Recently, we watched Rob Scallon perform System of a Down’s entire discography in under four minutes. For those SOAD haters, Scallon was kind enough to post a brand new video which featured zero SOAD songs in under four minutes.
He cleverly showed what SOAD would sound like if they never existed in the first place:
Speaking of SOAD, X107.5 Las Vegas recently spoke with drummer John Dolmayan discussing the re-opening of his comic book store and ended up talking about why the band haven’t released a new album since 2005’s Hypnotize.
The interview began with talk about the sudden passing of Chris Cornell. Dolmayan shared a memory seeing the movie The Lord of the Rings with him and Tom Morello during the time when Audioslave was coming out. He remembered him being a nice guy stating that frontman Serj Tankian has been feeling devastated on the news since they were very close.
He continued:
“He’s an unbelievable talent and it’s a big loss, a big loss in the rock community. And it seems like we lost a lot of important lead singers, guitar players, randomly and unexpectedly and somehow, all of The Rolling Stones are still alive.”
The conversation switched to System of a Down asking if they had any depressed moments together.
Dolmayan said:
“In our band, the difficulty really isn’t is one of us gonna fall off the wagon or get into a bad situation. It’s really a matter of are we gonna come together and make something happen. It’s been about twelve years since we put out an album.”
Asked about what’s going on with System of a Down:
“I knew you were going to ask that question. I don’t know what’s going on with System Of A Down. I had rehearsal last night in L.A. and then I drove right out. We have a tour booked in Europe and I know what everybody says, ‘why don’t you guys tour the states?’ ‘Why don’t you guys tour the states?’… I don’t know. I don’t know why we aren’t coming out with an album. It’s very disheartening.”
Wondering if there was any particular member holding up the band’s progress:
“Nobody in particular, and the funny thing is we all get into the studio, everybody’s getting along great. We have a blast on the road. And I know a lot of our American friends are saying ‘why don’t you guys tour the states more often?’
We talked about it about two years ago. We said look, we haven’t made an album—at that point it was a decade only that we hadn’t made an album—only one short decade, since we have so many left [laughs]… And we talked about it and said ‘look, let’s make our album first.’ We had every intention of going in the studio and working on the album.
As far as the timeline, everybody had their own opinion of when that was going to happen, for me it was ten years ago…”
If I had my way we would have put out five albums in the last twelve years. And I think we’re really doing a disservice to ourselves because you only have a finite amount of time, you know? If anything… Chris Cornell passing away unexpectedly, at any given moment…”
He continued:
“It does put things into a perspective and you realize how much time you are wasting. And how precious that time is. I don’t know why we haven’t made an album exactly. Because it seems like we all get along. We all have a great time touring. We still are putting together really good music. I think that we can put out a fantastic album, not a good album”
Asked about the new music they are creating now:
“Really good, as strong as I’ve ever felt. And to be honest with you if I didn’t feel that way, I wouldn’t even want to broach putting together an album because we do very well touring on our catalog.
Quite frankly, there’s a lot of bands I wish wouldn’t be putting out albums because they haven’t put out a good album in a long time.”
Discussing the SOAD plan:
“So we’ve been in the studio for the past year and we’ve put together about fifteen songs so far that I think match or beat anything we’ve done in the past… And I don’t make those kind of claims without having something to back it up. We’re better than we’ve ever been. We’re tighter than we’ve ever been.
We know what we’re doing and the songs are there. It’s a matter of getting together and putting aside whatever differences, or whatever problems people have—which don’t seen to surface when we’re together, by the way. It’s almost like there’s two System Of A Down‘s for me.”
They concluded the topic feeling hopeful and optimistic that SOAD will soon release a new album following embarking a North American tour.
Check out the full interview below:
[via theprp]
