Metal Anarchy

During a recent interview with Kerrang!, John Dolmayan once again commented on the lack of new System Of A Down music. The drummer said “it’s not something that’s in [his] control” and that they would be “making an album now if it was up to [him]”

Dolmayan said the following:

“First of all, thank you to everyone for actually giving a shit still – to our fans who have been waiting patiently [for a new album]. I appreciate it personally, and I’m sure the rest of the guys do, too. Unfortunately it’s not something that’s in my control. I wanted to make an album in 2007…and 2009…and 2012…and 2015…and 2018, and we’d have been making an album now if it was up to me. As long as we were making music that we felt was of the same quality, there was no reason to stop making records, but not everybody in the band shares my mindset for whatever reason.

“I’ve said in the past that we’ve got to put our egos aside when it comes to this type of stuff. We started as a band that struggled; none of us had money, and tried to make it, not because we wanted money but because we had a passion for what we were doing. We wanted to make that into our careers, whether that made us enough money to survive or into multimillionaires, whatever got us to the point of making a living as an artist, that’s what we were pursuing. The mistake that many of us make is that you start to believe the hype about yourselves, you start to believe how wonderful you are and anything you do is gold. If you listen to your fans on Instagram, you can drive yourself nuts, as the vast majority on there are telling you how great you are, but then there are others telling you you’re shit. Once you start believing anyone but yourself, you’ve already lost and you can’t recover from that.

“For whatever reason, System Of A Down has done a really good job of getting into that in our own way. But we’re not alone; Tool did a very good job of that for a long time and Rage Against The Machine has done a fantastic job of that for as long as we’ve been a band.”

He also added the following about the members’ side projects:

“We made side projects that compared to the mothership were mediocre, and that includes mine. My stuff doesn’t compare or compete with System It’s just something I’ve done for enjoyment, and I hope people enjoy it, but System isn’t comparable to anything any individual member of System can accomplish, musically — I don’t care how many things you put out there! I know Daron is probably making another Scars On Broadway album, Serj is doing his orchestral and solo work, and I’m doing my stuff, but let me tell you: none of it will mean shit compared to System because it was the four of us together, with our talents unified to one purpose. That’s what makes System great. The lack of that is just that — a lack. If we lost any member we’d be poorer for it.

He continued:

“This is just the reality of life. People can’t get it together and can’t get out of their own ways. Maybe they’re upset about something that happened 20 years ago, or maybe they want to create a new reason to be upset. Either way, it is what it is. At a certain point you move on to other things. If you’re dating a girl, you’re in love with her and you want to marry her but she doesn’t love you, you’ve got to move on.”