My Door Is Always Open

In a recent chat with Chuck Armstrong of Loudwire Nights, Shavo Odadjian shed light on the potential for System Of A Down to release new music, something fans have been eagerly awaiting since the band’s last albums, Mezmerize and Hypnotize, hit in 2005.

Despite occasional tours since their 2011 reunion, the Serj Tankian-led group hasn’t put out any fresh material. Odadjian, now 50, opened up about the matter, saying, “Listen, bro, my door is always open with that. I have a hundred riffs waiting, if they need anything for me.”

He went on to praise guitarist Daron Malakian’s songwriting abilities, acknowledging how much respect he holds for Malakian’s creative process, and explaining in what step of the process he thinks the problems arose: “The way it would work was Daron would come in and he’d have complete songs, which I fucking respect, man. The dude’s a fucking sick-ass songwriter. And then Serj would have songs he’d bring in complete. It would just be Serj‘s were a little different than what the mold of System became. So we would use some of it, but not all of it. And I feel like that’s where the disconnect happened.”

Odadjian also explained that the love between the band members is still there, despite the creative differences: “It wasn’t like someone fucking cursed anybody. It wasn’t like someone banged anyone’s girl or cussed out… Nothing happened that you can’t be cool with. We’re still cool with each other. We walk on stage. We love each other. So there’s always gonna be that. I wanna always play shows with them. And you never know, bro. I’m always gonna leave that door open. It shouldn’t be shut.”

Reflecting on the lack of new music, Shavo expressed his disappointment, calling it “a fucking shame” that more tracks haven’t been made, especially since they recorded two songs just a few years ago.

“It’s a fucking shame that is not happening because we can do so much. Look, we went in, we did two songs four years ago. How they sound, man. I mean, that could be an album of that shit. And we can even write crazier songs. That was quick. Daron brought a few of those in — boom, boom, boom — and the song was done; it was, like, two days. Imagine if it was going in and writing actual music and caring about the album. ‘Cause we compose albums. We’re not, like, songwriters. We’re songwriters that make albums. It’s all about the composition of the album.”