DARON MALAKIAN ROCKS ON WITH HIS NEW BAND
By Richard Cromelin
Providence Journal
Aug 29 2008
RI
LOS ANGELES "I don’t get it when people complain that baseball games
are too long," says Daron Malakian, watching the action from a seat
behind home plate at Dodger Stadium during one of the team’s recent
home games. "This is my favorite place in the world. I don’t care
how long it goes, I’ll be here to the end."
This most wholesome and mainstream of settings probably isn’t the place
you’d picture as Malakian’s chosen refuge, given the apocalyptic,
dissident, disillusioned, angry, irreligious scenarios that belch
from the self-titled debut album by his new band, Scars on Broadway.
"You’ve never seen the sky like this / You never want to die like
this," he sings in "Universe," a grand anthem that describes what
might be an environmental catastrophe. In the Bowie-tinged ballad
"3005," he watches from a spaceship as civilization and "resurrection
junkies" — his term for those addicted to religion — sink below the
surface. And what is it they say in the band’s single "They Say"? They
say "it’s all about to end."
"It’s what’s around me. It’s what I hear, it’s what I see, it’s what
I’m absorbing like a sponge," says Malakian, 33, eating a pregame hot
dog and garlic fries. "It’s the times we’re living in, and I think
as an artist I’m just trying to put my finger on that."
Not that he’s on a mission. In fact, when he writes — always alone
at home — it’s more like a mystery.
"I consider myself a medium to it all. A lot of times, I don’t feel
responsible for the songs myself. But that’s my job or my place in
life, to keep my search and catch the ideas before they pass me by."
Malakian’s methods helped make his other band, System of a Down, one
of the most commercially successful and critically admired groups
in hard rock, and that audience is primed for Scars on Broadway,
which was released a few weeks ago. Malakian isn’t the only System
mainstay in the group — he brought bandmate John Dolmayan into Scars
as co-leader after a couple of other drummers didn’t work out.
Along with Metallica’s upcoming return, the Scars album figures
to be one of the hard-rock highlights of the second half of the
year. "They Say" registered 100,000 downloads when it went up free
on iTunes, and the group — rounded out by guitarist Franky Perez,
keyboardist Danny Shamoun and bassist Dominic Cifarelli — made a
few buzz-building appearances in the spring.
On stage, Malakian is an imposing figure, seemingly possessed
and almost demonic in his intensity. At the ballpark, though, he’s
small in stature and low-key in manner — just a bearded, black-clad
L.A. sports fan.
"All four members of System are very different in temperament, unique
personalities," says Dolmayan, 36, slipping into the bar for a break
during the fourth inning. "I’d say that me and Daron are the alpha
male types. I think he’s always been looked at as kind of a leader
among friends, and I’ve kind of experienced that. Actually, me and
him got along the worst. . . . We both have a lot of drive."
An only child, Malakian was born and spent his early childhood in
Hollywood in a family of Armenian heritage. They later moved to
Glendale, Calif., where he and his friends at one point noticed
swastika-like designs engraved in some old lampposts near his high
school — the scars on Broadway that would later give his band
its name.
He and flamboyant singer-songwriter Serj Tankian formed the front line
and creative core of System of a Down, which began in 1995 and whose
combination of aggressive power, musical eccentricity and political
outspokenness made it one of the most popular hard-rock bands of
that decade.
In 2006, the group announced that it would take an indefinite break,
and Scars on Broadway follows Tankian’s Elect the Dead as the second
album to come out during the hiatus — a term that seems all right
with everyone involved except Malakian.
"I see it as a separation," he says. "We’re separated, but didn’t
get divorced, and there’s a door that’s open that someday we may get
together and play. But I’m headed down the Scars highway right now,
and that’s it. I don’t have any plans, and nobody I think has any
plans, to re-create or do anything with System right now."
"Not bad" is the way he describes his relationship with Tankian. "We
don’t really see each other very much because we’re doing our own
things."Dark notes ‘n’ ballads
â~@~CIf System of a Down’s legacy has created high expectations for
singer Daron Malakian’s new band, Scars on Broadway, its shadow is
adding to the pressure he admits he’s feeling.
"It’s starting over. People get very fixated on name brands, and System
became a name brand that people became a fan of. I think that’s the
challenging part, getting people to accept these songs the way they
accepted those System songs. I put in just as much of myself, and I
feel they’re just as powerful as anything else I’ve ever written in
my life."
â~@~CBandmate John Dolmayan says of the Scars songs, "In my opinion,
they’re more rock-oriented, they’re more melodic in a lot of
ways. There is a darker tone to a lot of the stuff, which to me is
reminiscent of like the Kinks or bands like Pink Floyd. I’ve always
been attracted to dark melodies, so that aspect of it really works
for me."
â~@~CThe songs are definitely more varied, ranging from the raucous to
the reflective and exposing a new array of influences, from a musician
who cites David Bowie, Roxy Music, Brian Eno and ’60s pop on one side,
and the Stooges, the Ramones and the Dead Boys on the other. Malakian
even suggests the late punk provocateur GG Allin as the inspiration
for the caustically explicit "Chemicals."
â~@~CThen there’s "Babylon," a measured, atmospheric ballad with a big
finish and a tender refrain: "I like the way we slept on rooftops in
the summertime / If we were all marooned again I’d give my soul to save
your life." â~@~CMalakian explains, "My family is now out of Iraq,
but when the war was just starting, a big part of my family lived
in Iraq. That song kind of came out of me at that time. I just felt
helpless, I really wanted to save them and get them out of there. That
helplessness I think comes out in the song.
â~@~C"In the Middle East in the summertime, to keep cool, a lot of
people sleep on the rooftops. When I visited Iraq when I was 14 years
old, we slept on the roof. It’s just kind of me talking to my family."
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