System Of A Down-Biography

Malakian, singer Serj Tankian, bassist Shavo Odadjian and drummer John Dolmayan, bonded quickly as friends but also shared Armenian ancestry and mutual disdain for perceived limitations. Their disparate tastes – Jaco Pastorious, Slayer, The Beatles, Faith No More, traditional Armenian folk music – assured from the onset that this would be a band less ordinary.
Serj favors abstract, existential poetry, peppered with politics and personal religion. He says, “No one ultimately knows what they’re saying anyway. Are we really making art? Art doesn’t belong to us. It doesn’t belong to people, it belongs to the universe. It comes FROM the universe. It comes THROUGH us. When I write something, I think I know what I’m saying, but I never pretend to know the full meaning of the words.”
In August of 2001, System of a Down emerged with their second album, “Toxicity.” As critics scoured their thesauri for ample superlatives, radio and MTV heavily rotated the first single, a harmony-drenched slab of whiplash rock called “Chop Suey.” With the cult of System exploding nationwide, the foursome took to the road where manic throngs of Systemites old and new awaited.
In May of 2002, with the title track from Toxicity in heavy rotation and a third single, “Aerials” fast gaining steam, System accepted the coveted headlining slot on the annual OzzFest circus. The thinking man’s metal troupe aim to give Ozzy’s mobile headbangathon an intellectual facelift.
Now one year after the triumph of “Toxicity,” System of a Down find themselves in an elite class of rock acts who’ve managed commercial hugeness with dignity in spades and nary a compromise on their resume. They’ve engendered a sound transcendent of trends or labels, a propulsive hybrid destined to flourish in any radio climate from here to forever. What sonic twists await us only they know, but we can rest assured knowing that their next offering, like those that have proceeded, will be born from a primal need to evade classification and emote loudly.