Yeah, System of a Down were a cool band, no question. But if you’re waiting for singer Serj Tankian to get tired of his solo career and reconvene with guitarist and songwriter Daron Malakian, bassist Shavo Odadjian and drummer John Dolmayan, maybe you should stop taking those happy pills and confront the real world. System of a Down are over for now. They’ve been through since 2006 and very well may never get back together.
“There’s no talk of System doing anything,” Malakian told MTVnews.com with a hint of annoyance. “If anyone’s holding their breath for a System record, they’re going to turn blue and pass out. It’s a long ways away, if it ever even happens. We don’t even talk about it — none of us.”
That’s why Malakian wants System fans to stop dwelling on the past and focus on his new band, Scars on Broadway, which also features Dolmayan. Most of the basic tracks for the band’s self-titled debut are written and recorded and Malakian says the vocals should be done in the next couple weeks.
“All we have to do after that is mix the record,” Malakian says. “I’ve been in the studio for months now, and we had 15 songs when we first hit the studio in September. We tracked those 15 songs, and then I had, like, maybe five or six songs I felt I really needed to get off my chest. So I took the band back to my house where we were rehearsing, and in a matter of a month, we had those songs written, and we headed back into the studio in late November and tracked those additional songs.”
Once the recordings are complete, Malakian will decide which of the 21 songs he’s done will make the album, which is tentatively due this summer. “About 18 of them compete well with each other,” he says. “When it comes to the quality of the song and how I feel about them, if it’s not some of the best material I’ve ever done, I don’t want to use it.”
So, what does Scars on Broadway sound like? “I hear a lot of my ’60s influence coming out in these songs,” he says. “I hear it as being less of a metal band too [than System of a Down]. Nothing against metal … I think there are some overtones that are still there, in the music. But we’re more of a rock band than a metal band, and that’s just the natural evolution of where I am with my writing.”
When Malakian wrote songs for System of a Down, he molded them to compliment Tankian’s range and vocal style. Without his former singer to think about, he was free to write music that purely suited his own tastes and abilities.
“It’s another evolution,” he says. “Everyone who hears it says [that]. Anyone who has heard it says it feels like it’s a natural evolution, and it is an evolution. It’s a different sound that doesn’t completely branch away from what my signature stuff is. It does have its own life, its own identity, which was not easy to achieve. But I’m still growing as an artist, and personally, I’m still writing stuff I feel is powerful. I haven’t lost my fire as a writer yet.”
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