Their first record is produced by the already legendary Rick Rubin - a big score for an unsigned band with a fervent local following. (And, lest we forget, they really rock.)īecause of the increasingly permissive state of rock radio in the ’90s, this formula is somehow not a turnoff to mainstream tastes, but acceptable. Their songs tackle war, genocide, American empire, organized religion, media bias, government control - the type of stuff you expect to hear from a leftist professor, not a rock band. And contrary to the hormone-crazed butt-rock boasts of the nu-metal bands suddenly dotting the culture, or the weepy, woe-is-me chugging of the post-grunge bands still trying to cash in after the end of Nirvana, these guys are deep. Serj Tankian, the singer, looks like a madman, only his hard-rock scream frequently eases up to reveal a soulful baritone - right before the music breaks back into anarchic free-for-all. Consider this: It’s the mid-1990s and four Armenian Americans from Los Angeles start a band, playing a fermented style of heavy metal that draws deeply from the traditional music of their homeland. We were just being ourselves,” System of a Down guitarist Daron Malakian tells me by way of explaining how weird his band was. System of a Down during the “Chop Suey!” video shoot at the Hollywood Area Hotel.
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