Tetragrammaton with Rick Rubin - Daron Malakian

Episode Date: February 5, 2025

Daron Malakian is a composer, guitarist, vocalist, and record producer, best known as a founding member of System of a Down.  Introduced to heavy metal at four years old when he first heard Kiss, Malakian began playing guitar at 11, developed his own style by 15, and is now cited by Loudwire as one of the “Top 50 Hard Rock + Metal Guitarists of All Time.”  Malakian also founded Scars on Broadway. Over the years, he has collaborated with bands like Metallica and Linkin Park, and he remains recognized as a distinct guitarist in modern rock and metal. Starting in the spring, Malakian and fellow System of a Down band members have announced 8 stadium shows in South America with over 350,000 tickets all sold out, in addition to sold-out shows at MetLife Stadium, Soldiers Field, and Rogers Stadium in the US.Tour dates can be found here. ------ Thank you to the sponsors that fuel our podcast and our team: LMNT Electrolytes https://drinklmnt.com/tetra Use code 'TETRA' ------ Athletic Nicotine https://www.athleticnicotine.com/tetra Use code 'TETRA' ------ Squarespace https://squarespace.com/tetra Use code 'TETRA' ------ Vivo Barefoot http://vivobarefoot.com/tetra Use code 'TETRA25' ------ Sign up to receive Tetragrammaton Transmissions https://www.tetragrammaton.com/join-newsletter

Tetragrammaton. It's one of my earliest recollections, like three, three and a half. But I had these older cousins that were teenagers, they had Kiss all over their walls. And I remember just looking in there and being so scared and running away, going and being so scared and running away. But then it just stuck with me. And anytime I saw Kiss or like Kiss played Solid Gold once. Remember the show Solid Gold?

Yeah. I must have been like five years old at this time, but I made my mom wait up because Kiss was going to play. And so that got me into rock and I didn't have anyone really turn me onto the music, but seeing them. And you think it was the image who's the thing that got you first as a little kid? Well, it scared the shit out of me, the image, you know? I never heard a song.

Maybe a few years later I heard a song. I started collecting records when I was like that age, really young. Seven inches or albums or CDs? Records, there was no CDs at that time. It was still vinyl, cassettes were fairly new. Eight tracks were still around at that time, but I didn't have that.

Mainly vinyl albums. Yeah, the first kiss I ever heard was Paul Stanley's solo kiss. Yeah, when the four solo albums came out. That was the first, but once again, I'm five or six years old at this time. I don't even know what's happening. But the first one that I took my mom to the store

was a Def Leppard Pyromania, which was huge around the time I was about seven or eight years old. Did you hear them on the radio? Was that how you got into it? It was just every, yeah, probably radio. What was the radio that you listened to growing up? You know, my mom would put on Kiss FM

or something like on my way to school, pop radio, but I was always attracted to the rock music. Even my closest older cousins were all like into dance, disco music, which I grew up with as well and I love. But I don't know, something all by myself, it was just this music and it was something that was, remember the 80s, it was like a whole satanic thing.

I don't know if for some reason that even attracted me more. Was it heavy or dark or did you like that it was guitar based? Aggressive. It was aggressive music. Feels like young boys like aggressive music. But I was a child. Yeah. Maybe teenage. A lot of people get into music when they start turning teenagers,

but I was a child so I can't really explain. When people were like, how did you, music found me, I didn't really go look for it. My parents are both artists. So they- What type of artists? My mom, in Iraq, my mom did sculptures and she has pictures of her making like these tall sculptures

like much bigger than her. Yeah. And she taught art. of her making like these tall sculptures, like much bigger than her. And she taught art. And my dad has been doing abstract art till this day, since I was born, I can remember there was- Painting? Painting, yeah, abstract paintings. That's just always been in the house.

Art has always been in the house, but no one pushed it on me. It was just there, it was just something that I was born into and it was just normal, it was there, it was normal to watch my dad paint, it was normal to watch him experiment. They didn't really listen to too much music. They were more visual artists.

Yeah, like they never like put on a record at the house, it was always me as a kid putting on my records and stuff. But they like music. They listen to music. One of the reasons I think I'm a musician is because when my mother was pregnant, she sang a lot. And that's the only reason I could think of like, why have you always been so into music since you were like a baby? Did she always sing?

No. But when she was pregnant, she sang a lot and she sang a lot of Arabic Egyptian singers like Un Koussoum. I don't know if you've ever, she's huge. She's like Aretha Franklin of Arabic music. Let's listen to one. She won't sing for a while, which is also cool. The The This was probably composed by a guy named Muhammad Abdul Wahab. He did a lot of good stuff. I can't, don't, this one may not be, but I know he did a lot of. Did your mom go off with this music? Yes.

My whole family did. They're from Iraq. So that Egyptian music was big, like there was other singers like Abdul Halim, Farid Atrash, there was a great guitar player named Omar Khoshid. I think I've sent you some of his stuff before. He's like the king of Arabic guitar. But his tone was very surf. Like he had a very... He was influenced by surf rock.

Cool. You hear it in his guitar tone. He's not necessarily playing surf rock, but... He might be playing on this track actually. I always say I would have never written Ariel's if this wasn't part of me. I want to hear the vocalist. I told you it's them playing for a very long time. And then sometimes the audience if this is live the audience will clap and ask her to not sing and ask them to do this all

over again Alik li ayyamin li raho hadlimun an dab ala almazri unu li raho Oh I don't know what she's saying. I don't speak Arabic. It's all about lost love and crushed because of these kinds of things. I don't know what she's singing now, but my parents always say that's the theme. Like heartbreak?

Heartbreak, but it's deep though. It's not corny. It doesn't sound corny. Because they cry when they hear it. So there's something going on here. How old were your parents when they moved to the United States? In their mid to late 20s. Around what year was that?

74, 75. I was born in 75, so they were here 74. They came straight to Hollywood from Baghdad. Why did they decide to move to the US? Saddam. Things were changing in Iraq. They felt like if they were gonna do art, it was probably gonna have to be for like propaganda. Just things were changing.

One of my uncles got detained once, it like really put a scare in him, like he thought he was gonna die. Things were changing a lot in Iraq at that time. So some of my families had the guts to leave because half of my family stayed there. But I thank God every day, man. I mean, if they stayed there,

I would have ended up becoming a soldier. I don't know if I would have been old enough for Iran, Iraq, but I would have definitely been old enough for the two US. I have cousins and uncles that were all soldiers at that time. And probably didn't have a choice there. It was mandatory. No, you got to go.

Yeah, you got to go. So I remember that all hit me once. I was on a tour bus in Baltimore. We were driving and outside was Baltimore. It was really early in the morning. I was still up all night. I never thought of it before, but I was like, wow, man, if my parents never moved, here I am on this tour bus

with this band. And if the alternative, it would have been me as a soldier. And I cannot picture myself as a soldier, but you'd have to do it. And I never thought of that up, but I always remember that bus ride and that's where that hit me. And I'm like so thankful to my parents for,

it wasn't easy, they came here with nothing. We lived in a one bedroom apartment off like Santa Monica and Vine, pretty shady. Did they ever talk about life in Iraq before? Yeah, it was good. So life was good up until Saddam, and then it changed, and then they escaped basically. Yeah.

Yeah, they escaped, and my uncles that stayed there, the government would always ask them, where are your brothers, where are your sisters? Where did they go? Did they talk to you? Did they send you letters? So those people that stayed there had a tough time. Once again, they served in the military, they had bombs fall on them numerous times.

They're all here now. Luckily, I made something of the music thing and I was able to bring them here. So that was a big deal for me because ISIS and all that stuff was happening. Can you play me a little bit of Aries and tell me the connection to that Egyptian music? I'd have to tune it the right way.

I don't know, just the vibe of it, just the... Just like the... It moves kind of in the... It's not, they're not quarter notes, but... It kind of moves in that type of way. I guess that's how I interpret what I'm hearing in some way. Yeah, it shares the emotion of the Egyptian music. Yeah, and it wasn't done because I wanted to play that. No.

It was just how shit comes out of me. When people say like, you know, there's this Arabic or Armenian influence, I rarely ever try to do that. Not intentional. Yeah, it's not intentional. It just kind of comes out of me that way. I think that kind of music,

Eastern music, Middle Eastern music, is to me what I guess blues would be to someone with a family that's from the West. Yeah. Because that's just those scales and that vibe is more natural to rock. It's your folk music. Yeah.

Growing up, where would you hear folk music? Armenian folk music. I don't know about Armenian folk music, but going to a wedding, you'd hear a lot of like Armenian dance music and pop music. It was around. It was around. It was around because I was in the Armenian community, my family, my friends were around.

But for me, at that time, it wasn't necessarily what I would put on, because I was just into rock and whatever, you know, popular music or heavy metal music. whatever, you know, popular music or heavy metal music. L.M.N.T. Element Electrolytes. Have you ever felt dehydrated after an intense workout or a long day in the sun? Do you want to maximize your endurance and feel your best? Add Element Electrolytes to your daily routine.

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Minerals are the stuff of life. So visit drinklmnt.com slash tetra and stay salty with Element Electrolyte. LMNT. When did you first start playing guitar? When I was 12. The guitar, I'm not in love with the guitar. I never have been. When I said I grew up in a one-bedroom apartment,

I always wanted drums. I was more into the singers, I was more into the drummers. The guitar came by accident because you can turn off an amplifier. When we lived in that apartment, I was like drums. When we move one day and I get my own room, because me and my parents slept in that same room for 11 years. So I never had my own room until I was 12 years old.

So we moved to Glendale and I had my own room. 12th birthday, going to the music store, get my drum set. Always wanted it, that's always what I dreamt of doing. My parents had a talk amongst each other and said, you can't really turn off the drums. They got me an amp about this big, it was a Gorilla amp, if you remember those.

And like a guitar was an Arbor. I don't even think that company is around anymore. And I still wanted drums after that. Yeah. But I don't know, the guitar was there, the amp was there, it was in my room. And I just started fiddling with it,

and I started spending more time with it. And the next thing you know, I was in my room, and I just started fiddling with it and I started spending more time with it and the next thing you know I'm a guitar player, never got the drums. So I'm happy it worked out that way, but I've just never been the guy that, there's some guys that are just in love with the guitar and that's their thing, that's what they do. For me it's a tool to write songs. I never wanted to be some technical guitar virtuoso or anything, but I was really into composing and writing my own stuff. And I had these friends like in high school,

I never really hung out with too many musicians. My friends were all kind of, we were like trouble. We were like the guys who would be fighting at school. And you know, we weren't a gang, but it was somewhat gang like, you could say, because we fought a lot. But it was these kinds of guys. They weren't metal guys, they weren't artsy guys,

they weren't, you know, and so I would write these songs that were kind of ballady, folky, English songsky English songs like I don't really write in Armenian. I would be the guy that took his acoustic to the party. I'd play a little cover here and there, but I would also play my own stuff. When I would play my own stuff, I realized it would really touch one of my friends and you'd see the guy walk out and he'd be crying.

Even then? Yeah, I was maybe 14, 15 years old. Wow. And that's when I realized something where it was like, like I had this thing that I can touch people with these songs. At that time, would it have been guitar and vocals? Yeah, it's always guitar vocals for me.

When I write, I always write guitar and vocals. I always tell people, I don't write riffs. A lot of guys write riffs. You write songs. I want that riff to turn into a song. If it's just a riff, I'm not impressed. I could write plenty of riffs. I'm more impressed, I could write plenty of riffs.

I'm more impressed with myself and happy when I've written a song, full song, verse, chorus, I know how it's going to move. If I don't have the lyrics, I know how the vocals are going to move and the melody is going to go. When I present a song to the band or whether it's system or when I do Scars, it's always me with a guitar kind of like this and, you know, just showing the band the song, the whole song, not just like I got this part.

And it's always been that way. Yeah. That you pretty much write a song top to bottom and think of it as a composition. Yeah. Not a series of parts. I wouldn't bring it in if it wasn't like I I usually feel like okay the song is ready to show when I have that. Yeah. I've never really been like oh I got this one riff but I don't know where it's going. Yeah. You know. There's times where I'll have a composition and I'll say, I have an idea of how the vocals should move,

but I'm not 100% sure. Yeah. But I'm usually pretty certain of how, you know, the tempo and the music and how I want this part to be moving, how I want that part to be moving. It's all going on in my head while I'm writing it. The chords and the melodies come at the same time? Sometimes. Typically.

There's no right way or wrong way. What happens is I'll be sitting and playing the guitar and I'll come up with something. Maybe I'll come up with a riff, maybe the riff and something else. And I just record it and I leave it, and then the next time I play, I always go through my ideas,

and I play with them almost like a toy. Sometimes a song will come out right away, but sometimes it takes a long time for me to piece together a song, you know? Give me an example of, in terms of it happening quickly, how long would it be quickly, and how long would it be if it took a long time? Like a song like BYOB probably took a long time.

I wrote the middle part first. What's the middle part? The... probably took a long time. I wrote the middle part first. What's the middle part? The. Blast off, blast off. It's party time. We don't live in a fascist nation. That by itself was like this, why don't presidents fight the war? Why they always send war?

Why don't presidents fight the war? That was just kind of, it was like this punk song, kind of punky type of song that I wrote. But then time passed and I wrote. ["Funkadelic"] And I had also. And that was totally because I was listening

to Funkadelic at the time. Wow, that's cool. And it's not like I was listening to Funkadelic at the time. Wow, that's cool. And it's not like I'm trying to mix this, but it's just kind of like one night I was playing and that's what I'm saying. Maybe I don't have that part yet, maybe. So, you know, when I pick up the guitar for that week, I'm just playing my, you know. And goes, you know. And then just seeing what it leads into. But I don't force it.

And at some point, it led into that. I can't tell you exactly when, but it led into. And it wasn't on purpose, and it wasn't, because, oh, I'm listening to Funkaduck and I want to do a Funkaduck. It just kind of came out that way. And I feel like you have to have the patience to let that happen. You know?

Yeah. It takes as long as it takes. Some people, look, everyone's got their way, but I don't write my songs in front of a computer. I don't record them right away. I play them. I have a list of songs that nobody's ever heard, and every time I pick up the guitar, I play through all of them. Each one of them, some of them might be more finished than the others,

but each one of them has this part that I'm like, that can be better, that can be better. But I play with it like you play with a toy that I'm like, you know, that can be better, that can be better. But I play with it, like you play with a toy, you shape it, you try, doesn't work, you know, until something comes along and you feel confident. And that's kind of how the long process is and where you, you know, need patience. You say you play every day?

No. How often do you play? When I want. Yeah, but how often do you want to? Sometimes a month will go by that I don't play and sometimes I play for that whole week and sometimes, I mean, when I was growing up, I played every day.

Yeah. But. And how many hours a day would you play? Back in those days? Yeah. The whole day would pass by like six, seven, eight. I don't know, man. Yeah.

Would you consider practicing or something else? I never practice. I just play. Would you play two other things or no? You play along with records? No. No. Just play by yourself looking for songs.

Just enjoying my shit that I've written and somewhere down the line, it gets better. The last thing that comes to my mind whenever I write something is, I can't wait for everyone to hear this. You're doing it for yourself in that moment. Just like my dad, my dad paints paintings. He doesn't do exhibits or anything.

He does it because he does it. That's like, he doesn't know any other way to live. That's what he does. He doesn't even sign them. And it's kind of, for me, releasing it is kind of weird. Like, because I never really listen to those songs again. Yeah. I rarely put on toxicity. I rarely put on system records, scars records, anything I made once I put it out.

It's like almost like bye bye. Yeah, but even a song from childhood, if you haven't released it, you might still play it. Yes. Because it's still yours. Yeah. Once you put it out, it's not really... And I enjoy it.

It becomes everybody's. Yeah, and I enjoy it. Yeah. I don't know any other way to be. I would be doing this if I was not the guy from System of a Down. I would still be doing this. And it's for me.

It's not even an approach. It's just the way it is. That's the way I know. That's the way I've watched my dad. That's the way I've seen art. You way I've watched my dad. That's the way I've seen art. You do it because you enjoy it. You love it. It's an itch and you want to impress yourself.

How is it different playing by yourself versus playing with a band? I mean, with a band you're rehearsing to play a song, playing by myself is more intimate. I don't really play in front of people anymore. By yourself? Yeah. Remember I said I used to take my guitar. Yeah.

For some reason, once the band got big, something changed in me. Every time I picked up a guitar in front of people, became this some big kind of big deal or something to them. You think people had expectations or something? I don't know, but I kind of don't like, I wait for my girl to go to bed.

Like she doesn't rarely ever sees me play the guitar. It's always when I'm alone. Yeah. Yeah. And you can entertain yourself alone for a long time doing it. Yeah. Hours and hours. Yeah. And not just guitar, man. Like I said, it's not like I'm not in love with this. I'm in love with making sounds, synthesizers, you know. Making stuff. Anything that feels right to me at that moment, that I have a craving and my cravings change.

Sometimes my craving is the guitar. Sometimes I only wanna play in clean. Sometimes I don't wanna plug it in. I just wanna play it like that. And things change when you don't plug it in and write something as opposed to put some distortion on that, I haven't been writing something. You think it has something to do with what you're hearing or how it

feels on your fingers? I think how it feels and hearing sure I mean you are you're hearing it but you know you put an effect on it makes you play a different something. Well not putting anything is in effect all its own as well. So most of your songs are straightforward guitar plugged into the amp. Not too much. Not a lot of tricks, but I don't count out that maybe I may do some tricks somewhere. You're not against it, but just most of your songs hasn't happened that way. Was System your first band or were you in a band before?

The first band situation I ever played for was with these three guys and we used to play Metallica covers in their dad's little garage. I was probably about 13 years old around that time. Did you ever jam with other people or was more playing songs with other people? At that time it was more playing songs with other people? At that time it was more playing songs with other people. Towards the end of high school I met this guy at a party

and he was with someone that I had gone to elementary school with who I hadn't seen for a long time. They were looking for a singer and I was like, okay, I can sing, I'm a singer. They had a lead guitar player guy, but I said, for me, the guitar and the vocals, it kind of comes together. I'm like a combo deal there. And so I went and tried out for their band and they were into what I was doing. We played Paranoid by Black Sabbath and we're like, it just hit. Shavo was there.

Shavo is also someone I remembered from that Armenian elementary school that I had left a while ago, but he is a year older than I am, so he was in the class, but I remember Shavo from there. There was a few people that came to those rehearsals that were from that elementary school. Shavo was there and Shavo was just there as a friend,

not really playing anything. So he heard us and he kind of told the guys in the band that were his friends, he's like, just get rid of the guitar player and bring this guy in. He's kind of doing the guitar and he's singing, and you guys sound more alive. Then I started bringing songs into that band. They were more like rock.

This is like we're talking early 90s, late 80s, the glam scene was still kind of- Like hair metal is still happening. It was more towards that direction. Music, but little heavier than hair metal. But I know we didn't really have the hair. Yeah. But the style of the music was that kind of more rock wasn't very metal was more rock. And so yeah, shovel told them, you know, keep this guy and get rid of the other guy.

And that's kind of what ended up happening. And then so that band shared a rehearsal studio with a band that Serge played with, but Serge didn't sing. Serge just played the keyboards at that time. He had never sang before. So I was the singer. And at some point, that band wanted to get rid of their singer and asked me to, like Serge's band asked me to be their singer.

But I was like, they sang in Armenian. I could do it. But I just wasn't something that I felt. I felt a little bit out of my skin singing in Armenian. I always sang in English. So I never became their singer, but I started jamming with them. Did the kids in that band, were they born in the United States

or were they born somewhere else? Do you know? Probably born in Lebanon. So born in Lebanon, which so maybe- Serge was born in Lebanon. You grew up here. Yeah. Were born here.

Yeah. So English was your first language. You know some Armenian. No, I speak, I went to Armenian school. I mean, I speak Armenian. Well, I can sing Armenian. It's just not something I wanted to do at that time. I didn't, I don't know.

It just didn't flow out of me the same way. English still. Did many of the kids have the same story of parents coming to the U S similar situation? Well, it depends what country they're coming from. Tell me some of the examples, because I don't know anything about the... Well, it was war or one... The Lebanese Armenians came here because there was war at that time in their country. Persian Armenians came here because the Ayatollah took over at some point, 79.

Iraq, Armenians, Saddam. So everyone was kinda coming here for a better life. Things were changing in the countries that they grew up in. Which takes balls, man. Yeah, for sure. I mean, if shit was changing here, I don't know if I'd get up and leave and go to fucking Iraq.

Yeah, no, it's radical. And I went to Iraq. When I was 14 get up and leave and go to fucking Iraq. Yeah. No, it's radical and I went to Iraq Yeah, when I was 14 years old, my mom took me to Iraq. What was that like? And now when I was 14, I was full-on speed metal metal kid but I had a Maltley Crue t-shirt on the whole time and I was walking around Iraq with a Maltley Crue t-shirt and It had like this chick's ass. And our luggage was lost. So that's all I had. And so I wear this Motley Crue t-shirt

and I think it was like Nikki Sixx on a motorcycle or something and it was this chick with her ass sticking out. So it was a culture shock. I was there for two months. Wow. I saw my family. I mean, people I only saw in pictures.

Yes. My grandmother, my aunts, my cousins. So it was nice to see them. But this was at like the height of Saddam. So everywhere you turned was Saddam. If we were in this room, you better have that picture of him up there because they'll question you if you don't. So business, everyone's house, you walk outside, there's a statue, you look at where there's

a picture, you look over there at the building, there's no Marlboro ad, it's a Saddam ad. Two channels on the television, one of them Saddam all day, one of them Saddam half the day. Wow. And I'm from Hollywood, you know, and not used to this life. So it was like I had all these, all my cassettes with me, with my Walkman,

and I took a bunch of metal magazines and I read through every sink. I was a little, I was bored. But Slayer, Show No Mercy. That was when I think of Iraq, I think of Slayer, Show No Mercy because that was the album that I had on in my head a lot. And it was just two months of, it was very educational. I mean, I learned a lot about how the world is different

than where I come from. And if you say anything bad about Saddam, like I would be this little punk kid and I'm like, what if we told Saddam to fuck off? They'd be like, shh, don't fucking say that. They'll take you away. Yeah, don't say that shit, man, you crazy? Yeah, the people live in fear.

Yeah, the people live in fear. You don't fuck around. Yeah. You don't say that kind of thing. You put the picture up. Yeah, yeah. And I think I might be the first person that might have taken that kind of music to Iraq.

Yeah. In 1989, when I put on for my cousins, they like Slayer. They'd never heard anything like that before. What the hell is this? It's like, this is music? So the music they were hearing was more like what your parents grew up on. Like Arabic. Yes, or a pop version of that as time went on.

Yeah. Yeah. And then we're happy to come back to Hollywood. Well, we were living in Glendale at that time, but I was a kid that grew up in Hollywood that, you know, we only had been living in Glendale for like. Two years at that point. So yeah, I was happy, but during the first Iraq war, the desert storm, that's when I learned the media lies to you.

I was only about 15 years old at that time. What were the lies? Well, just kind of dehumanizing the people in Iraq so the people here would be more open to us throwing bombs over their heads. Both times are very tough for my family because it's my grandmother that's there, it's my aunt that's there.

And you know that they're good people like you. Yeah, and I know the other people in Iraq were very nice people as well. Maybe they didn't like Saddam, but it had nothing to do with the people. No, half the people hated Saddam, more than half the people hated Saddam. They just couldn't come out and say that they hated Saddam.

But my family didn't like Saddam on the most part. I still have some aunts that like. I- The ones who liked him, what did they like? Well, in their head was like, just don't start trouble and trouble won't come to you. And that's kind of the deal. It's like if you mind your own business, everything's fine.

Yeah, don't try to overthrow the government. Don't try to conspire to do things. Just live your life and you'll be fine. Yeah, don't try to overthrow the government. Don't try to conspire to do things. Just, you know, live your life and you'll be fine. Yeah. So it was only if you went against the government that you'd be in trouble. Yeah, but his sons, you know, were fucking assholes too. They would pick on people.

You would say, I mean, there was a movie about it. Like the guy would like go to a wedding and take the bride and fuck the bride. I mean, his sons were probably bigger sons of bitches than he was. And you know, torture and you know, if they assume, maybe you didn't do anything and they just assumed and the next thing you know you're being fucking tortured

and there's like, you're in a room with cigarettes going out and your fucking eyeballs or some shit. You know what I mean? I don't fucking, you know, I don't, I couldn't tell you the details as well as my family members can, who live there. I was only there for two months, but. And they were all happy to get out?

Some of them wish things just didn't change. Yeah, because it was their home. Yeah. Understood. So they missed their home, but their home changed. So they had no choice. They had no choice. Because once again, you had ISIS that started.

I got them out of there before all that shit started happening, and they're Christians. So not the safest place to be a Christian when ISIS is running around town chopping heads off. And they just assume that you might be doing something against them and you're screwed. Like I said, they detained my uncle back in the day because he accidentally bumped into some guy's bike and that guy happened to be some huge official. It was total accident.

They take him to this room and they made him feel like they were gonna kill him. Yeah. And in his head, he was like, fuck this, I gotta find a way out of here. In a world of artificial highs and harsh stimulants, there is something different, something clean, something precise. Athletic nicotine.

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You know, I'd rehearse with my band, and then if they came in, I would stick around and I would play guitar with them. Were you friends with all of them? I got to know them through this situation. I wasn't really friends with anybody, to be honest with you, it was just. People to play music with. The guys we shared our studio with,

and that's how I got to know them. It's not like I knew him for years. They're older than I was. Serge is eight years older than I am. But that's how Serge and I became friends through that. Were they serious about that band? Did they feel- Not so sure. It was kinda like a weekend kind of,

guys that had other things going on, but they played like, you know, they had equipment and they enjoyed playing and jamming and but I'm not sure they were trying to take it anywhere. I mean through my life I was always like anyone who knew me when I was a kid would tell you he always said that this is what he wanted to do. Like if you met me at eight years old, if you met me at 12 years old, anyone who knew me through my life knew.

So as I was getting older, they even called me to the school counselor once and I'm a high school dropout and I got kicked out of my high school twice. They sent me to a continuation school, I don't know if you know what that is. It's where all the pregnant girls go. So pregnant girls, gangsters, the kids that were you know more trouble. I see. You know would go there because it ain't working out for you. You ditch all day or you get into

too many fights. You know what I mean? They send you away to this school. It was like a bunch of bungalows for lunch. A lunch truck would show up. It was totally different. But anyway, they sent me to the counselor and they're like, you know, you're failing all your classes.

You hardly show up to school. You show up, you ditch, you probably go to one or two classes. What do you want to do? What do you want to do with your life? And you ditch, you probably go to one or two classes, like what do you wanna do? What do you wanna do with your life? And I go, I'm a musician. They're like, you're a musician. Even then you knew it. Yeah.

You thought of yourself as that. Yeah, I said, I'm gonna, so they're like, what's your plan? I go, I'm gonna start a band, I'm gonna play on Sunset Strip. That's what I told my counselors. And they even had like a school psychiatrist there and everything, I was

everything good at home. And I'm like, everything's fine. But it was just something that in my head, I had convinced myself that this is gonna happen. I don't know, man, I was very confident. Yeah. So they're like, all right, off to CT you go then, you know, and they sent me to CT. But so through my late teenage years, I was always looking for the band. Yeah.

This is the band that I feel like I can make it in. Like I might've been in a band, but I was like, I don't think this band's gonna make it. When you say make it, the aspiration was to play on the Sunset Strip. Yeah, and become popular on the Sunset Strip, I guess. But you didn't think about playing, like last time I saw you play,

60,000 people came to see you play songs that you've recorded more than 15 years ago. But that was never the goal. The goal was a club band. Well, at that point, the goal was to just start a band that you feel confident with, and you're gonna go play the clubs. That's all I knew. I didn't, like, I don't really, I didn't know the business.

I didn't, I was just a kid. I didn't really know what you had to do to be- And how old were you at that time? 16. Yeah. So tell me about looking for the band. Well, it's just, you know, we would, and anyone who I told that to would say to me, really, how many Armenians do you know that made it?

That's from my Armenian friends. People would not be supported, Or not be supported, but... I had a lot of support, but obviously it's... People didn't believe it was possible. It's a pretty far-fetched thing to... Not realistic. How many bands actually do get there? It's very small.

Very few. You might probably be better off buying a lottery ticket or something. You know what I mean? It's really rare. But I had confidence. You might probably be better off buying a lottery ticket or something, you know what I mean? It's really rare. But I had confidence. And then one day, my guitar got stolen,

so I was looking for another guitar. And I went to a guitar store, and the Tracy Guns, the guitar player from LA Guns, walks into the guitar store, and I'm jamming I'm playing and he's like you're gonna buy that guitar because I got that guitar come to my house and We'll see what kind of maybe I'll give you it for a good deal or something like that And at this time this guy was on MTV and you know, I mean like LA guns was doing okay So me and my cousin she drove me to the guitar store.

We ended up- He was originally in Guns N' Roses. Why they were called Guns N' Roses? Yeah. Because of Tracy Guns and Axl Rose. Mm-hmm. I know. But now he's in LA Guns. Mm-hmm. So we went to his place and my cousin asks him,

she goes, you know, my little cousin here, he's always talking about, he wants to do something in music, he wants to make it in music. She goes, aren't there a zillion bands in LA? At this time, it was like, it was, it was that. He said, yeah, there are, but there's only a couple of good ones.

For me, I was said, yeah, there are, but there's only a couple of good ones. And for me, I was like, all right. I wanna be one of those good ones. No, I was like, I am one of those good ones. Already? Wow, that's great. I was like, I'm almost there then. You know what I mean? In my head, I was that cocky.

That's great. That's great. It's funny because I don't really have that in me anymore the same way, but that kid was really... Yeah. Anyway, so, you know, okay, cool, that was that experience. And it gave me, you know, it was like, so it does matter if you're good or bad too.

Yeah, some guys make it because they have connections, but if you're actually good, there's a chance. Yeah. You know, there's a chance. Yeah. So just be good. Put something together that's good. So yeah, and then, you know, there's a chance. Yeah. So just be good. Put something together that's good. So yeah.

And then life happens. And that band I was in that was sharing the rehearsal for one reason or the other didn't work out. Serge and I kind of became closer friends and started hanging out. And somewhere down the line, I didn't wanna be, I really look up to people like Pete Townsend, I really look up to the guys that are like, those guys in their band.

I think Jerry Cantrell is one of them. They sing, but they're more of like the writer, or the guy who's producing what's happening, the guy who's kinda what's happening, the guy who's kind of setting the table. And Serge at the same time wanted to become a singer, but he had never really fronted a band. Remember, they asked me to sing. Yeah.

So it was like this transition that happened where I pulled my singing back, still sang but pulled it back. He was trying to find himself at this time, let's just say early Serge. Yeah. So anyway, this happened and me and him meet. We stick with the bass player from my other band, but we meet this guy who's this Hawaiian drummer,

who's some tall guy that played like a beast, his name was Domingo. And that's when we became Soil, which was the band before System. So it's you, Serge, Domingo, and the bass player from your previous band. Yeah. Were any of the Soil songs later System songs?

Parts of them. I see. Like the end of sugar, I sit in my desolate room. Yeah. The song soil, dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun. That was a soil song. Tentative, which came like on Mesmerize, Hypnotize. That riff was from the soil days. The song wasn't the same, but that riff,

I wrote Tentative with that riff in there. Once again, this was very early on in Serge's vocal as a vocalist. He was doing some stuff that was cool, but then he was doing some stuff that was kind of cool, but then he was doing some stuff that I don't think we were getting yet. I wasn't, and Domingo wasn't. So Domingo really wasn't. You know, he was like, you know, what's he, you know, he does this crazy stuff and this quirky stuff.

And, you know, and I was kind of real, he does this crazy stuff and this quirky stuff. And, you know, and I was kind of real, I was like 18, 19 years old at this time. This guy was much older than I was. So he was kind of more leader than I was in the situation. And so behind Serge's back, we would try out other guys. We would like tell Serge, we're not rehearsing today and Someone else would come in and try out Mostly because he really he wanted somebody else

And then they wanted yeah. Yeah, and I was kind of I kind of understood because Serge had not developed Yeah, he was still green as a singer. Yes. He was really a keyboard player. Yeah. Had you ever sung together yet? Yeah, on this track that we did called Wake O Jesus. It was about David Koresh.

We sang together on that track, but that never became a Soil song. Soil was like the songs were not really songs. They were like... The way I always see it is System of a Down is the song version of the Soil sound. I see. The sound of System of a Down was kind of there. Yeah.

Not fully, but kind of there. Yeah. How long was Soil? How many years? Not even years. Maybe a year. One year. Maybe a year we played one gig.

Okay. Only one gig with Soil? Yeah. It was at this little cafe. The stage was so small that the first riff I fell off and I fell on a drum set over the other band. It was like the stage was this tiny thing and I was like, wow, and I was so hungry to be on stage.

I just couldn't keep myself from just losing it and I just accidentally fell off the stage onto a drum set. But that was our only gig. Shava was there and we were having a little pit. So Shava would come into the soil rehearsals as a friend. As like a guy that, I really like what you guys are doing, man, and he was just- A fan.

Yeah, I couldn't call him a fan. He was a friend, but he liked, like he dug the band, and he was just supportive, and he played some guitar. He wasn't really a bass player at the time. He was just supportive. He played some guitar. He wasn't really a bass player at the time. He was just playing guitar. Not really as long as I had been playing, but maybe for a couple of years and he was getting better. Through that time, I started becoming friends with Shavo,

and Shavo and I started hanging out more. So anyway, we played that so I played that one gig. Domingo was from Hawaii. He decided, I guess he had a kid or something and he moved back to Hawaii. Soil was gone. At this point, I was like, okay, Shavo and I have been really good friends and we've been talking a lot, and we have a lot in common with the heavier stuff.

We like both Sepultura, we both like Pantera, we both like these heavier death metal bands. So I decided to bring Shavo in and I didn't really discuss it with anybody but we brought Shavo in and- He wasn't really a it with anybody, but we brought Shavil in and- He wasn't really a band yet because the drummer left. Yeah. So, yeah. And after trying so many singers,

I was like, none of these guys are better than Serge. Yeah. You know? Yeah. And I started appreciating some of the things that maybe I didn't appreciate early on. Yeah. So Serge was still there,

Shavo came into the picture, and that was the beginning of System of a Down. We had the band name before we even had the, I would sit in the car with Shavo, and we would just listen to music and talk about, you know, it'd be cool to start a band that's like, you know, kinda like this, like metal, but you know. We just, we'd talk a lot,

and he even like mentioned one time, he's like, and yeah, we'll get, one day we'll get Rick Rubin to produce our album. It's fucking crazy. It's fucking crazy. It's crazy. Cause he, that- It's not even a band yet.

We didn't have a drummer. It's amazing. Yeah. And so, I was going to Valley College at the time, not really, I was just going there to show my mom like, oh look, I'm doing something response, but I would ditch that too. But I reconnected with Andy, which was the drummer that was with the band before Soil that I was in.

And we reconnected and I was like, it didn't work out last time with him, there was some personality things going on. But I was like, maybe things have changed. We really need a drummer. He's good. I brought Andy in, and we're like, let's jam with Andy guys. Everyone knew Andy,

but we're a little hesitant because we had our issues in the past. I'd known Andy since the third grade. I went to elementary school with him. But once Andy came in, that's it. We just started playing. I brought in a song. I remember the first song I brought in was a song called Flake. We never played it, never recorded it. It was okay.

But I had brought in the vocals and the arrangement and we played and, you know, the band started developing. I would bring in more songs and then I would start writing with, you know, Serge's vocals in mind. We all hung out at the studio together, we all listened to music together, we all got stoned together. There's something about that that's part of

the band's development when you're all listening to the same type of stuff. Once again, Serge doesn't come from the rock influence world or metal even. His brother had a big CD collection and would listen to that stuff, but Serge not so much. And so I would always be like trying to turn Serge on to like listen to this guy, listen to this, listen to that,

and just try to open his ears to like, you know, styles and, you know. You know, believe it or not, the doors were like a big influence. I love the doors. I wouldn't make the connection, but that's really cool. Well, the spoken word stuff. Yeah.

Like I would, like a song like War, we will fight the heathens, we will fight the heathens. Then I, so I had the verse in the, but for a bridge, you know, a lot of guys would go into a guitar solo and for me I was like, what if we just, dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, and he talks over it. And so I would write these parts

so it would give him space to have those spoken word moments. And then he would say, I wouldn't tell him what to say. He would say what he wanted. So, yeah. And so System started developing, and we started playing in clubs. We played in clubs for a while with Andy.

And then the band was starting to get popular in the club scene. And I knew once I knew that was it. I knew this was the band. This was the band. Yeah. Like, I felt it. This is the band that I was looking for. So much of today's life happens on the web.

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Did you know how Did you know how far out your songs were? I never saw that. Because they just come to you naturally. I think there is something abstract about System of a Down. Yes. Metal music tends not to be an abstract form. So bringing that abstraction and Middle Eastern roots to metal changes everything.

It really was, it was like nothing I ever heard before. I mean, I think we were trying to do something that wasn't copying other people, but I'm not sure how much of it was so intentional. Yeah, because it came natural to you. It's how you heard the music. Yeah, and then the way he sang was the way he sang. Absolutely. And it just made for a good combination.

Or, I wrote a lot of vocals myself. So the vocal style of System of a Down is a mix between me and Serge. Then somewhere down the line, things were not working out with Andy. This was close to when we were starting to get some interest from labels and stuff like this. We felt like if we want to take this far, it's probably not going to happen with him in the band.

It was really tough because he was a very talented guy. I'll never take that away from him. He is, he's still alive. He is a really talented drummer, keyboard player, and he ended up becoming the singer of a band called the Apex Theory. Cool.

Yeah. So it wasn't his talent, let's just say. And John was someone that was a guy that we shared a rehearsal studio with. So he- Was he in another band? He was in another band that System and that band shared a studio with.

Our drum set, his drum set were like face to face. And Shavo and I were like at our pot dealer's house. And Shavo goes to me, hey, guess what, what? Andy broke his arm. He punched a wall and he broke all the bones in his arm. And I looked at Shavo and I was like, call John. Had you ever played with John before? Yeah, just jamming.

I knew he was a good drummer, I know he could handle it. He was a different drummer than Andy. Not as loose as Andy, but more solid, dependable, strong. That's when I think of John's drumming, it's solid, it's strong, it doesn't wave. No. You know? He's super solid.

Yeah. Super solid. Yeah. And groovy, too. Yeah. Yeah. And apparently John was like, before you guys called me, he goes, every single one of you had had a conversation with me saying that this might happen. Because things were kind of... The writing was on the wall that Andy was not going to make it. Yeah, it was just looking that way.

And first rehearsal, John knew a lot of our songs already because he had been there for our rehearsals, listening to them. He'd probably been there in some times when we were like writing them, just hanging out. Because the studio for us was a place where both. Was the hangout. For both bands, for all the guys. Yeah, yeah. times when we were like riding them, just hanging out. Because the studio for us was a place where both... Was the hangout.

For both bands, for all the guys. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So he caught onto it right away. That was kind of towards the end of the sunset strip, transitioning into getting signed. So the first album was called System of a Down, 1998. Which song would be representative of this era of System? Sweepee, Sugar, War, Pluck. More of the heavy stuff.

I think the goal at that time was play the clubs and start a pit. You know what I mean? Be heavy, be unique, but be heavy, you know? Yeah, to get the energy, to get the response from the audience? Yeah. Yeah. So let's see. Let's hear Sweet Pea. The end of the day her name was Jesus And for her everyone cried Everyone cried Everyone cried Cross and Terror, Rabbits is of architecture

Let me die, Blades We're Cross and Terror, Rabbits is of architecture Let me die, Blades Cross and Terror, Rabbits is of architecture Let me die, Blades We're Cross and Terror, Rabbits is of architecture Let me me live life. We're cross and narrow, ravages of architecture, rest around the space. Cry philosophy, cry philosophy,

cry philosophy, cry. You dance for a philosophy, die for a philosophy, now your philosophy died. See, for me, that just came naturally. Like... When that part, dun-dun-dun, it was just like, it should go into this. I don't know, I can't tell you why, or it just, you're in your little trance, and it just goes that way. And I can see a doors like moment. You know what I'm saying? It's not, it doesn't sound like the doors, but I

understand the connection in that change and the dynamics of the vocals also would be something you might hear in the door. ["Bad Boys"] ["Bad Boys"] ["Bad Boys"] ["Bad Boys"] Really funny to me. You know, some people, you always tell the story of like when you first saw us, you were laughing or you were... There are some guys in bands that might take offense to that.

Yeah. I like that there is a sense of humor in System of a Down's music. Me too. Because it's emotion and you're trying to cover different emotions, not just one. And sense of humor is something I think a lot of guys can't pull off. A lot of bands can't pull off sense of humor. You don't hear it too much, sense of humor in rock music.

Zappa maybe had a little bit of some fun. But it's also the combination of how hard it is and how quirky it is that makes it funny. It's so extremely hard. And it goes from seemingly light vocal ideas to the screaming vocal ideas right next to each other. The juxtapositions are wild. It still makes me laugh listening to it just like the first time I saw you. I think it's just what, like I said, none of it was done to like on purpose. I think it just the combination of my writing and whatever vocal style I have mixed with Serge's vocal style and the influences that we had. Our influences were heavy bands or

like Cannibal Corpse and things like this. But we also had influences like the Beatles, the Doors, and Armenian and ethnic. We all grew up around that stuff. So there was stuff in our roots that I don't think were in the roots of other bands and it was done in an honest way. There's some bands that mix ethnic stuff with metal,

but it's like, okay, we're playing metal and then it goes into the ethnic part. It's not a mutation that like it should belong. Like when two people have a child and you see the characteristic of one parent and the other parent and like. It makes something new. But it sounds like.

It's not this thing combined with this thing and we do the A part for a while and then we shift to the B part for a while. It's more like... They belong together. Together they're making a new thing. Yes. And that new thing we have not heard before.

I've not heard it before. Yes, that's what I'm mostly proud of if I accomplish that as a writer and the band accomplishes that as a band. That it sounds like we're bringing worlds together, but these worlds belong together. They weren't forced to be together so we can be the band that mixes all that stuff together. You know what I mean?

Do you remember anything about writing Sweet Pea? Again, in my room at my parents' house, I had vocal phrasing, but I didn't have the words. I had vocal phrasing, but I didn't have the words. And, you know, so when I brought the song into the band, it was probably like, oh, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, you know, something like that. Yeah, you had the phrasing, but not the lyrics. Yeah, probably for the choruses.

And Serge kind of went off and did his thing in the verses. Yeah, that's pretty much how I brought in. But when I wrote the song itself, I can't remember exactly what. And they're just trying to be driving, trying to be heavy, trying to start a pit. And those little guitar things that I sometimes did it in those days probably more than I would in these days or even later on in the band just little intros like It was almost like the tiny

Explodes into You know it really does It's like it's pushing it's pushing heavy part is so much heavier coming after that. If it just started after the intro, it wouldn't have the same effect at all. Yeah, it gives it some, it makes it crazy. Yes. It makes it zany.

Yes. And I think that's what we were going for. Yeah. You know? That's what I was at least going for. And we were that at that time. Remember what we used to look like at that time? You know, it matched the music in a way.

We all were very theatrical, very made up. We looked kind of like not from this planet in a way at that time. So it all kind of matched the way we looked, matched our music, matched the live show, matched the way we moved on stage our music, matched the live show, matched the way we moved on stage. We were very spazzed out. The album comes out going on tour, what was the experience like of first album comes out? I could only speak for myself.

Everything that I said I wanted to happen for myself, because I can't speak for Serge, I can't speak for Jim, but just for myself as where I wanted my life to go was starting to happen. And I felt a lot of pressure, especially being the guy who's like the main writer in the situation. I was having a lot of panic attacks all of a sudden.

Just being at the movie theater, one second I'm laughing, next second my hands, my palms. I remember once we were playing at the whiskey, I turned pale and they called the ambulance. My heart started beating really fast. I didn't even know what a panic attack was, but I was getting them and I'd never left home before. Things that I wanted to happen were happening and that was positive.

But once again, I was, how old was I, like 22, 23 maybe. So I was really young and I experienced the world. I was a kid. So I was really young and experienced the world I was it was a kid and so Yeah, I had to kind of learn how to meditate What do you think the pressure was about? Here's your chance. I see you didn't want to blow it

I don't want to blow it and and that kind of stayed through the albums to like where it was just You know, I didn't wasn't getting the panic attacks, but I just always, I really didn't want to blow it. I knew how important the second record was, and I was already thinking about the second record when the first record was coming out, you know. We went on tour with Slayer. I mean, I had Slayer on my fucking wall, my headphones in Iraq. And now I'm on the bus with Tom and Carrie and hanging out with Slayer.

And then we're at the Oz Fest. And there's Ozzy. I used to have dreams where Ozzy was having dinner with me and my parents when I was like eight years old. I was always obsessed with these people. I was a big fan. You know, I had a lot of respect, and so there I am in the same room, and I have an album out the way they do.

And also, it felt like, okay, now we're being looked at with the bands that have albums out, not just like the Sunset Strip bands anymore. So I never looked at it as like competitors, but the bands that you're surrounded with now are the top bands in the world. So that felt like pressure, but I didn't feel like I didn't belong.

I was like, I think we're good, man. Like play after us. Historically, opening for Slayer is a tough slot because Slayer audiences are probably the least open to hearing anyone but Slayer. How was the experience for you? I kind of played the heel like in wrestling. And I would like mock them if they weren't yelling Slayer. If they weren't chanting Slayer during our thing, I would start them and I would say, you're not big enough Slayer fan. You're not chanting Slayer.

And that's how I played it. And I think it worked with them because all those same places we came back and we headlined pretty soon after that. Amazing. And do you feel like by the end of the set, the Slayer audience was accepting most of the time? Some of them, I mean...

Yeah. We didn't, because the way we looked was not... Yeah. Slayer audience. Not necessarily Slayer friendly. No. And the way we friendly. No. And the way we sounded. Yeah, that's as difficult of a gig as you can possibly do.

That's like heavy metal boot camp if you were, yeah. At that time especially too. First time I saw Slayer was with Anthrax, Megadeth. I can't remember who the fourth band was. From the beginning, before the first band went on, the crowd was chanting Slayer through all three bands until Slayer got on stage for hours. Slayer, Slayer, it was insane.

No, it was stuff of legend. Those Slayer shows in the earlier, even before our time with them, you would read about it in magazines and people get hurt in the pits. It was intimidating, Slayer was intimidating. The most. The audience was intimidating, the band was intimidating.

Yeah. So wild. I'm so glad you got to do it. Well, you had a lot to do with that It really makes you good like standing up to that us and Europe Amazing our first tour in the US and our first tour in Europe and the Europe was a little tougher. Yeah There was one show I think it was in Germany

Where we played the same place two nights in a row. The first, we used kept playing our set. The next day I came to the band and I said if the same thing happens after No, John, start No again. And we're gonna play No until you cheer. And we're gonna play that same fucking song. We didn't have to play it more than twice,

but we played it twice. And they cheered after the second time. Yeah, you challenged them. Yeah, and that's kind of how that went with the Slayer shit. It's like, fuck you. You know? Amazing.

It was kind of like that. You weren't intimidated by the audience. I mean, in real life, you were. There was this venue we played once in Portugal that they told us if they don't like you, they throw syringes at you. So we walk into this place and the roof has a bunch of syringes on the roof of the place. People like throwing them up there and they've stuck up there.

So I wore long sleeves and you're going up there and nobody threw syringes at us. But imagine like that's the- Pretty rough. And then in Poland they hated us once. That's kind of a more historic kind of system show where we get there and there's an audience and there's dudes in the front with like SS fucking signs and just intimidating and they weren't having it. They didn't like us very much and they started throwing things at us. Yeah.

And Serge was like, turn on the lights, turn on the lights. And then they threw a bagel at Serge and it hit Serge and they were throwing coins at me. And then I was kind of playing it where I would pick up the coins and I would like put them in my pocket and I was blowing kisses at the SS guys. But Serge kind of like took it to another level

and I'm like, oh no, this isn't good. Like you're not gonna be able to fight with thousands of people, man. So he was like, turn on the lights. Who threw that? Who did that? And a bagel came flying at him. And that was the Poland show.

These are all places we've gone back and now we're like headliners, but like. Amazing. We had some shows that in Europe that not everybody understood us right away. Did you know that when you went back, it was gonna be okay? Or not until you went back?

I mean, we were headlining the next time around the smaller theaters, so it wasn't with Slayer, so. And then next time you went back, people were singing along with every word? It was more of an accepting audience, yeah. It was like the London Historia, the first time we played with Slayer, the next time we went there, it was our show great the crowd was

Amped like, you know, we started selling thousand seaters thousand five hundred still on the first album or not first album It's still on the first album. Yeah, so you went around two times on the first album Dealt with the Slayer audience and then went back and all good Yeah, more accepting. We were growing and the word was going out and we were building our fan base. The human foot is a true marvel of engineering. With 26 bones, 33 joints, and over 100 muscles and tendons,

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I guess it's the scene that people like to call new metal. I know a lot of people see System of a Down as new metal. We don't really see it that way. I like the word alternative metal, maybe more. I think we're a little more experimental. I think so too. We were taking things. We had songs like Spiders,

Ariel's, Atwa that weren't necessarily metal influences. There could have been psychedelic influences and different kinds of rock influences. So bands we played with in LA, some of them got signed, Static X, Cold Chamber. Again, bands that you put into the new metal, but it just so happens that we were around at the same time and we came in through the same scene as they did.

But I never felt like we really sounded like, I like those bands. All the bands I just mentioned, I think are really good bands. Yeah. But I don't think we really sounded like them. I feel like we were doing something a little detached. So the second album is Toxicity, 2001. What would you say was different about this album than the first album?

Vocal harmonies. First album, I had a couple of vocal parts. On our demos, I had like, there was a song called Damn where I sang the whole song. So me singing in the band was not something foreign to the band. Me singing in the band was not something foreign to the band. But like in Chop Suey, there was just more vocal. Serge and I started doing more vocal harmonies with like on Atwa, Ariel's.

Which one would be a good one to demonstrate? I love Atwa. Great. I wrote it about Charles Manson. Atwa was his environmental thing. But this new metal bands were not doing this. Yeah. These type of harmonies. And it felt very natural for me to go into this after that. There was nothing weird about it to me or to us as a band.

That's like Simon and Garfunkel, you know? All the world I've seen before me passing by Silent my voice, I've got no choice All the world I've seen before me passing by You don't care about how I feel, I don't feel it anymore. You don't care about how I feel, I don't feel it anymore. You don't care about how I feel, I don't feel it anymore. I don't see you. I don't hear you. I don't smell you.

I don't smell you. Totally normal, nothing to see here. It's so funny, man. And we would do interviews and people would be like, you know, your time signature, and none of us are like really schooled musicians, so we're not like... We just feel it. Yeah, we just feel that time signature or that whatever it's going into. And it's just, to me, it's just an emotional nice song.

It is. All the world I've seen before me passing by. It's just... Bye! You don't care about how I feel, I don't feel it anymore. You don't care about how I feel, I don't feel it anymore. You don't care about how I feel, I don't feel it anymore. You don't care about how I feel, I don't feel it anymore. I don't sleep. I knew that I was going to start singing more as time went on. I didn't want to overdo it, so there was room for growth.

Yeah, the band developed over time, and one of the developments was you got to sing more. You got to sing harmony. If you listen to the first System album, the idea of the next album having vocal harmony, you wouldn't imagine it. Do you know what I'm saying? Because it's so

heavy. Heavy. Yeah. That you don't associate harmony in that kind of music. Yeah. I don't know if there's any super heavy music that has harmony. I don't know. Or that kind of harmony. Garfunkel, Simon Garfunkel type of harmony. Yeah. It's just, you know, it's what I like to listen to and it just kind of comes out naturally out of the writing when you don't put limitations and walls and say, well, this has to be heavier, we've just gotta be hard. It all compliments each other and I think. Even more It all compliments each other. And I think. Even more, they amplify each other.

It's like the hard sections seem insane coming after the Simon and Garfunkel-y part. Simon and Garfunkel-y part's nice, nice song going along. Maybe moody. But then the. And it gives you a break from the hard too. Yeah, but then the hard comes in and it's wild. And then we go back to Simon and Garfunkel and then it gets hard again.

But then it gets really hard, where it already seemed too hard for what came before it. Now it goes to the next extreme. It's exciting because I don't know any other music that works like this. The dynamics are so extreme. And in a way, it almost seems like it shouldn't work, but it does. And everybody in the band has to be versatile. John can't just be a heavy metal drummer. John is a very versatile drummer. Yeah. Serge Chess can't be a heavy metal singer. I can't just be a heavy metal writer. Everyone in the band has to have broad taste and open mind for it to come off and be

played as musicians where it works, where the style works. I know a lot of great heavy metal drummers, but they're one trick pony and they play that stuff really great, but probably wouldn't work on songs that I write because I need you to go from place to place. Yeah. And sometimes very quickly. Yeah. Okay. So tell me about the experience of this album coming out and going on tour for Toxicity. Well, we were bigger. Chop Suey comes out. Next thing you know, we're walking in the malls and kids recognize us.

That life changed after that. I guess you can say, MTV was still playing videos at that time, and they were heavier rotation of Chop Suey. Remember anything about writing Chop Suey? Yeah, either we were still in an RV or I was in the back of the bus, and I had a guitar and that's pretty much where the main...

Can you grab the guitar and show me what came first? Two parts. The intro came first. The... Once again, this is probably not tuned correctly, but I'm just... Once again, this is probably not tuned correctly, but I'm just... That came first. Now I can't remember if I did the... Or if I just went into... I don't remember what came first after that.

But those parts pretty much came together. The vocal came very natural. Well, the vocal pretty much walks with the. Wake up, I'm in. My lyrics were different. It was, wake up, tell me what you think about tomorrow. Is it going to be a pain and up, tell me what you think about tomorrow. Is it gonna be a pain in sorrow? Tell me what you think about the people.

Is it gonna be another sequel? That was my original lyrics, but I wasn't married to him. Serge pretty much sang, he didn't change the song. So I was like, so he sang that. And then Serge put in the repeat vocals. You wanted to, that? Well, wake up, wake up. Oh yeah, yeah.

No, Serge took it to that other place. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I loved it. It was, you know. It was, I never heard anything like that either. It was so unusual. I remember not even knowing what to make of it. It was so unusual.

Yeah. I didn't think it was gonna be the song that it was so unusual. Yeah. I didn't think it was gonna be the song that it was gonna be. I mean, it's our most popular song. It's the song that introduced the world to us, I guess you could say. But that whole, that's us.

In my eyes. That kinda just flowed out of me. The lyrics just flowed out of me. The lyrics just flowed out of me. The lyrics meaning for me was how... See, I'm not sure the verse matches what my lyrics are saying, but the lyrics for me was how people judge people on how they die. Like, for example, if you died of cancer, poor guy. But if you died of a drug overdose,

so you had it coming. It's like how people are judgmental. I cry when angels deserve to die. It's like how people are judgmental even in someone's death. So that's what my lyrics meant. Wake up, grab a brush, put a little makeup. Till this day, I'm not sure where that comes from

and what that really means, but it fit really well and you know it is what it is. It's what became the song. And then this middle part I think you have the story of where you guys, I wasn't there but... Yeah in the library pulling down. Well there was no vocals there because all I had was, Father, Father, Father, Father. That's all I had. I didn't have the whole. I think you and Serge put that together with the Bible. Yeah, whatever book, I don't even know if it was a Bible.

Whatever book it was, he pulled down and just randomly picked it, but that did happen. Yeah, and so that's how that part came about. There you have it. You have Chop Suey and it's our most famous song, the one that people recognize the most from System of a Down. And it came to me all in back when we were, I don't know where we were driving through,

but we were on tour and then I was just sitting in the back playing guitar and that's where it came from. Let's hear it. in the back playing guitar and that's where it came from. Let's hear it. Oh and it was called Suicide before. Some interesting chords going on that add like orchestration. It makes the part much bigger. I was doing a lot of layering and experimenting with layering during toxicity recording. I think you might have been the... you wanted to though really remember really I remember cuz you would make suggestions like that For angels deserve to die

Wake up! Wake up! Grandmaster put a little make-up I just got the Vader wings I just got the Vader wings Would you leave the keys upon the table? I mean, like I said, I would have never thought that this was gonna be the single or... I just got the Vader wings

I just got the Vader wings I've never played this for Tom Muello and he's like, that's crazy person me. Again, the vocal harmonies. Honey, he's so good. So frightful, so wishy-wishy Serge and I have very different voices. They work so good together.

It's a hot and cold type of thing, I think. ...to do It's so hard. It's so odd. And that riff underneath, every time I hear it, it's very, there's a death metal band called Obituary. Do you ever mind do that? Yeah, I'm like, that's where you did that. That's why you played that.

You love Obituary. This part's incredible too. Incredible. But see, these are your ideas though. Really? I think so because you would always kind of tell us, it has to end off big and dramatic, and this does. And so you would kind of lead us into these kinds

of big outro emotional things. It worked. Whatever it is, it worked. I don't remember any details, but I just remember like flowers. I don't remember details either, but I remember the kind of suggestions that you would make to us and how they would change the songs. Yeah. And that was one of them, how the endings would be this grand thing. Instead of just singing the chorus all over again like let's sing it. Giving a reason to have another course at the end. Yeah and sing it in a more dramatic and bigger finale. Yes. Any other developments during that period of the band between albums two and three? I think as a writer, I was starting to get into more,

not necessarily starting pits, but trying to be heavy in different ways. I thought. So for me as a writer, I think I was transitioning into that. I also felt like as we were going along, Serge wanted to sing more, and you pushed him more into that direction as well.

He got to be a really good singer. I remember on the first album, it was hard for him to sing the songs, and I remember live seeing the band in those days. His performance was great, but his singing wasn't yet great. But by being on the road so much, he turned into a great singer. And great performer.

Absolutely. But the voice like really took on this like operatic quality that wasn't really there in the beginning. In the beginning, it was more quirky and yelling. Yes, and growling and yeah. Yeah, couldn't have predicted it in advance. I wouldn't know that it was gonna happen. Yeah, so I was aware of that and

He never told me like, you know, I don't want to growl or anything, but I could feel like he was Going more into singing Than screaming and it wasn't he wasn't as Aggro and Angry it was the third album was, the thing is I would write so many songs for all these albums that we'd ended up having either a third album or the double album.

Like if I didn't bring in that many songs, we probably only had three records. Because we only had three recording sessions. First, Toxicity and Mesmerize, Hypnotize. Yeah. So, third album was Steal This Album. So that was stuff that we didn't put on Toxicity that we thought was still good,

but then remember somebody had leaked it. Oh yeah. And that's why we called it Steal This Album. What's a good song representative of this? Oh, there's so much stuff here. That's why we called it Steal This Album. What's a good song representative of this? Oh, there's so much stuff here. I mean, I wouldn't say it's representative of the album, but this song right here...

Who was doing, I don't know, like, the power bands around us entered for doing this. Nobody was doing this. I mean, this doesn't show you what the album is, but this tune... It's not heavy metal, it never gets heavy at all. So, like I said, trying to be heavy in different ways. Melotron. I think that's Melotron, I think that's in Hulksha. Beautiful permanent. Left a message buttered in a bit of use

Now this is a song that I wrote and could have sang myself, but I was still in a place where I was like not didn't want to go full-on yet yeah you know and Serj changed the lyrics to this song from what I originally had but once again if I'm not married to it yeah it's not changing or hurting the song no and with if the person who's singing the song isn't connected to the words, it won't be good.

Absolutely. I forgot that I had a solo part in this song. I haven't listened to this for years. I forgot that that was there. Beautiful. The phrasing is very Middle Eastern. Greek. Greek.

Very Greek-like. Yeah. Bazooka-like. Yeah. I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, We just didn't want to make toxicity that long. Yeah, let's listen to interviews. Second song. Very Middle Eastern as well. This riff. I have a home, longing to roam. I have to find you, I have to meet you. Signs of your pain.

Let's see, we're moving into directions that are not Ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja I love this song a lot. Another one is the Highway song that's on this album. That's another good one. I need to find you. I need to seek my inner vision. Mr. Jack. that's bad The laser revives, the bicycle's power breaks Farther than a tear, escalating in force In... ...sense There's only one true path in life A road that leads to a heart vision Inner vision You're sacred silence, losing all violence

Okay, come quick. Let's hear a little of the Highway song. I need to feel the love You love to love the fear I never want to be alone I've forgotten to The road keeps moving clouds The clouds become unreal I guess I'll always be at home Do you want me to try Directing your night Another song, like I said, you know, Friction, lines, bumps. The highway song complete. Another song, like I said, in a more emotional, heavy direction.

Although the chugging is there, the heavy is there. But still more like dancey chugging. It's not medley. Yeah. More bouncy, dancey. I remember when I wrote this song, I had Depeche Mode in mind. Depeche Mode? Yeah. It was like, I don't know that...

Pick up the guitar and show me the... Well, I mean... Show me the Depeche Mode version. Like, I just, in my head, I was thinking, like, if the guy from Depeche Mode was singing, like, I don't know, it might not be Depeche Mode to everyone else, but in my head, that kind of what... Yeah, yeah, yeah, you visualized it. That's kind of what brought the kind of dark. If you had like synthesizer, I don't know, I could hear it. Maybe I don't know if you can, but I can hear it.

Yeah, I can. You know, thinking, the way he's sitting, I don't want to sing like the guy from Depeche Mode, but just these chords kind of took me there. And then there's this part where it goes... That part came from... That part came from, remember there used to be like freestyle music, dance music, like Timmy T. And in my head there was a lot of synth going on on that song, but there was no synth at all in the recording. But when I was writing it... You wrote it, you were envisioning synths. Yes.

Cool. The groovy part, the dancey part, is that the same? It's just the same chords that changes the way I play it. I see. You know, if you had like a 909 or some kind of kick like that going like that. In my head, that's what was happening when I wrote that. But then, you know, you play it with a rock band, you play it with a guitar. But it's cool because envisioning those sounds inspired you to write a different song

than you would write if you were writing a song for a metal band. Yeah. So it becomes new music. Different inspirations, different colors. Yeah. You know? And then did you guys tour this album?

No. It just came out. No, yeah, we just put it out and like I said, we put it out because someone leaked those songs and they put out versions that we didn't necessarily like. So we went to your place, remember? And we kind of redid some of them, rearranged some of them,

did new vocals on some of them. We recorded all the songs. For toxicity, we recorded them all, and then narrowed down the ones that were going to be on the album or maybe the ones that were most likely going to be on the album, still probably more than were actually on the album. Then we would refine those. So the songs from Steal This Album weren't completed,

certainly not to the mix stage. No. But they were tracked. They were born during that time. Yeah, because they hadn't done all the overdubs or probably all the singing. Or even like Mellotrons and different... The overdubs or probably all the singing. Or even like melotrons and different. The overdubs. Yeah.

Then next is Mesmerize and Hypnotize. Any memories of that kind in the band? Well, I had just moved into a new house because toxicity was so, I still live there actually. I've been living there for 23 years. That's where I did a lot you know I wrote a lot of that stuff in the living room but it was you know an interesting time because just the dynamic in the band had changed do you think we all kind of change? Do you think just because of success or something else?

I don't know yeah maybe success had something to do with it. Well, Serge's heart wasn't into it the same way. Why do you think that was? I think the way we picked System songs to be on the record is everyone, we had a list of songs and it was very democratic to be honest with you. Absolutely. The best songs won always. Yeah. Well, I can't tell you which one to pick.

I can't tell John which one to pick, but it just so happens that a lot of the ones that were picked were songs that I brought in. Nothing was ever done and no one was trying to hurt anybody. It was just, in my head, I don't care who wrote what song, I just wanted the best songs and the songs that worked together and made that album. I just wanted the best for the band, best for the album.

And we were just in a weird place where we had a member that was just kind of not along with it the same way that he was before. I don't wanna say the wrong thing because you say something and then all of a sudden it becomes this, Darren said this, you know what I mean? But trying to be really careful with my words. But I felt pressure because I was like,

I don't know, it's a very tough time to explain for me. Tell me about what you remember about the recording. That was fine, we were at your house on Laurel Canyon House. Yeah. Yeah. Where Blood Sugar Sex Magic was made. Yeah. I remember you had an idea to

fill the room that was going to have your guitar amp and the acoustic guitar work done. We put- Like a wall of acoustic guitars. A wall of acoustic guitars. Yeah, I just was experimenting because. What was the thought? Well, I would go to the guitar center

and when I'd play an amp in their vintage room, everything sounded so good in there. And I saw this, they had this wall of acoustic guitars and I would be thinking, there's got to be something about the sound going through those guitars. Like a resonance or something. Some kind of resonance, and that's what I got. Kind of like this kind of twangy resonance out of my guitar.

So I wanted to try that with the guitars. It was a really cool idea. I never had experimented with anything like that before. Yeah, it was a very subtle thing that happened with the guitars, but it gave me a little bit more twang, a little bit more cut out of the guitars. But.

It was a cool idea. Thanks, yeah, I was just trying to experiment with stuff based on that. Anything in terms of the writing process that was different or next level? Well, you were really pushing us to not repeat ourselves. I remember during Mesmerize and Hypnotize, when we showed you something that kind of sounded

like something that would belong on toxicity, you would look at us and say, we did that already. Yeah. So I was trying to take my writing to a place where we were just trying new things, not even necessarily metal. You had songs like Violent Pornography, Radio Video, that were very much system songs. Sounds like system, but something the system never did before. And that's why those two records, Mesmerize and Hypnotize, sound a bit different

than the others because it was really you pushing us to go to other places and not be afraid to go to other places. Not be limited by paths. Yeah, not be limited by whatever we did before. A song like BYOB., like I showed you earlier, from like metal to this fucking P-Funk chorus, back to metal, into punk rock, like they're very experimental songs

that still fit in the world of System of a Down, but they're just done in kind of a different way. Yeah. Should we listen to a radio video? Yeah. Is that a good one? Yeah. I love playing this song live, too.

This song always comes off live, and it's just, it's dancey, it's quirky, it's happy. I can't compare it to any other song I have ever written, or I can't compare it to any other song It's fancy, it's quirky, it's happy. I can't compare it to any other song I have ever written or I can't compare it to anyone else's song either. Hey man, look at me rockin' out, I'm on the video with Daddy and Lisa They take me away from the strangest place I'm Not metal at all. I think I was also going into less of a metal and more into a rock direction with the band. And even with Scars, Scars even went even farther into a rock.

And as my writing has gone along, I've gone more into a rock direction with my writing through the years. Hey man, look at me rockin' now. I'm on the radio with Danny and Lisa. They take me away from you. Really, Danny and Lisa? They were my friends, my neighbors growing up in Hollywood. They lived across from me, just random. It was almost like, look, can you see me now? Like, look, I'm in this fucking van.

Look where I... I don't even, I don't know where they are at, but they were just somebody I remember from my childhood. And it's almost like if they could only see me now, you know, like I'm on the radio, I'm on the video. Take me away from here, man. Look at me rockin' now, I'm on the radio. Ha ha.

Gotta have that. Hey man, look at me rockin' now, I'm on the radio. Gotta have that. The only reggae groove in the history of System of a Down. Is it? I think so. Memorable solo, simple, memorable, melodic. That's the way I like to solo if I'm gonna solo as a guitar player. Another thing about it, it gets faster and faster. That's another thing we used to, fucking with tempo.

It could also be something in folk music where the songs would kind of build and in people would dance and spin. Yes. Yes. Yeah. But once again, you were pushing us to go into different places and I was trying to do that without losing our identity. Yeah. And it still sounds like, doesn't sound like anybody but System. Yeah, and I had a guy who was really, didn't really want to be there, to be honest with you. So there was a lot of shit going on. I can't say he didn't want to be there,

but his heart wasn't into it the same way, you know? It's great. So we recorded Mesmerize and Hypnotize at the same time. How did we release them? Same time or? No, they were, I don't even know if we want, the double album was planned or anything at first, but we, there were, they were released like months apart. And then the Soldier Side intro, that's one thing I love about this record or those two records is where it starts with the Soldier Side intro

into BYOB and then the second record ends with the Soldier Side complete and it bookends. And that wasn't something that was really planned, that kind of came when it was like oh we, we're gonna do a double album. And it kind of came to me where it was like, that'd be a really cool way to bring them both together. And- Let's listen to Soldier Side. ["Soldier Side"]

My uncle is in this song a lot because he was a soldier in Iraq. I see. And so when I wrote this song he was still in Iraq. And the second time America bombed them. A lot of these stuff I wrote around that time. B-Y-O-B. You're a joker, maybe you deserve to die They were crying when their sons left God is wearing black

He's gone so far to find a hope He's never coming back They were crying when their sons left All young men must go He's gone so far to find the truth. He's never going home. Good men standing on the top of their own grave. And so we went from the first record to this. It's a long, It's a long ways away. Wild evolution. Yeah.

In three recording sessions, really. Maybe you're a mourner, maybe you deserve to die. They were crying when their sons left. God is wearing black. He's gone so far to find no hope He's never coming back They were crying when their sons left All young men must go He's gone so far to find no truth He's never going home Really cinematic. It's like watching a movie. I just think of the time when along the songwriter in me came out more in these records than

writing metal songs, but just like just more like singer-songwriter kind of song. There is no one here but me People on the soldier's side There is no one here but me I remember when I wrote Lost in Hollywood and I brought in the song and you told me, it's not finished. And I'm like, what does he mean it's not finished? So it was just the beginning. But just you saying that and I still tell the story is,

you just had to say that to me and then I went home that night, and I wrote the whole second part of the song which made it, this whole became more epic. You just made that one suggestion of saying, it just sounds like it's not finished yet. I really appreciated that though, man. Like you would pull things out that I didn't know were there.

Yeah, we all were working together to make the best thing it could possibly be, whatever that was, through loving it and honestly talking about it, whatever came up. Yeah. I just want to know a little bit about that. There's heavier stuff on this record, but for me, these songs are the ones that I like the most

because it was going into different places. If I'm sad about anything about not making more records with System, it's that we never got the chance to evolve even more. To see what would be there. To go farther. You're crazy Those vicious streets are filled with strays You should have never gone to Hollywood They find you To time you The harmony is so cool, the notes. when I first brought it in. This is the part that I went home and wrote after you told me it wasn't finished.

How beautiful. on the wall, feeling ten feet tall. All you maggots smoking fags on Santa Monica Boulevard. This is my front page. This is my new rage. All you bitches put your hands in the air and wave them like you just don't care. It kind of gives me this vibe of all the young dudes. Yeah. Okay, like it has this like open.

Yeah. Don't stand open... Yeah. Don't stem it. Yeah. To me this is heavy. It was very heavy in emotion. Absolutely. And I... As the band went along, I think we would have gone more into this place and maybe not as metal and not as, you know. Chili Peppers kind of started with the funk, but as they went along, they changed into a different direction.

So cool. I think we were capable of doing that. I'm not sure a lot of bands are capable of letting... You already made the transition from metal to experimental music and didn't lose System of a Down. That's the hardest part. And within the realm of experimental music, there's a lot of places to go. Really, I've done a beautiful part. They're on Hollywood's holy march

It's just the songs about like when I was a kid I ride my bike and you'd see You'd see people Sitting at the bus stop or there was a lot of prostitution where I grew up. I mean right in front of my apartment there was a motel and it was all prostitution going on. And all those pictures are in my head when I sing this song or when I wrote this song was just all the people that I grew up seeing, didn't know them, but just grew up seeing in the streets of Hollywood that either came here with a dream or, you know,

but it was, a lot of my childhood is in this song. And I was born in Hollywood, you know, so like, come to Hollywood. So you got to see these sad stories. Just some sad, some not sad, I don't know, but just how did that person end up in this place? I would be riding my bike around the block and how did these people end up here?

Two interesting stats that I never made the connection before. So I never thought of it as five albums, even though it is five albums. And you mentioned the Doors. The Doors only made five albums. And System only made five albums. And then the other one is, is System's entire recording career was over seven years.

And the Beatles' entire recording career was only seven years. They made 13 albums in the seven years and the Beatles entire recording career was only seven years They made 13 albums in the seven years, but it's still seven years. Yeah, it's just interesting Yeah, I mean look I'm proud of the records like I said, I don't live with any regret or anything like that, but it would have been nice to see where the band Would have evolved if we kept putting music out. If we put out an album now, it's just so far away from when we did this. It doesn't continue the story to me.

It feels like starting a new story really. There was a time that that might've been something I wanted. Yeah. I'm not sure how much I want that. Understood. Anymore. I don't, I'm sure people won't be too happy to hear that for me, but yeah, I'm not at the same place where I was.

Understood. Maybe 10 years ago. Yeah. But then again, maybe that's the place to be that allows it to happen. You can't predict where you're going to be and how you're going to feel. Impossible. But, yeah, man, I mean, I think we, for a short period of time that we had in a few recording sessions, we did evolve quite a bit.

Quite a bit. Quite a bit. So... A lot of growth and a lot of material in a short period of time. Loads of songs. Yeah. We actually had even more leftover from those sessions. Maybe someday. If that did ever happen,

I might want to go back and look at them again and maybe. Yeah. But the same thing happened with Steel This Album. Yeah, it would be that kind of thing. Finishing them essentially. Yeah, there's a reason why they weren't on the record. They just weren't as good in some way. They had good parts, but maybe not good completely. So, you know, in everything.

How would you say your relationship to music has changed over the course of your life? Hmm You know, I was writing albums at this time now I still I released stuff with scars, but scars has two records out and I have a new one coming next year. But, uh, I write kind of at my pace now and I write for me and then I choose to put it out when I want to put it out.

There's no like, there isn't as much pressure. Yeah. But you still continue writing. Oh yeah. That's what you do. No, I have tons of songs that nobody's ever heard. And you continue adding to that list? Yeah, yeah.

I do have quite a bit of material that no one's heard. Some will work with systems, some will work with scars. But at this point, they're probably all going to end up going to Scars at some point. I mean, there was a time where I held on to them because I was like, okay, we might get back into, we might need these songs. And I've just kind of held on to songs through the years because thinking maybe, and when that time comes, we're going to need these songs. and when that time comes, we're gonna need these songs. You know? And so, you know, I've just kind of held on to music and enjoyed it myself.

And like I said, I would be doing it if there wasn't a fan base or, you know, there'd be something missing in my life. I wasn't still writing and playing. What's your experience of playing live now? With System or Scars? Both. It's a totally different experience.

With System, we're playing, I know what to expect. The band is big. You just said, you know, you came to our show, there were 60,000 people there. Everybody's singing along. Everyone's singing along. But man, I just played two shows with Scars a couple weeks ago, one at Aftershock and one at the... used to be Bank of California.

We... I mean, there was people singing Scars songs and they're for Scars. And I was kind of like... I expected a lot less. Yeah. And it seems like a lot of people... I don't promote the band very much, I don't put the band out too much, but there are people there that really enjoy those records and enjoy my writing and show up for those gigs. But it's different because there's a different vibe because like you're

you're working for it again. It seems like you work for it with System, but when the people are there to see you and adore you and all. They are singing along with songs. A lot of the work is done. Yeah, you know what to expect. With Scars, I never know what's going to come in front of me. And so there is like this. It's a little bit more stressful for me

because I don't know what to expect. There's going to be a thousand people there, 2,000 people there, or there are going to be like 200 people there. I don't know. But these last shows, man, were really great with Scars and I'm excited to put out this new record. I've actually been holding onto this record for a couple of years. So it's a good sign that you can write songs like even talking about system songs, you would talk about songs from different albums that might have been written in your parents'

house. There's a timeless feeling about your songs where they don't sound like they're now or that they get old. That they're just sort of good songs and good songs seem to always be good songs. I think some people are like, hey, when I hear you play the guitar, I know it's you. And I'm like, I don't think it's so much the guitar. It's just the way I arrange songs, the way I write songs is I think if I had a signature to what I did, it's the songs, it's not necessarily the instrument that I'm playing,

it's how I organize and how I compose and put things together that work in a way that it ends up sounding like one of my pieces. Because you put together pieces that don't obviously go together, but they flow very naturally in your songs. Yeah, and I have a really broad taste in music. There's so many different kinds of genres,

so many different kinds of music that I love. And you don't feel one way all the time either you know so I feel very fortunate to be an artist that I love death metal but I couldn't just play in a death metal band yeah I love that would get old and it would be limiting yeah so I've kind of built myself in a way where fans aren't necessarily surprised when I do something different. And I feel like I would do it regardless, whether I can get away with it or not. It's just it's honest to me. You know, it's cool to be able to have that room and not be just, you know, I have to use

these heavy riffs and this vocal style all the time. Like, I feel very free as a songwriter to be able to kind of do what I want and it kind of comes out sounding like me. Whether it's a song like Lonely Day or a song like BYOB or, you know or there's some, look, I know Scars isn't as big a system, but some of my songs that I'm really proud of, I wrote their song called Insane, Babylon that are Scars songs that guns are loaded. There's some songs that I'm very, very proud of

in the Scars catalog as well. I think I'm fortunate to have that outlet as, well too, because some people have that one band. I do have another band that seems like people care about and come to see. Great. So I feel very fortunate with that. Tetragrammaton is a podcast. Tetragrammaton is a website. Tetragrammaton is a whole world of knowledge.

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