:Left to Right
Shavo Odadjian, Daron Malakian, Serj Tankian, John Dolmayan
System of a Down a grammy award-winning metal band from Los Angeles, CA USA.
Each member is from Armenian descent. Either parents or grandparents. -See personal profiles for more info.
Birth of the System
System of a Down was born in 1993 as 'Soil' founded by Serj and Daron. They went to High School with eachother.
They had Dave Hakopyan [Apex theory] on bass and Ontronik Khachaturian [Local Hawaii Drummer] on the drums. Towards the end of Soil, Shave Odadjian joined as the guitarist and after three years the band split up.
System of a Down - The Early Years -'95-'97
When Soil split up, Serj, Daron and Shavo formed a new band called System of a Down chosen upon a poen Daron wrote called Victims of the Down but Shavo didn't like the word 'Victims' therefore suggested a change to 'System of a Down'. the band liked this very much and agreed to his decision.
System quickly made a Demo tape in 1995 which was untitled at the time. The tape included early recordings of Mr Jack [PIG] and Sugar.
In mid-1997, Ontronik Khachaturian left the band due to quite a serious hand injury therefore John Dolmayan joining soon after.
When they did a live gig at Whisky-A-Go-Go and Viper Room, Rick Rubin just happened to have seen the act and swiftly picked them up to be their producer along-side Daron. They were very soon then signed by Song BMG, American/Columbia records.
System of a Down - '98-'00
This era was a very important one for the success of System of a Down. They released their self-titled debut album to the public which became a great success. The singles 'Sugar' and 'Spiders' became a huge hit to fans worldwide.
During this time they were the opening band for Slayer and travelled with Fear Factory and Incubus.
System of a Down - Main Success -'01-'03In 2001, System released their massive hit, political-ridden album, System of a Down. It also won the award for being the most political record of that year. It had released as #1 in Canada and America and stayed there
It was still on top in America on the week of the September 11, 2001 attacks and the political environment caused by the attacks added to the controversy surrounding their hit single "Chop Suey!" causing it to be taken off the radio as it contained politically sensitive lyrics at the time such as "(I don't think you) trust in my self-righteous suicide."
In 2001, the band went on tour with Slipknot in the United States, Mexico and Colombia. After seeing the success of the tour, System and Slipknot went on a Pledge of Alliegance Tour with Rammstein in 2002. In late 2001, a few unreleased tracks made their way onto the Internet.
In November 2002, the group released 'Steal this Album' which were songs left over from Toxicity.
The song "Innervision" was released as a promo single and received constant airplay on alternative radio. A video for "Boom!" was filmed with director Michael Moore as a protest against the War in Iraq. They joined the thousands of protesters who wanted peace instead of war.
System of a Down - Mezmerize/Hypnotize -'04-'05
During this era, joint albums Mezmerize and Hypnotize were released. System said these albums are actually 1 whole album just split into 2 different names. They had so much material they couldn't/didn't want to fit onto 1 disc.
Mezmerize was released early-mid 2005 [UK] and Hypnotize late 2005. Upon the first week of Mezmerize being released, it had received over 800,000 purchases worldwide and the hugely political hit single from the album, 'B.Y.O.B' [Bring your own Bombs] won a grammy in 2006.
System of a Down - Hiatus- '06 - present*
In May of 2006, the band announced they were going on hiatus. Daron Malakian has confirmed the break will probably last a few years, but insists that the band would not be splitting up. He told MTV, "We're not breaking up. If that was the case, we wouldn't be doing this Ozzfest. We're going to take a very long break after Ozzfest and do our own things. We've done System for over ten years, and I think it's healthy to take a rest."
On July 8 at the Ozzfest, Malakian improvised the lyrics to "Lonely Day", saying "Such a lonely day, with the band/this motherfucker I can't stand!".[citation needed] However, later in an interview with Kerrang!, Malakian stated that he said "this" (referring to the day) rather than "these" referring to the band
During their Ozzfest performance on July 29th in New York City, Serj altered some of the lines on "Toxicity" by singing "The Toxicity of our city, it's so shitty" (instead of "of our city" repeated) and "Disorder, disorder, we're all on a border" (instead of a third "disorder"). Also while performing in New York City Serj altered lines to Sugar saying, "I sit in my desolate room, no lights, no music, just ice cream" instead of "just anger".
During their performance in Houston, Texas, Malakian also took a moment to say, "There's been a lot of rumors about us breaking up. Well don't fuckin' listen to them. Us four right here, we will always be System of a Down!-citation needed
Malakian announced he was forming a band called Scars on Broadway, which has since been joined by Dolmayan, and will work on its debut album during the fall. Odadjian will be working on a project with RZA of Wu-Tang Clan as well as his UrSession website/record label. Tankian plans to keep recording as a solo artist/producer in "Serjical Strike", while Dolmayan, on top of Scars on Broadway, plans to open a comic book store online, which should be up online in November 2007-4
System of a Down's final performance before their hiatus took place on August 13, 2006 in West Palm Beach, Florida. "Tonight will be the last show we play for a long time together," Malakian told the crowd during Sunday's last performance. "We'll be back. We just don't know when."[5] It was stated by Sharon Osbourne that System of a Down were paid "about $325,000 a show-6
System of a Down's songs were used in the 2006 film "Screamers" by Carla Garapedian. They appeared in the movie, in an interview talking about the importance of helping create awareness and recognition of the Armenian Genocide. "Screamers" debuted in theaters in large city markets such as New York City, Detroit, Washington D.C., San Francisco, Fresno, Providence, and Boston. An earlier engagement started exclusively in Los Angeles on [December 8], 2006.
System of a Down was honored at the USC v. Cal game at the Los Angeles Coliseum in Los Angeles, CA in 2006. The Spirit of Troy also known as the Trojan Marching Band performed three System of a Down songs. John Dolmayan and Shavo Odadjian were kind enough to play "Toxicity" along with the marching band.
Tankian recently said that he has wanted to work on his "solo record for years". As for the future of the band, he said that he does not know whether System of a Down is over or not. He also stated that "maybe in a few years" the band would "want to make another album. It's impossible to tell right now. It'll be later down the line; then we'll be able to tell what might happen."6
Bassist Shavo Odadjian was recently revealed to be directing the first video for the comeback of the hardcore punk band, Bad Brains.-7
For the 2007 Grammys, System of a Down was nominated for Best Hard Rock Performance for "Lonely Day", but lost to Wolfmother and their song "Woman".
Shavo Odadjian recently told Launch Radio Networks that System of a Down is "alive and well". "We're just not working together right now. We kind of like split up at first, but you know, we're brothers, man, we'll take bullets for each other. So it's like, you kind of miss each other after a while and you, one guy makes the first move, then another starts making phone calls....this is a juggernaut, man. System of a Down is my lifeline. It'll never go away. We could not make a record for 10 years — that's not gonna happen, but I'm just saying we could — and we'll come back strong-8
* = Courtesy of Wikipedia.org
