L.A (Billboard) - Few acts can trot out a Peter Jennings newsreel before a concert and have a hard-rock audience of 6,000 erupt in cheers. For fans of System of a Down, however, a pre-show report o­n genocide is as fitting as a guitar solo.

It is a Sunday night in late April, and System of a Down is staging its third hometown concert to benefit human rights and genocide awareness organizations. The group is about to embark o­n a world tour, and the L.A. crowd has gathered not to see the band off or hear a glimpse of its upcoming material. Instead, the atmosphere at the Gibson Amphitheater (formerly Universal Amphitheater) is that of a family reunion, where high schoolers and adults stand and cheer a heavy metal guitar line -- or an ABC news clip from 1999 -- all in the name of Armenian heritage.

"This band didn't start to change the world," guitarist/songwriter Daron Malakian later says from the stage. "This band didn't start to change your mind. This band started just to make you ask questions."

Fans drape the Armenian flag over the balcony, and the mosh pit near the front of the stage is a blur of red, blue and orange as fans brandish flags in the crush. A fan in the back yells "f--- Turkey" -- a remark directed at the country that perpetrated the Armenian genocide of 1915 -- and the audience explodes in cheers that rival anything the band received at Ozzfest in 2002.

BRINGING ITS OWN OPINION

System of a Down's ethnic appeal and political directness are not the typical qualities of today's megastars, and that says nothing of the band's music: a metal-laced mesh of off-the-wall rhythms and whiplash shifts in direction.

The American/Columbia act has sold nearly 6 million albums in the United States, according to Nielsen SoundScan. The group's 2001 effort, "Toxicity," is its most successful so far, scanning 3.5 million copies.

On May 17, System of a Down will release the first half of its most ambitious project, a double-album that will be issued as two separate discs nearly six months apart.

The first disc, "Mezmerize," was introduced in March with first single "B.Y.O.B.," a thrashy, Black Sabbath-inspired anti-war anthem. The song is highly critical of U.S. policy in the Middle East. ("And we don't live in a fascist nation," Malakian sings with far from subtle sarcasm.)

Loaded with four-letter words, it is not the obvious choice for a radio cut. Singer/songwriter Serj Tankian says the band chose the song with hesitation.

"It's such a heavy and aggressive song, and we didn't want a political song as our first single," he says. "But it's so powerful and so different from everything else o­n the radio, we thought we could get away with it, even though we don't want to be pigeonholed as a political band."  

Yet Tankian can't escape politics. As the co-founder of Axis of Justice, the activist Web site he runs with Audioslave's Tom Morello, Tankian is the most politically active member of System of a Down.

Mild-mannered and articulate, Tankian chooses his words with the conscientiousness of a scholar. He shows up for an interview in a suit, while Malakian slouches next to him in jeans and a T-shirt. In the words of producer Rick Rubin, Malakian is the "darker, more aggro character, and Serj is the poet."

"The word 'politics' is a funny thing," Tankian says. "A lot of people say, 'Hey, I'm not political,' and they don't realize that, in today's world, economics, politics, class struggle and social structure, are all tied together. It affects us directly, whether we like it or not, or whether we want to pay attention to it or not. Our lives are political, and System of a Down is a band that talks about politics and has very strong points of view."

System of a Down is also the band Columbia Records Group chairman Will Botwin describes as the company's "flagship." He says the label is counting o­n "Mezmerize," and follow-up "Hypnotize" -- which is planned for a November release -- to surpass the sales of "Toxicity."

"We sold more than 5.5 million worldwide, and our expectations are that this upcoming record is going to exceed that," he says. "We look at what happened last time as a barometer for what our goals need to be for this record."

Fans first got a taste of "Mezmerize" when the track "Cigaro" was leaked to the Internet. At the time, the band's representative claimed the cut got out against the group's will.
But that was not the case.

"It was our choice to put it out," Tankian says. "Everyone made it sound like it leaked. Marketing efforts get more interesting day by day."

The cut -- in which Malakian turns a reference to the size of male anatomy into a statement about the egoism of the ruling class -- made it o­nto the airwaves. Despite not being officially worked at radio, "Cigaro" peaked at No. 29 o­n the Billboard Modern Rock chart.

Like all of its previous work, the act recorded the albums with Rubin, who signed the band to his American Recordings imprint in 1997. If there is a noticeable difference between "Cigaro" and past System of a Down songs, it is that the first voice o­ne hears is that of Malakian and not Tankian.

Tankian is still the group's primary vocalist, and Malakian has always composed essentially all of the band's music -- coming off as hard rock's answer to Frank Zappa. Yet "Mezmerize" and "Hypnotize" see Malakian writing more lyrics than he has before. Malakian even splits vocal duties more evenly with Tankian and sings lead o­n a few cuts.

Tankian and Malakian run their own record labels, but Tankian's Axis of Justice Web site is becoming more visible, and in 2003 he recorded an album of largely experimental instrumental music with Armenian musician Arto Tuncboyaciyan. With Malakian taking o­n a more active vocal role, o­ne gets the impression that Tankian is taking a step or two back from band.
"I'm starting to compose music for films," Tankian says, "and I don't like being committed to o­ne thing, whether it's the singer of a band or o­ne band in general. System of a Down is part of what I do, but it's just part of what I do. I don't define it, nor does it define me."

Malakian, however, notes that o­nly those outside of the band's inner circle will be surprised to hear him sing more. "I've always been vocally involved with System of a Down, not necessarily as a singer, but I've written a lot of the melody lines and the vocal patterns. When I wrote something before, I had Serj in my head, but this time I had both of us in my head."

In discussing the new albums, Malakian and Tankian always refer to them as a single project. To the band, "Mezmerize" and "Hypnotize" are o­ne album released in two parts, with both topping off somewhere between 35 and 40 minutes.

"You don't have a bunch of kids dropping acid like they used to," Malakian says. "You can't just release double albums and expect people to sit there and devote their time to it. Our songs are tough to digest, and I would feel really uncomfortable handing someone a CD with 25 songs staring them in the face."

Rubin agrees, saying he recorded about 35 songs with the band and was unable to get it down to a number that was manageable. "Everything in today's culture is short term and disposable," Rubin says. "We're living in a time when people don't seem to even listen to o­ne full album, so we felt the o­nly way for it get properly heard was to spoon feed it."

The group is in the midst of a 10-city "guerrilla tour" that began April 25. The band is playing small venues in major markets, with ticket information and show locations being announced just days before.

It will make its first major national TV appearance May 7, performing two songs o­n "Saturday Night Live." System of a Down has generally stayed away from the late-night talk-show circuit, and the band will nix anything too commercial.

"We recently received an e-mail from a documentary filmmaker in Israel," Tankian says. "He wants to use 'Aerials' for making a film about hats. He saw these Armenian monks listening to and singing 'Aerials' in Jerusalem. He's not paying anything, but I think that's cool. That's more our cup of tea than a football commercial."

This month the group will head overseas to perform at European festivals, and then launch an arena tour of North America with the Mars Volta in late summer. It will be System of a Down's first large-scale U.S. tour since Ozzfest in 2002.

"We could have put out another record really quick and played o­n the fact that 'Toxicity' did really well," Malakian says. "But we were determined to make another record instead. I want to stay a fan of System of a Down. We can't become everyone's favorite band."

Read more of this article Reuters/Billboard website

Article by Todd Martens

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