This November will mark 20 years for the reason that launch of the final System of a Down album (2005’s Hypnotize). Whereas the possibilities of a brand new album haven’t regarded promising in recent times, drummer John Dolmayan says there’s a very particular means that the band can lastly file its first new LP in 20 years.
In a brand new interview on the podcast However That 1% with Sona Oganesyan, Dolmayan mentioned the band’s delicate songwriting dynamics and revealed precisely what it will take for SOAD to start out engaged on what can be the extremely anticipated follow-up to Hypnotize.
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As Dolmayan defined, it’s largely a matter of every band member bringing of their respective music concepts within the correct order. Primarily, the band may flesh out less-thought-out songs first, and depart the closer-to-finished materials for late within the periods. He implied that this is able to require guitarist-singer Daron Malakian permitting lead vocalist Serj Tankian to current his songs first.
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When requested by host Sona Oganesyan concerning the “secret sauce” to creating a SOAD album, Dolmayan defined [as transcribed by Blabbermouth]: “Nicely, historically once we go in to file, Daron would convey his songs in, ’trigger he’d have plenty of them. They had been very nicely thought out. They had been essentially the most full. And what I’d do, if I used to be Daron, if I used to be giving Daron recommendation, which I’ve truly given him this recommendation, and I mentioned, ‘Why don’t you simply inform Serj, ‘Carry your songs in first. We’ll undergo all of your concepts.’ After which [bassist] Shavo [Odadjian], you usher in all of your concepts. After which Daron, you usher in your concepts final. What’s the distinction? However that olive department says, ‘I care about your songs greater than I care about my very own, and I’m gonna have you ever usher in yours first.’”
Dolmayan was much less enthusiastic on the suggestion of splitting songwriting duties equally, with the notoriously right-wing drummer evaluating it “DEI”: “If it’s not one of the best, then why are we utilizing it?”
If the drummer had it his means, Tankian, Odadjian, and Malakian would convey their concepts to the desk in that order — with no restrict on how a lot materials every offered or how lengthy it took to work out — beneath the belief that Daron’s songs are already “very nicely thought out” and structured.
“We’d do the excursions that we have already got deliberate, which we’re going to, after which in 2027 we’d block off six months,” Dolmayan mentioned of a hypothetical recording session. “We’d go into both Daron’s home, my mouse or Serj’s home or Shavo’s home in a studio that we have now in a kind of homes, which all of us have our areas, and we’d work on a brand new System album with no guidelines. And I’d say, ‘Serj, usher in all of your songs first. Then Shavo, usher in all of your riffs and songs subsequent, after which Daron, convey all yours final. And I’ll put completely no restrict on what number of songs you may usher in or timeline of how lengthy that’s gonna take. After which we’d go in and make a brand new file.”
Each Tankian and Malakian have pointed to artistic variations, amongst different points, as holding up a brand new SOAD album in previous interviews.
Because it stands, System of a Down’s solely new music since Hypnotize has been the charity singles “Shield the Land” and “Genocidal Humanoidz.” Nonetheless, the band stays energetic within the reside setting, with a run of six headlining North American stadium exhibits in August and September on the books. Get tickets right here.
Watch the total podcast interview with John Dolmayan under.