SHAVO ODAJIAN photo credit: Dey MartinSystemOf A Down: A Thinking Man's Metal
-“...imagine a white canvas and getting all of these different types of musicand just splattering them on there like an abstract painting.” - Shavo
SEPTEMBER 30, 2001
BY DEY MARTIN
System Of A Down is undeniably the most eccentricmetal band that has emerged on the new music scene since Les Claypool’s Primus. Their brutally heavy and tribally crankin’ number-one release'Toxicity' will knock you flat on your ass. But no! This record won’t makeyou suffer. If anything it will leave you wanting more.
The music is like Primus with Queen’s FreddieMercury on steroids as it’s front man. System bass player Shavo Odajian,a Primus fan from way back, who is also the visual artist in the groupexplains it like this, “... imagine a white canvas and getting allof these different types of music and just splattering them on there likean abstract painting.” He goes on to say, “Our music is likea thinking man’s metal.”
Their single ‘Chop Suey’, the disjunct collageof strangely pasted lyrical ramblings, is one of their most original compositions. Yes, the heavy handed groove is there but this time it is interspersedwith sweet acoustic repose. A huge hit.
Shavo said of System front man Serj Tankian,“...lyrically, because Serj is a poet, he’ll talk about a lot of real things,and then he will go into things that will just confuse you. That’s justhow he does it. He likes to joke around like that.”
At their near sold out Pleadge Of AllegianceTour date at the Cox arena in San Diego, California on September 30, 2001no-one seemed confused. They played with finesse and sass. Singer Serj Tankian, guitarist Daron Malakian, bassist Shavo Odadjian anddrummer John Dolmayan performed to a backdrop of Shavo’s making: A video collage of frenzied bees, raw sex and 50's style dancing.
System of a Down
photo credit: Dey Martin
They do have a loyal fan base. The LosAngeles fire marshal knows this all too well. In a recent and widelypublicized incident, a free System Of A Down concert, promoted by radiostation KROQ of Los Angeles, which drew 10,000 fans instead of the planned4000, was not allowed to proceed. This after repeated warnings fromthe band urging that the show must go on or possibly risk a riot. The Marshal refused, then didn’t even announce it to the crowd. Hejust ordered the lowering of the 100' System Of A Down banner behind thestage like a wuss, and walked off. “The kids just went nuts”, saysShavo, destroying everything in sight. Their thinking fans must havestayed home that day.
It is rumored that when producer and AmericanRecordings head, Rick Rubin first saw the band live he started to laughuncontrollably. He must have “got it” and promptly signed them.
There is something liberating about music thatcan make you laugh. Music that takes us out of the way- too-serioushead-banging mentality and allows us to relish in a bit of humor that toooften eludes us as music listeners.
System Of A Down is brilliant rock and roll.It is complex. It is serious. It makes you think. It isfunny, and it is new.
- Dey Martin
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