Metal Anarchy

During an interview with Sona Oganesyan, Serj Tankian further discussed the lack of a new System Of A Down album. The frontman offered transparency on the band’s failed sessions, saying “there is no album that is written.”

Tankian said the following:

“I would say there is no album that is written. I would say that the band…. So years ago — and this is outlined in the book — but years ago, there was a try of coming to minds with myself and the guys in the band. I tried to come to them with what I call jokingly a manifesto, and saying, ‘Listen, if we’re going to move forward, let’s do things in a more egalitarian fashion. Let’s equally split publishing. Let’s equally bring in songs’ — especially the creators, mostly Daron [Malakian, guitarist/vocalist] and I, Shavo [Odadjian, bassist] as well. And everyone gets a veto on songs, like all these amazing kind of, you know, theoretical, positive, egalitarian terms.

Apparently it doesn’t work in a metal band. You know? The joke is on me. So it didn’t work. But at that time I invited Daron over. Many times, we had dinner at my house, and I would have him play me music that he had written and I would make notes about that music and send it to him, and I would send him music. I would play him music that I had written.

And so at one point, we had a band meeting — a very long one — and we didn’t come to terms on stuff, but the guys wanted to work on some of those songs. I was in New Zealand. And so they started working in a rehearsal studio on some of those songs, which included Daron‘s songs and a few of mine, if I’m not mistaken. Nothing was recorded. And they had sent it to me, I was in New Zealand at the time.

They had sent me a recording to listen to. And nothing, like when I say recording, I’m talking about like a tape from a rehearsal studio, you know, not a recording per se. Um, I would say that ‘Genocidal Humanoidz‘ was probably one of them, if I’m not mistaken. I don’t remember if ‘Protect The Land‘ was one of them. I don’t remember maybe, probably not, I would say.

But you know, some of those, a lot of those are Daron songs, and some of them he may have released recently [via Scars On Broadway,] and some of those are my songs which I released, probably on ‘Elasticity‘. So that’s the story. I mean, there is no ‘record.’”

[via The PRP]