After practically 20 years with out a new full-length album, System of a Down followers are clinging to a glimmer of hope because the band reemerges with renewed exercise. The Armenian-American metallic icons, whose final studio efforts — the back-to-back Mezmerize and Hypnotize — had been launched in 2005, have remained largely dormant when it comes to new materials. And it would not look like they’ve reached a spot the place that’ll occur anytime quickly regardless of their most lively schedule in years all through 2025.
Frontman Serj Tankian, lengthy seen as probably the most hesitant about rekindling the band’s recording course of, lately instructed that he can be open to creating a brand new file, “if it offers a contemporary begin.” Equally, bassist Shavo Odadjian and drummer John Dolmayan have expressed conditional optimism, with each saying they’d be able to file once more if the suitable circumstances aligned. But it surely’s guitarist and key songwriter Daron Malakian who stays probably the most cautious — if not outright uncertain — concerning the band’s inventive future.
Talking on Chris Jericho’s Speak is Jericho podcast, Malakian opened up about his reservations. Whereas he did not rule out the concept totally, he famous the misplaced momentum the band suffered throughout their prolonged hiatus: “Nicely, we may do it, and it would even be good. I do not know.
“However when you take heed to even these 5 data that we’ve, when you take heed to the primary album to Toxicity, there’s a distinction between them. There was an evolution taking place. And if I’ve to say one factor that the hiatus was one thing that… I wasn’t all the time down with that hiatus, however no matter — it’s what it’s. Each band has a distinct story. There was a time I used to be somewhat bit extra pissed off about it. Now I sort of am, like, it’s what it’s.”
“However what I used to be pissed off about was that we did not get an opportunity to proceed that evolution. ‘Trigger I believe we had been able to that. I believe you have acquired some bands that make the identical album over and time and again. We might not have been that band. We saved our sound, however that sound would’ve gone into completely different locations.”
Malakian emphasised that System of a Down was by no means a band to repeat itself. Every of their 5 studio albums pushed inventive boundaries, and the guitarist feels {that a} 20-year hole in that evolution poses severe creative questions: “In order that’s my solely remorse, that we did not get an opportunity to try this. And in order that’s why I mentioned what I mentioned [in a previous interview], that making an album 20, 25 years later, the place do you choose up from?”
Regardless of his cautious outlook, Malakian acknowledged the surreal degree of fan devotion that also surrounds System of a Down. The band’s current tour in South America noticed them promote out stadiums evening after evening, drawing large crowds that, in lots of circumstances, weren’t even alive when the band’s final album dropped.
“I believe a part of it’s we left off on a peak. We have had, ‘Are they gonna ever play? Are they not gonna play?’ And it is all this sort of factor that occurs. After which after we do play, folks really feel like, ‘Oh, this may be the final time they’re gonna play.’ And none of that has been achieved on goal. That is simply the pure manner issues have gone. I additionally assume it is the songs.”
“The songs have lived with folks, and it is grow to be among the material of their lives in some circumstances. So a few years have passed by. ‘Trigger after we’re enjoying in entrance of those audiences, I do not see 50-year-olds in there. I see 18-year-olds. I see 25-year-olds — children that most likely had been born possibly even after we launched Mezmerize and Hypnotize.”
Whereas no official recording classes have been confirmed, and the band stays fractured creatively, the circumstances are arguably extra favorable now than they have been in years. All 4 authentic members have a minimum of acknowledged the dialog, and the band’s reactivation by way of touring could possibly be a step towards a bigger inventive reunion. So I suppose we’ll see what occurs.
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