Sydney Morning Herald , Australia
Jan 13 2005
Bring down the dictator
January 14, 2005
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“The last one to dodge the train is the band leader.” Daron Malakian
(right) settles the issue the old way.
Sex, drugs, rock’n’roll … and politics. Daron Malakian – sorry,
System of a Down – likes it with the lot. Kelsey Munro has attitude
with hers.
SYSTEM OF A DOWN
Hordern Pavilion, Driver Avenue, Moore Park
January 25, 7pm
$66.40
Bookings 9266 4800
They will also play the Big Day Out on January 26. Win tickets to the
sold-out event in next week’s Metro
You couldn’t have predicted System of a Down’s success. Mixing
intelligent, experimental, heavy music with a generous dose of
left-wing politics is not a proven recipe for chart success.
But their 2001 album Toxicity sold more than 4 million copies,
propelled by the furiously tight smash hit Chop Suey! The four
Armenian-Americans went from being an underground Californian band to
international success.
Live, they have a bone-buzzing intensity and frenetic
teenage-boy-laden mosh pits, but this is not easy music. How did they
get so big?
“We just stuck to our guns,” says guitarist and chief songwriter
Daron Malakian.
The band has had a dogged policy of non-compromise since their
formation in the mid-’90s. A buzz built around the quartet throughout
the Californian scene on the strength of their live sound and a
three-song demo that circulated among fans. System’s ferocious,
precise sound got pushed to bigger and bigger audiences. But not even
the band expected the mainstream to embrace Toxicity.
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Advertisement”Yes, I’m very surprised that the world has grabbed onto
it the way it has because it was an experiment for us,” Malakian
says. “We’re lucky because we are a very artsy-fartsy band, and
people get it.”
Malakian is putting the finishing touches on two new studio albums.
He says he’s not a perfectionist: “I just want it to be right, I
don’t nitpick at shit. I get the production credit on the record, and
I get to be the [AC/DC guitarist] Malcolm Young of System of a Down.”
He laughs uproariously.
“I respect those people. You look at Slayer and you see Kerry King. I
look at Slayer and I see [songwriter-guitarist] Jeff Hanneman.”
He says this as though everyone would know what he means – that he
respects the behind-the-scenes musicmakers in bands over those showy
frontmen.
By his own reckoning, Malakian writes about 95 per cent of System’s
music, including the lyrics. He bristles slightly at the suggestion
that his band is a dictatorship.
“It’s a democracy, everyone respects the way the band works, I don’t
step over anybody,” he says. “I really don’t want to sound like I’m
discrediting my band members here because I’m not. It’s really how
System works. Serj [Tankian] writes songs but not in bulk the way I
write songs … It works as a team.”
All of the band – singer Tankian, bass player Shavo Odadjian and
drummer John Dolmayan – share Malakian’s eclectic taste in music,
ranging from Slayer to the Doors.
Frontman Tankian co-founded the activist group Axis of Justice with
Audioslave’s Tom Morello, which has worked for causes such as
homeless people and voting issues in the US. Some of System’s songs
have anti-war themes.
But Malakian is uncomfortable with System being tagged a “political”
band.
“We just sing about what the world, about what’s around us,” he says.
“We have political songs and we have songs about, y’know,
psycho-groupie-cocaine crazy.
“Somebody asked me, ‘Are you guys about sex, drugs, rock’n’roll,
politics, having a good time?’ I said, ‘Yes!’ We’re not about a
history lesson, like, ‘You gotta learn all about the Armenian
genocide’ or all about politics. We’re not only about that and we’re
not only about sex, drugs and rock’n’roll, we’re like a f—ed-up
mutation of all that shit.”