The Standard, Hong Kong
June 10 2005
System of their own
Richard Cromelin
Weekend: June 11-12, 2005
>From left: Daron Malakian, John Dolmayan, Serj Tankian and Shavo
Odadjian – PHOTO BY AP
System of a Down’s singer Serj Tankian and guitarist Daron Malakian
are as oddly matched as the components of their band’s epically
disjointed music.
With his Rasputin look and guru’s serenity, Tankian sits on a
dressing-room couch backstage at Los Angeles’ Gibson Amphitheatre and
contributes concise observations and epigrams.
Malakian, eight years younger at 29, is a prototype rock dude with a
sensitive streak, and seems full of nervous energy as he sits beside
his bandmate, talking in rushes punctuated by loud laughs.
“Daron is a true artist,” says Rick Rubin, who has produced or
co-produced all four of System’s albums, including the new Mezmerize,
for his American Recordings label. “He doesn’t really live in the
world. He lives in a bubble and the bubble is filled with music. All
he does is listen to music and play music all day, every day. He’s
got no interests or hobbies or social life or any of those things.
I’m not saying it’s healthy but it makes for good music.”
That’s a matter of taste, of course, but even critics who generally
avoid the harder stuff have developed a soft spot for the Los Angeles
band’s unlikely, unpredictable juxtapositions of heavy rock riffing
and mock-operatic declamation.
By turns surreal, absurd and pointedly political, System’s music is
what you might get if the Marx Brothers took possession of Metallica
and hired Frank Zappa as arranger.
As unconventional as it is, it has also become extremely popular. An
hour after the interview, Tankian and Malakian join drummer John
Dol-mayan and bassist Shavo Odadjian in front of a full house at the
6,000-seat amphitheater for their annual “Souls” concert, which
commemorates the Armenian genocide of the early 1900s.
All band members are of Armenian heritage.
When the band takes the stage and launches into its new radio hit
BYOB, the audience explodes. These fans have been waiting a long time
since System’s last formal album, Toxicity, came out in 2001.
Sparked by the hit singles Chop Suey, Toxicity and Aerials, the album
sold 3.5 million copies in the United States and established System
as a genre unto itself, with one foot in a form of heavy art-rock and
the other in traditional headbanging. So anticipation was at a high
pitch for its return to concerts and for last month’s release of
Mezmerize, which reached No 1 on the national chart.
It looks like business as usual for System of a Down, but behind the
statistics and below the surface, internal balances have shifted
significantly, and creative ambitions have risen.
“If you go back to the first discussion [the band] had about this
record, maybe years ago,” says Malakian, “it was about stretching
it, about not repeating ourselves, trying to do other things.”
As potent and provocative as the new album is, it’s only half the
story. As they recorded, they found themselves juggling too many
songs for one CD, and rather than release a double-disc set or two
separate albums at the same time, they assembled Mezmerize for
release now and set aside a second full album, Hypnotize, to come out
in the fall.
The album reflects an altered creative chemistry. Malakian has always
been the primary musical force, writing most of the music and
co-producing with Rubin, but on Mezmerize he asserts a much more
prominent presence as lyricist and singer.
“I was a little nervous at first because I felt that I needed to sing
a little bit more on these songs, but I wasn’t sure how that would
affect the band’s sound,” Malakian said.
“Till now Serj’s voice has been the main voice of System, and now I’m
coming in a little bit more. You try things, you’re not sure how
they’re gonna come out.”
Adds Tankian: “People look at us, they look at MTV or whatever: `This
guy does this, this guy does this.’ None of us are that isolated. We
do a lot of different things. It’s good for people to see that and
not have us in our little walls.”
“There’s an interesting balance in the band,” notes Rubin, “because
most of the musical ideas start with Daron, but then Serj brings a
kind of poet’s mentality to it. It’s that combination that really
pushes the envelope and makes it so extreme.”