But System of a Down is based on something more global,” Tankian said. But calling SOAD a political band is kinda like calling ‘em a metal group. The political commentary fueled critics pegged System of a Down as a political band with the potential to impact the youth as indelibly as Rage Against the Machine had.
The album cover art of an open hand was based on World War II anti-fascist poster by John Heartfield, a member of the Communist Party of Germany. It’s definitely helped mold out sound into something more dynamic.” System of a Down, “Suite Pee” We intentionally try not to stay in one genre. You can only listen to so much metal before you start hungering for more. When we were kids, we started out listening to one type of music, but as we progressed we were all turned onto different genres. We’re into punk, death metal, metal, classic rock, jazz, gothic, hardcore, grindcore, Middle Eastern music, Armenian music, European music, poetry, funk. “But our music has a lot of dynamics that come from different genres. “We have a powerful metal edge,” added Tankian. That really changed me and changed the way I looked at music.”
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I actually hadn’t listened to them in my younger years and I was fascinated by how these songwriters could make great, simple songs that were full of melody, but still a little weird. But then I realized that there’s more to music than heaviness and when I was like 18, 19 years old, I really started listening to Bowie and the Beatles. As I got older I was seeking the heavier stuff and when I turned 14, 15, it was just, like, as heavy, you know, and as uncomfortable as I could make it. Then came death metal like Obituary and Morbid Angel - all the Tampa bands. I liked Overkill and the German stuff like Destruction and Kreator. The first record I got was Def Leppard’s Pyromania and from then on I was really into metal, and by the time I was, like, 11, 12 years old, it was Slayer, Metallica and a lot of Bay Area thrash. “When I was four years old, I saw KISS and I was scared as hell, but I was way interested in them. “I was totally influenced by Slayer because I grew up a total metalhead,” Malakian said. Loaded with enthusiasm and confidence, the young rockers burned through a set of skewed, metallic songs that, at first listen, sounded like a hybrid of Dead Kennedys and Slayer. In no time, System of a Down had signed their deal and booked time to record at Rubin’s legendary mansion. He believes in us and he’s not following any trends. As soon as we walked out of that meeting we said, ‘You know, man, we should just go with Rick. It was pretty much a hip-hop/R&B culture that they were building there.
And they didn’t have anything, anybody in there that even knew what to do with rock. “But then we went into their offices and looked at the posters on the walls and what they were promoting and we realized they didn’t have any rock acts. “We were actually going to sign with Universal at one point,” added Malakian. “There were a number of labels looking at us when Rick and Guy both came and saw one of our shows at the Viper Room,” Tankian said. In 1997, System recorded a three-song demo that caught the attention of Maverick’s Guy Oseary and Rubin, among others. At first they had trouble finding a drummer, but eventually anchored their rhythm section with John Dolmayan and developed a strong following in the Los Angeles community, which praised their quirky, bombastic sound. Suddenly, magazine editors were including the band in features about ethnic-centric metal and wrote pieces specifically about the rise of the supposed Armenian metal community, areas System of a Down had little interest in being associated with.Īfter the breakup of their earlier band, Soil, Tankian, guitarist Daron Malakian and bassist Shavo Odadjian formed System of a Down in 1994. Since they didn’t really fit in the nu-metal category, and couldn’t accurately be called funk rock, pundits scrambled for a category to slot them into and, without too much research, noticed that the members were all Armenian and had spoken before about their contempt for governments - especially Turkey - that still failed to recognize the Armenian Genocide in the early 1900s.
Plus, they lacked any real vestiges of hip-hop. But System of a Down were vocally zanier and their guitars were more frenzied and metallic. Like Faith No More and Rage Against the Machine there were elements of metal, punk and funk on System of a Down’s self-titled debut, which came out June 30, 1998. In 1997, when System of a Down signed to Rick Rubin’s American Recordings, no one knew exactly what to make of them.
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