DARON MALAKIAN AND JOHN DOYMAYAN TALK ABOUT SYSTEM OF A DOWN HIATUS AND SCARS ON BROADWAY
Metal Underground, MD
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Aug 27 2008
Timesonline writer Robert Collins recently sat down with Scars on
Broadway members Daron Malakian and John Dolmayan to discuss System of
a Down’s hiatus and whether the band will reunite in the near future.
"We took a break before we broke up," admits Dolmayan. "After 12 years,
it’s not so much that you get tired of the people you’re with, it’s
more that you don’t have an identity. I think System will co-exist
with Scars. They will probably leapfrog each other."
"I don’t know Jack White," adds Malakian, the guitarist and songwriter,
"but I like what he does in the White Stripes. I’ve only heard a couple
of songs from the Raconteurs, but I liked that, too. As artists,
we don’t want our music to be a brand like Coca-Cola. You want to
scratch those creative itches: things that you couldn’t do in certain
situations. There are things in Scars that aren’t in System. I love
metal, but I was taking a new direction. I wanted to express the side
of me that likes Roxy Music, the Beatles and the Grateful Dead."
Now that having a second band almost makes sense, musicians are
leaping on the opportunity to explore new avenues with new, and old,
friends. But it’s an aside from Malakian that perhaps sheds the
most light on this relatively new phenomenon. With record companies
under more pressure than ever before, if profitable musicians want
to release music under different names, labels are in no position to
dissuade them.
"Columbia wanted the record, but they let us go out and shop it
anyway," Malakian explains. "And once we shopped it, we said, ‘Man,
we don’t want to be on Columbia any more.’ Columbia don’t want to burn
that bridge for when System returns, so they let us do what we want."
Rumors are circulating that the band will be reuniting to represent
Armenia in next year’s Eurovision song contest to be hosted in Russia,
but this rumor has not yet been officially confirmed by the band.