System of a Down: Band plays by its own rules
By MALCOLM VENABLE, The Virginian-Pilot
Virginian Pilot, VA
Aug 18 2005
In 1996, System of a Down was just a 2-year-old L.A. band with guys
from Lebanon, Armenia and Hollywood . Like many rockers before them,
they played local clubs, tearing the walls down with their trashy,
thrashy heavy metal.
“Don’t scream, kid,” singer Serj Tankian recalled a music exec saying
to him. “You’re never gonna get signed.”
But uber-producer Rick Rubin did sign them in 1997, and shortly
after System, playing Sunday at Hampton Coliseum, released their 1998
eponymous debut, fans’ requests forced their song “Sugar” on the
radio. The album went platinum. The follow-up, 2001’s “Toxicity,”
sold more than 3 million copies in the United States. System of a
Down’s latest effort, “Mezmerize,” which is half of the dual CD
“Mezmerize/Hypnotize,” debuted at No. 1 on Billboard in May, selling
800,000 copies in a week. All total, the group has sold nearly 10
million albums around the world.
That music exec who initially discouraged them was very, very wrong.
As it turns out, people wanted to hear the band’s hard-core, gothic
metal. Maybe they’re successful because they fill a void that few
bands outside of Metallica have been able to. Or maybe it was because
people wanted something other than the hip-hop of Lauryn Hill or
Rancid’s Clash-like punk that was popular then.
System of a Down
AUDIO: Click the button below to hear an excerpt of “B.Y.O.B.” by
System of a Down. (Free Flash player required.)
IF YOU’RE GOING
Who: System of a Down with The Mars Volta
When: 7 p.m. Sunday
Where: Hampton Colisuem
Tickets: $32.50-$45.00, (757) 671-8100
Bassist Shavo Odadjian has another theory: System of a Down is
successful because they’ve always done what they’ve wanted to do.
“It beats the hell out of me,” he says from a hotel room in Florida,
the sixth stop on their first tour in three years. “I just know what
we’ve done is not conform. We never really planned to be where we are
– even on the radio.
Things came naturally to us, and I think that’s the key to any
success – putting in effort and hard work.”
Their indifference for the mechanics of the music industry seem
apparent looking at them – what other major band out today looks as
unstyled, unpolished and unconcerned with appearing cool? “We don’t
push to do something we don’t know how to do,” says Odadjian.
System’s music is often described as a brilliant, frenzied heap with
influences ranging from Armenian folk to rock to R&B. (All four band
members, including guitarist-singer Daron Malakian and drummer John
Dolmayan, are Armenian-Americans.) They’re typically lumped into a
dubiously titled category called “prog-rock,” a label they dismiss.
In addition to being musically strange in the best way, System of a
Down writes lyrics that run from the obtuse to the profound, from
political and timely to nonsensical.
“Why don’t presidents fight the war? / Why do they always send the
poor,” Malakian writes on “B.Y.O.B,” for example. Yet on “This
Cocaine Makes Me Feel Like I’m on This Song,” he writes Dadaist
phrases like, “Killers Never Hurt Feelings/Gonorrhea gorgonzola.”
“Lyrically we just do whatever,” says Odadjian . “We don’t like to
explain it. We like to leave it to interpretation. It’s like an
artist painting an abstract piece and telling you what it’s about. It
kills it. Why give it away?” He doesn’t even ask the meaning behind
lyrics that other band members write.
“It’s a good brain tease.”
Odadjian’s comparison of System’s sometimes confounding lyrics to
abstract paintings rings especially true because he typically
outlines the conceptual direction for videos, cover art and the tour.
For “Mezmerize,” he wanted the albums to literally become one. So
when the companion disc “Hypnotize” drops in the fall, it will fold
into the first. It’s hard to explain over the phone, he says, but it
slides into the space where the booklet lies.
“I like them as one,” Odadjian says of the music that began as one
lengthy album. “We didn’t want to take a lot out. We were like, it
had to be a double.”
Usually, Odadjian’s artistic influences come from experience and
sleeping.
“The biggest influence is life experience, from dreams to encounters.
The music influences visuals, and the emotions influence the art. I’m
not one to share my deepest thoughts. I like to do it with visuals.”
The work, the album sales, the non-conformity, outlasting groups to
whom they were originally compared – Limp Bizkit, Korn – speaks for
itself.
Sometimes it’s heady and complex, sometimes it’s just silly. Whatever
it is System of a Down produces, it’s organic and assuredly real.
“It’s just not caring,” Odadjian says. “The more you care and try,
the more difficult it becomes, the less you’re likely to do it more
naturally. It’s not about making sense – it’s just do it.”
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress