SYSTEM’S FIERY SONGS `MEZMERIZE’ METAL FANS
By Dave Wedge
Boston Herald, MA
Aug 26 2005
Tony Danza and Frankie Avalon may seem worlds away from fiercely
political rock, but for System of a Down’s Daron Malakian, they were
perfect fodder.
The pair became an odd muse for the guitarist/songwriter after
he fulfilled a lifelong dream of playing baseball at Los Angeles’
Dodgers Stadium in a pseudo-celebrity game.
“I was just so weirded out. It was just a surreal situation,”
Malakian said, recalling his inspiration for the song “Old School
Hollywood.” “When I went home, no more than half-hour, I just shot
out that song.”
Like most tracks on the band’s latest platinum smash,
“Mezmerize,” the song is an uncompromising mix of Frank Zappa-esque
lyrics and punk-metal fury. And while many of their peers are whining
about lost love and broken homes, somehow System – which performs
tomorrow at the DCU Center in Worcester with fellow art-metallers the
Mars Volta – manages to morph ’50s teen singer Avalon’s name into a
catchy chorus. “I don’t put any walls in front of me when it comes
to things that inspire me,” Malakian said by phone before a show at
Miami Arena. “I write about my life.”
Though all four members of System are of Armenian descent, they
claim the Armenian connection is coincidence. Malakian grew up in
Hollywood, a disgusted spectator of the superficiality of the City of
Angels, an experience responsible for one of the album’s most intense
tracks, “Lost in Hollywood.”
“The L.A. persona is a bunch of people who never grew up in
L.A., who think they have to act a certain way. They aren’t usually
from L.A.,” he explained. “And that’s what `Lost in Hollywood’ is
about – me growing up watching it all. I’m really proud of that song.”
On “Mezmerize” and its forthcoming counterpart “Hypnotize,”
due out in November, Malakian takes over a large chunk of the
vocal duties from frontman Serj Tankian. But, Malakian explained,
it’s really not much of a change. When the band formed a decade ago,
Tankian was a keyboardist and Malakian was the frontman. Their vocal
chops, coupled with the band’s fiery, off-kilter style, puts them in
a category of their own.
“I think we play honest music. That’s a rarity these days in pop
culture or radio culture or mainstream,” Malakian said. “You don’t
have many bands playing honest music – music that is not produced
and cookie cut in the regular, corporate fashion just so it will be
marketed out like Pepsi.”
Their latest single, “B.Y.O.B. (Bring Your Own Bombs),” is
clearly anti-war, but it’s abrasiveness is softened by a disco-fied
chorus, played with a sarcasm casual listeners may miss. Its references
to the Iraq war are pointed, but Malakian said “it’s more of a social
statement, a class statement” than a political song.
“We’re just a band that looks at music as art,” he said. “We
don’t just look at it as `Let’s just play our guitars.’ We’re a
heavy band, but we’ve got emotional and light sides to our songs,
funny and sad. We don’t limit ourselves.”
And thanks to rabid grassroots support and relentless touring,
Malakian said, “We’ve seen some success without having to change
our ways.
“We’ve kind of stuck to our guns,” he said. “We’ve pretty
much done things our way and things fell in the right place at the
right time. With a little bit of luck here and a little bit of hard
work there.”
System of a Down plays tomorrow at the DCU Center in Worcester
with the Mars Volta and Bad Acid Trip. Tickets are $37.50-$45. Call
617-228-6000 or go to