System of a down album release
Malakian stated, “You don’t have a bunch of kids dropping acid like they used to. Still, the idea of a double album was a little bit daunting for the band. There’s a good amount of social commentary in the new songs, as well as songs where we deal with love, with reminiscing, relationships, politics and funny experiences.” Singer Serj Tankian revealed to Billboard, “There has been a great deal of upheaval for all of us over the past year or so and that has brought fourth a lot of emotional material. The band started writing and rehearsing in North Hollywood in January of 2004, then decamped to the famous Houdini Mansion in the Laurel Canyon hills of Hollywood where producer Rick Rubin had recorded Red Hot Chili Peppers‘ Blood Sugar Sex Magik and would later work with acts like Audioslave, Slipknot, Linkin Park and more.Īs the process continued, the band realized they had more than enough material to go beyond the traditional album format and while initially expected to have a new album by the end of 2004, they pushed the timeline into 2005 with not one, but two discs. “We’re going to give everybody the System of a Down roller coaster, but don’t expect it to sound like it has before.” “We mixed a lot of styles together without making them seem like they don’t belong together,” said the guitarist. It brought out a lot of good material - not necessarily political music, just emotional music, you know?”Īnd while System had a certain style and sound that put them on top, the band was open to not so obvious influences such as Kraftwerk, the Beach Boys and the Zombies. For one month I didn’t know if a bomb dropped on my grandmother’s house or, you know what I mean? I didn’t know. And we get a phone call and they’re OK and we can breathe a little bit. Because it was like not knowing what’s going on until we got a phone call. He elaborated to Launch that war back home factored into the process, adding, “The last two or three months or whenever that happened was probably the toughest time of my whole life. “We just want to make a great rock record, a record that will be heavy, but heavy in emotion, not just riffs.” “The whole world’s gone crazy over the past couple of years, so that’s brought out a lot of emotions and affected our songwriting,” stated guitarist Daron Malakian to Rolling Stone. By the time 2004 rolled around, the band had plenty to say and a lot of music set to come out of them. Here are all of System of a Down’s albums ranked.In 2001, System of a Down reached new heights with their Toxicity album, but rather than rush into a follow-up, the band opted to release an odds and ends collection called Steal This Album in 2002. System of a Down has sold over 40 million records worldwide, while two of their singles “Aerials” and “Hypnotize” reached number one on Billboard‘s Alternative Songs chart. The band went on hiatus in 2006 and reunited in 2010 since then, they have performed live occasionally despite having not released any new material since the Mezmerize and Hypnotize albums in 2005. System of a Down has been nominated for four Grammy Awards, and their song “B.Y.O.B.” won a Grammy Award for Best Hard Rock Performance in 2006. The band achieved commercial success with the release of five studio albums, three of which debuted at number one on the US Billboard 200. The band currently consists of Serj Tankian (lead vocals, keyboards), Daron Malakian (vocals, guitar), Shavo Odadjian (bass, backing vocals) and John Dolmayan (drums). System of a Down is an Armenian-American heavy metal band from Glendale, California, formed in 1994.