Breast cancer is an illness that strikes particularly close to the heart of Chi Cheng, bassist for Deftones [ tickets ].

Three years ago, his mother was diagnosed with breast cancer. She has been free of the disease for the last one-and-a-half years.

As a tribute to his mother, and in an effort to educate the public about breast cancer, Cheng persuaded his band to perform as part of the "Breathe" benefit on Saturday (10/27) at the Wiltern Theatre in Los Angeles. (The site of the concert recently was moved from the Greek Theatre in L.A.) The event, co-promoted by Third Eye Blind's lead singer Stephan Jenkins and the Step Up Women's Network, will feature performances by Deftones, Third Eye Blind, Seal, Crazytown, Liz Phair, Run DMC, Jurassic 5, Tom Morello, Lil' Kim and Julia Fordham.

"Stephan called us up. We've done a couple shows together and he's really into the band and we have a mutual respect," Cheng said via telephone from his Sacramento, Calif., home.

"I talked with the rest of the band and expressed how important it was for me, and so fortunately, we weren't touring or doing any shows so we jumped on it."

The event is unique in that each band will be paired with another for a series of performances. So far, the scheduled duets include Crazy Town and Sugar Ray, Seal and Jenkins, Run of Run DMC and Jurassic 5, and Liz Phair and Jenkins. Cheng said he isn’t sure with whom Deftones will be paired.

"I think it's a wonderful idea," he said about the pairings. "I think everyone who’s organizing it is doing such an amazing job of making it such a cool event--with the pairings, the bands that are chosen. The way I've seen everything come together, it's really cool."

To Cheng, it isn’t really important with whom Deftones are playing.

"Hell, you could put any of those names in a hat and pull it out and I'd be happy," he said.

The "Breathe" performance is scheduled to be the last before Deftones begin writing the follow-up to its 2000 album "White Pony" (Maverick).

"We know what we don't want to do, but we never really know what we want to do. We just let it be organic and natural," Cheng said of the band's writing process, adding that what Deftones don't want to do is "anything we've done before."

Cheng does know that the group is going to try to record the album themselves in Sacramento. He said, "We're gonna definitely need some kind of mediator in there so we don't murder each other. I don’t know if it's going to be a Pro Tools [computer program for audio editing] guy or a producer. But we're going to need someone in there to keep us on track and keep us from murdering each other."