SYSTEM OF A DOWN – HYPNOTIC, SMART
By Jeff Kaliss, CONTRIBUTOR
Inside Bay Area, CA
Oct 5 2005
‘IDON’T THINK I’ve ever really had my hands on the wheel,” says rocker
Serj Tankian, extending a metaphor on his way to a gig in Chicago.
“I’ve been a passenger on a plane going wherever I’m supposed to go,
more than being any type of pilot. And I’m still on the plane.
Sometimes it goes in directions I didn’t anticipate. And sometimes
it goes to where I think I’m going.”
Tankian’s material plane, carrying his rock band System of a Down,
will touch down in Oakland for System’s Saturday show at the Oakland
Arena. The band is touring behind its most recent, chart-topping album
“Mezmerize” (American Music/Columbia Records), the first half of a
protracted two-CD release that will be completed with “Hypnotize”
at the end of next month.
The lyricist and vocalist’s transcendence of his ego is striking,
in view of his vocalized forthrightness and System’s accelerating
success. Since its eponymous recording debut in 1998, the group has
sold more than 10 million discs – no small accomplishment for an act
whose audible theatricality and lyrical intelligence place it way
above attempts at rock categorization. (The unique name was lifted
from its members’ visionary poetry.)
In performance, System magnetizes audiences with visual as well
as aural impact. Tankian’s eccentric bushiness, not to mention his
confrontational agenda, is evocative of one of his idols, the late
Frank Zappa.
Guitarist Daron Malakian, co-creator of most of the band’s repertoire,
wields the wild, wide-eyed magic of a silent-movie comedian. Bassist
Shavo Odadjian sprouts a braided beard under a bald pate. And drummer
John Dolmayan, by effective contrast, exudes the trim drama of a
leading man.
Although all four are of Armenia ethnicity, only Odadjian was born
in Armenia. Tankian and Dolmayan were born in Lebanon, Malkian in
California. Three of the four, including Tankian, attended Pilibos,
a private school operating under the auspices of the Armenian Apostolic
Church in Hollywood.
System’s Pilibos alumni haven’t hesitated to violate the school’s
published disciplinary policy, prohibiting “inappropriate hair style,”
“threatening language and gestures,” “swearing,” and “disrespect for
authority” – all staples of the band’s reputation.
Both the multi-platinum second album “Toxicity” and the
curiously-marketed followup “Steal This Album!” featured some
vocals and ethnic instruments played by Armenian folk artist Arto
Tuncboyaciyan, to whom Tankian attributes “the voice of the Caucasus,
a faraway voice that travels.”
But whether or not you concur in Newsweek’s description of
“prog-rock-metal-politico-pop with an operatic twist,” System’s mode
and appeal are solid rock.
Tankian’s own voice, in the space of less than a minute, can pass
from a doleful whisper to sweet bel canto vibrato to an earthquaking
scream, backed by Malakian’s vocal harmonies and the instruments’
massed molten assault.
“I like the dynamics of life,” Tankian says. “I like it when it rains,
and suddenly the sun comes out, and I like it when it’s really silent
and then a loud booming noise comes through. Or vice-versa.”
What Tankian is singing about also mutates over the course of
“Mezmerize,” sometimes eluding identification.
“B.Y.O.B.” comes off as a condemnation of the war in Iraq. “Violent
Pornography” pinions crude commercial television. “Sad Statue” gives
Lady Liberty a reason to weep about “human suffering.” “Old School
Hollywood” plays off Malakian’s jaded experience at a celebrity
baseball game in Dodger Stadium. As in much rock, there are also
songs about romance and personal angst.
“People think our music’s very aggressive or angry or whatever, and
it’s just the opposite, really,” Tankian says. “I like laughing. And
I like being really calm before a show, and smiley.”
He acknowledges being “moved by music that had social and political
commentary, from the Beatles all the way up to Rage Against the
Machine.”
For Tankian, the most powerful artists have been “those that have
prescribed the solution through the good feeling of the music itself,
like the Beatles and Bob Marley and Bob Dylan.”
Musicians like these are “not just talking about the pain and the
hurt of a mad society or modern entropy or whatever you want to call
it, but more of just kind of touching the human spirit in a way that
makes us feel like we are one.”