fiancée Blanca calls it quits. (Also his car blows up, but he loves that.)
Again, every single thing about this feels extremely Deftones, to the point where you start to wonder if there’s no trace of them in the series because in Sopranosworld, AJ has literally taken Chino Moreno’s place in the universe. What makes it doubly confounding is that although hanging out on the bottle-popping NYC club scene partially changes AJ’s music taste and social circle, his bedroom remains as greebo as ever. There are Quiksilver and Slipknot logo stickers on his mirror, Tool and Trivium posters on the walls, and a huge photo of Incubus drummer Joe Pasillas by his bed.
Then things take an interesting turn. At several points across season 6, images of another band make an appearance. It’s a band you wouldn’t necessarily expect AJ Soprano to be into, given his previous tastes. It’s… Sugarcult?! For a guy who was into Portuguese goth metal aged 12, and who has just come into possession of a debilitating cocaine habit, mediocre SoCal power-pop feels like a choice that is counterintuitive at best—until you learn who their boss was fucking. “Our manager was possibly dating someone on [the Sopranos] set design team,” the group’s guitarist Marko Desantis once admitted.
I’m not saying Sugarcult screwed Deftones out of their rightful place as AJ Soprano’s favorite band. But I am saying that someone in their entourage did.
Follow Hatti on Instagram: @hattirex
This feature is from the fall 2025 issue of VICE magazine, THE BE QUIET AND DRIVE ISSUE. You can subscribe to get 4 print issues of the mag each year here.
The post A Season-by-Season Inventory of AJ Soprano’s Bedroom appeared first on VICE.
