System Eng

Don't f**ck with the system (of a down)

Few bands have, like System of a down, held the spotlight since their debut album, which came out of nowhere, without any single, with this golden hand which seemed to push the world away. There was also this tour as Slayer's opening act, American label's pride and joy and, along with Pantera, unrivalled masters of hard-to-the-bone metal, who share SOD's producer, the great Rick Rubin. Spreading the good word during superhuman and sweaty tours throughout the world, between an energetic Dynamo and an American and European Ozzfest, SOD rests for a few hours in the capital of wine, women, culture and Secam, a video system nobody else has ever wanted.
Can we call System of a down an intelligence lobby? The answer is undoubtedly positive. Is their metal at the same time original and heavy, abstract yet headbanging stuff? Yes, indeed. Is their show a breath of fresh air in today's grey and monotonous musical landscape? Yes again.
But are they really Enrico Macias and Charles Aznavour fans? You will find the answer in the following interview, given by a very cool and enthusiastic Shavo. Shock to the system!!!

-Where does the name " system of a down" come from ?
-It comes from a poem that Daron, our guitar player, wrote, and it was called "victims of the down". We changed the first word victim to system, cause the victims are part of the system. System is a stronger word and it doesn't make that much sense. So it's open to interpretation for everybody. Everyone has their slight different meaning, and there's another way that we like it. Everyone have their own understanding. This is the meaning and it is as to be known : it's open, for everybody, just like our songs are.
-After a year of successful touring and a great and successful Lp, does your actual life as a band respond to what you were expecting and wishing before ?
-We didn't expect anything before, that's the thing. When we started as a band, we weren't planning on being here on anything, we just like playing together, we are friends, we enjoyed it, and we played shows and shows year after year and it sort of paid off. Now we are in France and we're doing our own show, and it's going really well, and I hope it will grow the way it's growing now, were steadily, and not growing fast and dropping fast. I don't want to be like any other band, but I like the way Rage against the machine did it, or Tool. In my opinion, Korn realised too many album, they did it too fast, and they are huge and incredible now, but should have took their time, and I want to take my time. It's very dangerous to do anything too fast, because you die too fast and I don't want to die fast, I want to be in this business and this band for a long time !
-You played some new songs at the London show : do you write during the tours and is the audience's reaction determinating for you to do it or not ?
-It is very important, but the audience will ask better to song they know, on the album of course, so we throw one or two maybe at the audience and see what they respond but we won't change it, we keep the same on the album and see what happens. But I enjoy the audience reacting as anyone else would, as you expect an audience to react to it. The English and French reactions were wonderful.
-Will you extend the show and the make up as a kind of theater on stage ?
-Yeah,it's more of giving the audience more than just music, something to look at on stage, they pay good money to see a band and not to see you and just hear music, that's why we do that, this play with the audience, we would like to interract with people, to be close to them. I tried to do that in Dynamo yesterday but there were so many people, I didn't know who to look at !
-The structure itself of the songs and the show seems very free and messy but in fact it's very precise. How do you reach this balance ?
-All of us have many different influences and like different kinds of music, we have a lot of Cd's, tapes, etc. and the way we bring our songs are a mixture of everything. We don't listen only to heavy metal, listen to the album and see the show, you can tell that we listen to jazz, rap, metal, all types of metal, and that's the way we arrange our music, not just one style of music.
-When you played "War", all three bands were on stage, as well as members of Sepultura : what kind of symbol is it for people with so many different origins ?
-Most of the bands we tour with like that song a lot, they believe in it and what we talk about. "War" is about the way governments and people try to forget about the war as it happened before, and not to mention we have a war right now, they try to say it's just aerial attack, but it's actually a war we are going through, and as we extend it longer and longer and longer, there's more countries involved and it's becoming a little more messy. Everyone agrees with us and believes that so, and whoever wants to come up on stage and sing with us we welcome him. Do you know the band Snot ? The singer, who passed away, was a very good friend of mine and he often came to sing with us, and that started people coming up all the time. And after him, we had other members of others bands coming, Hed Pe, Fear Factory, Static X, Spineshank, Soulfly, last year at the Ozzfest all Soulfly came with Max. Max is my hero ! In London, they all came except Max who was with his wife and children, but they took the train to see us ! Everyone agrees with our views on war, and the fact that on the album you have " War " ? with a question mark ; even if it's not question mark today. We wrote it before the war happened, but everyday war happens throughout the world today. When we wrote it, it was no Kosovo and no Yougoslavia, and so it's happening and will happen again.
-To do feel more comfortable or uncomfortable today with the situation in Kosovo as people living and working in USA and born or originary from eastern Europe ?
-I don't feel uncomfortable because I've grown up there. I'm uncomfortable with America, I know everything there, how everything works, I just don't like the government. If it was not so fucked, the country would be good. Actually, we have no problems with the lyrics and so because the kids like it, they agree with it. You have to open your eyes and we're doing is try to open their eyes, we don't hate anybody. People think we hate the Turks : we don't hate the Turkish people, we hate the Turkish governement, because he never admitted the genocide and never gave us any representation as if nothing happend, and if people around here have had three quarters of their population killed in the same century they're living in, they would have made a big deal out of it too. I say to them : at least admit that it happened.
-Your lyrics are very important : is it a way to "educate" the audience instead of singing again all the same bullshit about sex and drugs and rock'n'roll ?
-Yes, Serj our singer, is writing all the time and then when he writes a song he puts all those words together, somehow he figures what the song is gonna be about, and very open to interpretation. He doesn't like singing about nothing, he is a very educated person and he likes to sing about things that he feels strongly related about. If we can open the eyes for some kids in years, it would be something, so we like it. He doesn't like to sing about stupid things like sex and drugs and rock'n'roll, which can be fun, but there's a point to us. The first thing is that we are all about the music, that's the main thing we care about and the message also, which goes hand to hand with the music.
-Rick Rubin : how did you meet him and what does he represent for you ?
-We met him when he came to one of our shows in Los Angeles, and we never expected him to come there but he showed up in this very small club overcrowded, with his long hair, dancing, and it was a shock to us because we were very big fans of his and all the albums that he has done, Beastie Boys, Slayer, Johnny Cash. We had, as him, so many influences, I thought it would be great together. He came after the show and said that he wanted to work with us, there were record companies there, watching us, so we tried to play the game right and not to jump into something too soon, make the deal right for everybody, not just the record company, for the band, so we took some time, three or four months after that. So we sang with him and he wanted to produce our record and we were very flattered. He did a very good job over that. He's a great person to work with, he has a great respect for the band he works with, he doesn't tell us what to do, he never did, he gives us opinions, and if we like it we use it and if not we don't have to use it, he likes our opinions and our music and who we are and who we want to be. So, he works perfectly. On the new lp, we'll do something totally different but we would love to work with him again.
-The Armenian culture units the band, but is it something else than musical (friendship, difficulties...) between the members ? Do you feel like a tribe ?
-The good thing about being Armenian is that first of all it's a coincidence : we didn't plan an all Armenian band. Our first drummer wasn't Armenian, he was Hawaian but he had to go back to Hawaii, so he left, and the new drummer was Armenian, and two years after, we were like three of us and then him, he wasn't a real member. So, things happen, and after another tour, he left too and we found John, who's Armenian too. We're more than a tribe, we're a family, a whole family with complete respect for the other three members and all the rooms to breath. The culture is the same type and it makes things easier for us. We are a strong family band. Usually in America, band members are eighteen when they move and they have anything to go back to. Touring is a big concern to us, because we have families back home, friends that we love and miss. The hardest part of tourring for us is not being with our friends and girlfriends, we like to be home, we are very home based. Last year, we've been touring constantly, which is a shock : you're home for 24 years and the same last year you tour your ass off, which is good : we all grew, mentally, physically, every way possible. We became more adults, I think, living on our own, see things everywhere.
-France has been the first country to recognize the Armenian genocide. Is it important for you to be there today ?
-Yes, and I thank France for that, we also said that the last time too, we thank the government for that, and the people, and I hope more countries will open their eyes like France did.
-"In Marmelade" is very close to some Kurt Weill songs and the hand on the cover of the Lp comes from the same period. Is it a key period for you ?
-The hand represents rebellion, the revolution. Serj listens to a lot of folk music from Armenia, Greece, Arabia, he is used to, it's like in his head, it's his influences. When he start singing, before he even thinks of what he gonna do, something happens very naturally. When we started, we went through phases : it was a lot of "growlings" ( he imitates Max Cavalera singing), and now we have grown to the point to change the way of singing at the right places, more classy, more tasteful, not just a way through one style. Serj learned a lot, he has grown as a singer during the last two years immensely, more than any singer I have seen growing because I have seen it from thing to another, and his influences help a lot.
-We have heard that you were Enrico Macias fans ? And do you know Charles Aznavour ?
-Serj might be, it must be Serj. You'd be surprised ! He influences all of us ! But we all know and like Charles Aznavour. I have seen him somewhere and I like him a lot. He was voted voice of the century before Frank Sinatra. Go Charles ! ! ! I have heard that he made gigs and things for Armenia. France have been very supportive of Armenians and the rights of human beings. America discriminate more than any country I have ever seen, they pick and choose who they help, and the world goes on like that, they let genocides happen, they don't help because they have money ties with the country who's committing the genocide. And when they have money ties with people who are dying, then they're going to help and they are human rights activists. We can't let this happen to this country, but you can't do it only for one country, you can do it for all.
-What would you do if SOD stopped today ?
-I would do music, somehow, somewhere. I'm very happy doing music. If SOD stopped right now, I would probably stop for a while, catch my breath, go home, and start again. If not, I would love to direct and take pictures : it look like a tourist, but I always have my camera with me : at the end of every tour, I have a huge pack of pictures when I come back home, and I spend $ 500 on developing films only and I have memory of all this. My whole room is a picture, I don't know where to put them, but it's a big collection of mine, that I like, and I have more and more as the years go by.
-31th December 99 : Big party or desert island ?
-I don't know, but I have to wait : I would like to spend new year's eves with my family, with this one is a pretty crazy one, so I could be somewhere partying and drinking, or with my family, or playing somewhere, like David Bowie in New Zealand, and this rumour about Pink Floyd playing Egypt by the pyramids, and Bjork in Iceland, in Latin with many chorists : many things may be happening, and maybe we will do any show and we'll go to see somebody else !
-Why is SOD the best band of the world ?
-(Laughs) I don't know, I've never said that ! We're working hard, we've been working hard. I don't know if it's a better band of the world, it's a matter of opinion. I might love something dearly, and you might love something dearly, and we both mean it, and it means different kind to each one of us, but both of us are correct. It all depends on tastes : on my opinion, we're the worst band in the world !( laughs again...)
-And tomorrow ? A new LP ?
-The video for "Sugar" as well as the single have just been realised, and we have a lot of songs that we are planning to record later, and we have a cover that we're playing since the five years the band started, it's "Metro" by Berlin ( 8O's successfull band, partly "responsible" for the Top gun soundtrack - editor's note), but it will be totally different, all SOD's. The kids don't know it and think there's a new song, and nobody recognizes it : we made it in London at the end, just before "Sugar", and we had to tell to people what it was. For the future, I would like to realise more albums, make more tours, and rock the world, and as long as we can do it, we'll do it. Finally, I would like to thank France for accepting the Armenian genocide as the genocide of the century and believing it will never happen again, and teach the children and the whole country that it did happen and thank you again, and I hope that more countries will open their eyes to it. And we love you ! ! !

Jean-Paul Coillard and Mister X / Photos: Jean-Paul coillard