DOWN IS UP: SYSTEM OF A DOWN IS ROCK’S LEAST LIKELY SUCCESS STORY.
By Michael Roberts
Denver Westword (Colorado)
September 29, 2005 Thursday
They used to call us nu-metal,” System of a Down singer/guitarist
Daron Malakian told the ecstatic crowd at his band’s April 27 Ogden
Theatre gig. “Now they call us prog rock. I think they’ll call us
anything that’s popular.” Then, after a pause and the subtlest of
grins, he announced, “But actually, we’re just a bunch of mo-rons.”
Months later, as System headlines its biggest tour to date, Malakian is
being touted as the mastermind of Mezmerize, which has been embraced
by critics and fans alike. The CD debuted in May atop the Billboard
album chart, further raising expectations for Hypnotize, a companion
disc scheduled for a November release. Malakian isn’t particularly
comfortable with this attention, and he’s just as wary of questions
about his comments at the Ogden. “I never remember anything I say on
stage,” he warns. Upon having his statement repeated to him, however,
he laughs with relief. “I can stand behind that,” he declares.
No wonder, since his offhand remark effectively satirizes the media’s
continuing attempts to pigeonhole System. “Lately we’ve been doing
interviews, and people have been like, ‘You guys are really leading
the way for the new prog movement,'” he notes. “And I’m like, ‘What?’
Because a couple of years ago, these guys were comparing us to
Limp Bizkit and Korn, and now that we’re still here and those bands
aren’t, they’re talking about prog. It’s just kind of aggravating
that people always have to have something to compare us to or bunch
us up with. I’m not saying we’re the most original band in the world,
but I don’t really feel that we fall into a heavy-metal category,
or a pure rock category. There’s a lot of stuff mixed up into one.”
As for the humorously self-deprecating “mo-rons” remark, it hints
at a truth about the group that’s frequently overlooked. Although
System is clearly one of the smartest acts in popular music, socially
astute, hyper-articulate fare like “B.Y.O.B.” is as popular among
just plain folks as it is with left-wing activists and Mensa members,
for reasons that the live show makes clear. Vocalist Serj Tankian’s
sweeping theatricality, bassist Shavo Odadjian’s elastic head-bobbing,
drummer John Dolmayan’s hyperkinetic rhythms and Malakian’s aggressive
riffology suggest that they remain very much in touch with their inner
mo-ron — the part of them that loved sound and fury long before it
signified anything.
“It’s important not to take yourself too seriously,” Malakian says,
“and I think sometimes people take us a lot more seriously than
we take ourselves, especially when it comes to politics. Politics,
for me, is a reflection of the world I live in. But love is just as
important as politics to me. They both exist in the world, you know?
And if you don’t reflect the entire world around you, then you’re
leaving something out.”
System is all about inclusion. The music bears the mark of so many
varied influences, Malakian maintains, that “I think you could call
us anything you want and you’d be right.” That’s one reason numerous
labels initially kept their distance from System, even though these
“four Armenian guys from L.A.,” as Malakian calls them, had built a
sizable audience among habitues of the mid-’90s Hollywood club scene.
Producer Rick Rubin eventually signed System to his imprint, American
Records, but reviewers didn’t quite know what to make of the quartet’s
1998 self-titled debut. “They’d say, ‘It kind of sounds like this’
or ‘It kind of sounds like that,'” Malakian recalls, “and by the
time they were done, they’d named five bands that had nothing to do
with one another.” He wasn’t bothered by Dead Kennedys references,
since he acknowledges a certain commonality between Tankian’s nasal
wailing and that of DK leader Jello Biafra, but he felt nu-metal
allusions constituted “guilt by association.”
Still, it’s likely that this tag helped convince radio programmers to
give System a chance, and the airplay lavished on strong cuts such as
“Spiders” and “Sugar,” not to mention the publicity garnered for its
star-making turn during the 1998 edition of Ozzfest, helped break the
band nationally. Malakian and company responded with 2001’s Toxicity,
an even better recording than the first, albeit one whose appearance
was awkwardly timed: The disc arrived in stores the week of 9/11.
Shortly after the terrorist attacks, representatives of Clear Channel,
the owner of more U.S. rock radio stations than any other company,
placed the group’s entire oeuvre, including the brilliant single “Chop
Suey!,” on a list of tunes that shouldn’t be aired. This misguided,
arguably racist move, which took place around the same time that
Tankian posted criticism of American foreign policy on System’s
website, hardly stopped listeners from seeking out Toxicity.
As Malakian points out, “We were being censored, but people were
still going out and buying the record. And to be honest with you,
radio was playing it like crazy.” He adds, “The more they try to shut
somebody’s mouth, the more people are going to want to hear what the
person has to say. It’s a big mistake from the beginning.”
Toxicity created such a big noise that System promptly issued 2002’s
Steal This Album!, a first-rate collection of random tracks from
throughout its existence that spawned another hit, the appropriately
explosive “Boom!” The period of relative quiet that followed was
broken in a major way by Mezmerize, and many admirers characterized
it as a coming-out party for Malakian. Granted, Malakian’s voice
is more prominent than before, and “Old School Hollywood,” a wry
recapitulation of a celebrity baseball game that mentions Tony Danza
and Frankie Avalon, finds him employing first person in an extremely
direct manner. Yet he sees the theory that he’s suddenly taken control
of System as being fatally flawed.
“Yeah, I’m singing more, and, yeah, I sing just as much on Hypnotize,”
he confirms. “But that’s the only difference. I’ve always written
and produced and put down the path for System when it comes down
to the songs: first record, second record, third record, these
records. Almost every chorus — about 80 percent of every System
of a Down chorus that you sing — is a vocal line that I wrote,
with words that I wrote. I just didn’t sing them. And this time,
the songs called for more of an interaction between me and Serj,
so suddenly people think I’m doing more. People get very focused on
the vocalist and end up thinking the vocalist is doing everything in
the band, which isn’t necessarily the case.”
It’s unusual for Malakian to trumpet his role in System, primary
though it is. He’d much rather talk about “people I respect” — an
honor roll that runs the gamut from Mahatma Gandhi to Charles Manson.
Malakian tweaked political correctness on Toxicity via “ATWA,” a track
inspired by some of Manson’s environmental musings, and Mezmerize’s
liner sports an epigram from the “Helter Skelter” man: “In your world
you can take a pen and write on a piece of paper and destroy 200,000
people or more and it’s ok because you don’t have to see it.”
“I have no interest in murder, and I have no interest in people dying,”
Malakian stresses. “But I’m interested in people’s minds, and sometimes
Manson puts thoughts together that I find really interesting. Have you
ever seen his unedited videos? He starts making a lot of sense. I’m
sure people are scared of that, but to me, it’s scarier to watch
George Bush try to make sense.”
Even so, Malakian’s rhapsodic waxings about another hero — former
Los Angeles Lakers basketballer Kareem Abdul-Jabbar — reveal more
about him than does his Manson jones. Malakian often saw Abdul-Jabbar
play during the Lakers”80s heyday, and he says, “I like that he was
the captain of his team, and he wasn’t so much of a showboater. You
just don’t see players like him anymore — players who keep quiet,
play their fuckin’ game, and don’t act like a rock star.”
Malakian takes the same approach to System of a Down. “When people
come to our shows, I don’t want it to only be serious moments about
politics,” he allows. “I want them to have a good time. That’s what
it comes down to for me.”