During an appearance on the August 19 episode of SiriusXM‘s “Trunk Nation With Eddie Trunk”, Serj Tankian discussed SYSTEM OF A DOWN‘s upcoming run of 2025 North American stadium shows, which will take place in late August and September, after only playing scattered dates since ending its hiatus in 2011. Addressing the fact that SYSTEM OF A DOWN is performing at the biggest venues of the band’s career despite being largely inactive on the touring front, the singer said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): “Honestly, it’s not by design. For years, personally, I didn’t wanna tour at all. I had back surgery. I had a lot of issues, so I was not, health-wise, in a place where I could travel a lot. And the idea of the groundhog, the idea of repetition also artistically got to me in terms of continuous long touring. And so it wasn’t really by design. It was kind of by force. That was the only way we could do stuff, is just do one show here, one show there. I’ve gotten a lot healthier, thankfully, physically stronger. And it’s kind of funny — I didn’t wanna do any tours, and then we did one Sick New World show in Las Vegas. Because it was just one show, we all had a blast. It wasn’t a tour. We didn’t have 20 shows and all this stuff to plan. And it was just one show — go out on a weekend, take your families and have a good time. And that made us step back and go, ‘This is what we need to be doing. If we’re gonna be doing it, this is the right way of doing it for us.’ So that turned into… Yeah, we were forced to do it that way in a way. It wasn’t by design, but it turned out to be a great thing for the band.”
Asked if he will be physically “okay” to play the upcoming shows, Serj said: “Oh, a hundred percent. Yeah, I’ve been training for the last couple of years. I mean, before that I had back surgery, I had a lot of back issues and I had to have surgery. But since then I’ve been recovering and, more than anything, building my body and strength and muscles and all of that, and that’s the only way you get rid of back problems really, is… Physical therapy is nice in the short term, but you’ve gotta build muscle. And I was able to do that. And so, yeah, I’m in a great place in my life, physically, mentally — we all are, really — and we’re really enjoying each other and each other’s company, having a great time. So it’s a unique time in our band’s history, I think. And I guess it was meant that meant to be this way.”
Tankian also once again addressed the fact that SYSTEM OF A DOWN has toured intermittently since ending its hiatus in 2011, but has only managed to record two songs in the last 19 years, “Protect The Land” and “Genocidal Humanoidz”. Released in November 2020, the tracks were motivated by the conflict between Artsakh and Azerbaijan, with all proceeds supporting humanitarian efforts in SYSTEM OF A DOWN‘s ancestral homeland of Armenia. Along with other donations from fans on their social pages, they raised over $600,000. Asked if there has been any movement on possible new music from SYSTEM OF A DOWN, Serj said: “Not at this time. Daron [Malakian, SYSTEM guitarist/vocalist] just put out a record himself, SCARS ON BROADWAY with Daron. He put out a record, which is really good. I recommend people check it out. I’m putting out a record of covers, collaborations and collages, is what I’m calling it. And it’s a lot of really interesting music. A little rock, but mostly non[-rock], mostly acoustic stuff — covers I’ve done of different people’s songs and collaborations I’ve done with different people, which is interesting. There’s one that we’ve done with Deadmau5 and one with my friend Bic Runga from New Zealand. It’s just really, really an interesting kind of — like a compilation record, if you will. So we’re putting that out starting soon. Yeah, we’re all working on music. We’re all working on our own stuff. And one day if it comes together where we all feel the same thing in terms of energy and vision and representing music together, then we’ll do it, as we did in 2020 during the the invasion of Artsakh from Azerbaijan. When we feel it’s right, we’ll do it.”
Elaborating on why it has been so difficult for SYSTEM OF A DOWN to make new music in the last 20 years, Serj said: “It’s not about everyone’s [gotta be] in line in terms of doing it. It’s gotta be everyone’s in line in terms of what they see as the next record. It’s not just, ‘I wanna do it, I wanna do it,’ that kind of a thing. It’s more about, how do you envision the next record? If you don’t all envision it the same way, then it’s not worth doing. If you do envision it the same way, then it’s worth doing. That’s what I’m referring to. So it’s not about our relationships with each other, which are phenomenal and they’ve always been really good.”
Serj continued: “Our differences of opinion were always creative differences, which I am proud to say. They weren’t personal differences. We always loved and respected each other, and more than ever now. So, that’s not why we haven’t made a record. We haven’t made a record because of a vision difference, and that’s an artistic difference. I’m proud to say that, ’cause most bands, they don’t work together because they may not like each other. In our case, that’s not the case at all. We love each other, but if we don’t see eye to eye on something, then we won’t do that project — period… It’s purely creative. We do other stuff together. We’ll tour together, we’ll hang out, have dinner together and bring the family over, enjoy each other. We do other stuff together. It doesn’t have to be that one thing, unless we all agree on the same vision.”
In June 2024, Tankian, who had been promoting his memoir “Down With The System”, was asked in an interview with “The Jesea Lee Show” what it would take for him and his SYSTEM OF A DOWN bandmates to release a new studio album,. He responded: “Egalitarian approach to everything within the band. [In other words] kind of more equality in terms of sourcing of the music, in terms of splitting everything, including publishing, in terms of ideas, in terms of sharing the vision — that kind of stuff.”
He continued: “It’s in the book. We call it a manifesto jokingly because I wrote points down that, years ago when I had some new songs that I thought would be amazing with SYSTEM, and so I played it for the guys. And I said, ‘Guys, I’ve got an idea of a vision, a different way forward that I think would be very beneficial for the band.’ And I presented it — we call it a manifesto in the book almost half jokingly, but bringing a manifesto to rock musicians is… [Laughs] I guess it doesn’t work — it doesn’t work. But I was trying to instill the same type of egalitarian principles as I love as an activist within whatever I do. And at that time, it didn’t work, but maybe it will one day. We’ll see.”
In June, DARON MALAKIAN AND SCARS ON BROADWAY released a new song and music video, “Killing Spree”. The track is taken from the third full-length SCARS ON BROADWAY album, “Addicted To The Violence”, which arrived on July 18.
Last year, SYSTEM OF A DOWN announced a run of 2025 North American shows that will kick off at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey on August 27-28 with special guests KORN, as well as two nights at Soldier Field in Chicago (August 31-September 1) with AVENGED SEVENFOLD and a final stop at Rogers Stadium in Toronto on September 3 and September 5 with DEFTONES.
This past spring, SYSTEM OF A DOWN completed a nine-show “Wake Up!” South American stadium tour. The trek kicked off on April 24 in Bogota, Colombia at the Estadio Nemésio Camacho El Campin, followed by a show in Cercado De Lima, Peru at the Estadio Nacional. The tour moved on to Chile, Argentina and Brazil, wrapping up with a run of five shows in Curitiba, Rio De Janieiro and São Paulo. The concerts were SOAD‘s first trip to South America since 2015.
