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 John
Dolmayan from System of a Down Searches His Soul.
When
we last visited our hero, John Dolmayan of metal eccentrics System of
a Down, he was not really very concerned with drums, music, albums, or chart
positions.
The year was 2002, and he and his bandmates were preoccupied with
slightly larger things, namely The End of the World. Back then, SOAD's
conviction that Judgement Day was eminent had wide-ranging impacts, not the
least of which was that they were tricky to get on the phone for interviews.
Today, Dolmayan is as freaked out as ever, but happily his obsessions with
Armageddon are having less of an impact on his day-to-day operations, as he
settles in for a winter talk at one of New York City's hippest hotels.
"You're
always concerned that the end of the world is coming," he says in his intense,
animated manner. "Every generation is concerned with it, as they see the values
they have disappear. But some of the sickest societies existed in the past -
what happened is that people got tired of living that way, and they developed
societies with different levels of depravity, depending on which one you live
in.
I'm not so much concerned that the world will end, it's just that the
weaponry we have can do so much more than a thousand years ago. It only takes
one lunatic in a position of power to start the apocalypse. That's a little
scary. Now that I'm in my thirties, I reflect, 'Why do people act this way?' But
the reality is that every generation feels that way about the generation coming
next. When you get older, you have a certain amount of wisdom that you didn't
have in your youth."
With wisdom comes work. For SOAD, 2005 was all about wisdom. A band that has
always appreciated each other and what they've achieved, the four-piece from
L.A. that produces the weirdest platinum-selling metal ever decided they needed
to work twice as hard as before. A scant six months after releasing "Mezmerize"
they came right back with "Hypnotize", 12 more songs of Dolmayan's
ferocious-hitting, odd-time/straight-pulsing, inimitable mastery.
As a band with 13 million album sales, plus 64 platinum, gold, and silver awards
globally, you'd think SOAD had also inevitably learned a lot about the dark
mistakes that can trip up rock stars, and Dolmayan certainly has - from TV. "I
watch of lot of VH1 "Behind the Music" and the nightmare stories," he says. "I
learned a lot of lessons from that, just trying to learn a lot of mistakes of
other people. I think the biggest mistake you can make in the music industry is
to to become exceedingly dependent on drugs and alcohol. They destroy your body,
your relations to other people, and your ability to grow as a musician. You can
almost do no good for your band if you're incapacitated.
"I learned the second mistake by not making it. Bands would live way outside
their means and squander whatever they made. Quiet Riot made $20,000,000 apiece,
and now they're playing 500-seat venue shows to survive. That's sad to me.
Surround yourself with the people that you grew up with that you trust. I
maintain my relationships with the people I knew before SOAD became the
juggernaut that it is."
While their musical integrity remains unshaken, Dolmayan admits he has been
dealing with at least one serious hazard during their astounding rise to glory.
"The problem is that the challenge of getting there is no longer present," he
says. "We've played big venues, sold a lot of albums. What's the next challenge?
You need the next big goal. I try to come up with something personally to
motivate me. What's motivating me now is to make more albums, try to have a
sense of growth. I want people to say, 'I didn't think that guy could improve
more, but wow, he really has.' That's important, for other drummers to think
that I'm improving. I remember back when (2001's) "Toxicity" came out, people
would come up to me and say, 'Man, you're incredible.' I didn't think I was very
good, to be honest with you."
So why is he here? "Take my style," Dolmayan says, "and put that into
(guitarist) Daron (Malakian's) writing, which is very schizophrenic - he can
take five styles together and make it work in a poppy way. Then me and (bassist)
Shavo (Odadjian), we're not the perfect rhythm section, but we're perfect for
each other. I think we're really tuned in to be one of the really tight drum and
bass sections in rock and roll today. A lot of this is coming off really
pompous, but it's the truth. I don't have enough good things to say about
(vocalist) Serj (Tankian), one of the kindest people that you'll ever meet, just
a sweetheart of a person, and as far as his musical talent, I challenge you to
find a singer that sings like him. You won't.
"Take all these elements, and you have System of a Down, which is the reason why
you're interviewing me today. You have something really special. You need
something really special to achieve something really great, and I believe our
greatest album hasn't really come yet. The Who had "Who's Next" five or six
albums in, you look at a band like that or The Police, the Stones, their
greatest albums have come later on in their careers."
Dolmayan seems to measure his musical growth on how mad he is at himself after
the album is in the can. With "Mezmerize" and "Hypnotize", which were recorded
at the same time, he's willing to give himself a little credit. "We were a lot
more comfortable this time than we were with the last records, and I imagine for
the next album, we'll be that much more comfortable," he says. "I listened to
the first album, "System Of A Down", and it's very stiff. I was very inhibited.
It was the first time I was under a microscope and I thought I was a much better
drummer than I was, until I heard myself in a studio, and I was like, 'Man, I
suck.' It was a wake-up call. Even though I got my tracking done in eight days,
it should have been two. I'm very critical of myself, and I have to be to be a
better drummer for myself and this band. I have to be a better drummer. That's
my job.
"Most of the time if I think about what I'm doing, I start screwing up. I rarely
think about what I'm doing when I play - I usually let my body take over. I play
the best when I'm angry, because I really go off when I'm pissed. I hit hard
anyway, but when I'm mad I really hit hard, and when I get off the stage I feel
better. If I get a couple of drinks in me, I play very loose, and sometimes
that's better, but I've made it my goal to not have a drink or be inebriated in
any way - just be high off being onstage. Plus, I try to play as tight as
possible, and the more drunk I am, the more mistakes I make and it doesn't land.
I want the audience to walk away thinking they got my best, and that's why I
don't party that much when I'm on the road. Those kids are waiting two or three
months for us to come, and they don't care if I've played 20 great shows in a
row. My goal is to beat what I did yesterday, and when I'm onstage the only
thing I'm thinking about is that night. Then I move on and go to the next one."
About the new music. The commitment to tightness comes through on "Hypnotize",
where rock-solid grooves and perplexing breaks come flying at the listener one
after the other. Originally conceived as a double album with the songs of
"Mezmerize" when the band found that it was flooding itself with new material in
the studio, SOAD soon came to the conclusion that the only way to do justice to
all the songs was to release them on two albums, but with a much shorter gap
between release dates than modern listeners are used to.
"We realized that we wanted to keep each album 45 minutes or less," Dolmayan
explains, "because we were concerned that if we released both at the same time,
they'd ge lost in the shuffle. If you have five children, you love them all, but
you won't know them as well as if you had two children. Music is the same thing:
There's 12 or 13 songs on the album, and you naturally know them better than if
you have 25. With six months apart, that's plenty of time to take in the first
album; then you can put in the next one and enjoy it simultaneously.
"Back in the day you used to release an album every year. KISS released five
albums in four or five years, although they had some duds. We think our music is
harder to grasp. It takes a little more effort to listen to. We feel each song
is more important, takes more time to develop, and the listener needs time to
digest each song. Each song is deserving of your attention, and we make albums,
not singles, so they're meant to be heard as a complete album. We take a lot of
time and effort to make it feel that way. Each song requires a different style,
so I've done my best to accommodate each song. I'm in the same place mentally
and physically on both of these albums, so you won't hear the same change as
from "Toxicity" to "Mezmerize".
Dolmayan gets pissed. Hopefully for Dolmayan's sanity, there will be a lot of
cuts from "Hypnotize" making it onto radio, because most of the music and
drumming he's hearing on the airwaves is driving him nuts. "I think most of the
songs on radio are crap," he declares. "When I hear drummers playing the same
beats on five albums, I get mad, because they have it easy. I get mad at them,
because that's pathetic. Don't you have pride in your drumming? It's a craft.
Put a style of music in front of me, I can play it.
"I'm concentrating on new things. In five years, I'll be a ripping double bass
player, because now I'm asking my left side of my body to be as strong as my
right. One thing I'm doing towards that is setting up the kit left-handed. It's
like starting over - I'm an amateur drummer, that's exactly what I need to do.
Once I'm proficient, I'll really improve what I'm capable of."
When attempting to understand John Dolmayan and the considerable capabilities he
already has, keep in mind that his fame as a drummer is a sensitive topic to
him, due to his conviction that his band makes him great - not the other way
around. "Honestly, there are a lot of better drummers out there than me. But my
band is a big band, and my drumming is great because of SOAD. If I were in a
boring band, you wouldn't be talking to me. I understand there's an appeal to my
drumming, thank you for the compliment, but without SOAD, no one would care
about me. Without SOAD, there's no John Dolmayan."
The truth is, without drums there probably would be no John Dolmayan. "I'm
really happy behind a drum kit," he adds. "If I don't play drums for two or
three days, I'm in a bad mood. That's just the way it is. Nothing will replace
it. It's because I had a passion for it before I knew what money was, before I
had an interest in girls, before I thought of anything I was a drummer. Once a
drummer, always a drummer. When I was one and a half years old, I used to mimic
drums. No one taught me how to do that; I was born with that gift. We're each
born with something, and we each have the ability to pursue that. There are a
lot of people out there that knew they had something special but didn't pursue
it. There's somebody doing something they hate - they could have been great at
music, sports, but didn't have the balls to pursue it. I didn't want to be one
of those people."
A lack of style. "Okay, I'll try to tell you," he says. "I don't think I have a
particular style. It's a lack of style. Whatever music you put in front of me,
I'll put in something that will enhance the music. To the best of my ability, I
will make your song shine. I will do better than other drummers because I care
more about it, and if it sounds like crap, I will work on it until it sounds
good. That's why I'm important to SOAD, because I play with all my heart.
Another drummer might come in and play more technical, whatever, but I challenge
you to find someone to play with more heart than I will. The better the song,
the more inspired I am to create something that makes the song even better."
Such attributes make it sound as is Dolmayan would be the perfect drumming hired
gun, and someday he would probably very much like for that to happen, but past
experience in this arena casts at least a shadow of a doubt. "If you need it
danceable or radio-ready, that's not me, so maybe I'm not the ideal session
drummer," he says. "But if you want something that five years later will still
be relevant, then I'm the right person for you. I only got one offer to play for
somebody else in my downtime. It was for Killing Joke - I went in and recorded
two tracks, and I've got to tell you, it was not the most positive experience
for me.
"I walked in and I was ready to play something great for these songs, and I said
that to the producer. He looked at me and said, 'Can you play to a click track?'
I said, 'I'd prefer not to,' and he said, 'You've got to.' The music was done,
so I said, okay, I'm a professional, and I had no problem doing it. Now, I was
really happy with the stuff I came up with. I spent three weeks coming up with
stuff for two songs - I came up with some badass s@*&! I played it, and he said,
'That's not Killing Joke.'
Uh oh. "I put down my sticks," Dolmayan recalls, "and said, 'Did you use me
because of SOAD or because of my drumming? What I was saying was, 'are you
trying to capitalize on the popularity of my band, or because you give a damn
about my drumming? If it's the former, then here's your check back. I'm going.
If it's the other, then let me do my thing.'
"He kind of got a little bit nervous and said, 'No, we love your drumming, but,
see, this (drumming style) is not Killing Joke. I said, 'But I'm not in Killing
Joke. If you want someone that plays what Killing Joke plays, then I'm probably
not the guy.' Then I felt bad, like I was putting a bad mood on the thing, and
pulled back and did some cool stuff, more to what he wanted, but he still was
not happy about it. That was a very good lesson for me. It was an easy way for
me to see that sometimes people are more interested in your name than they are
in you. People are interested in SOAD as an entity, not John Dolmayan as a
person. You have to sift through these people and figure out who's who. But with
my drumming, don't bring me in with the illusion that I'll play what you want me
to play. I'll do what's best for the song. If you don't like it, if you want
something safer, that's a different story, but I'll do my best.
"Here's my advice to anyone in a band: young, old, and over-the-hill. Play for
music, not for yourself, and you'll be okay. Don't be selfish - overplaying or
underplaying will ruin the song. You have to find the medium ground where you're
not overplaying but you're not boring. The drummer is the spice. You have to
make it taste better."
All about integrity. The truth is, with System of a Down's incredible work ethic
- if they're not recording, they're touring with only the shortest of breaks -
it will be a while before Dolmayan has significant downtime to explore a session
career. Until then, he's only too happy to be locked into a long-term commitment
with his band of brothers and see who might be strong enough to emerge and
follow in their footsteps. "Let me tell you, I lucked out," he says, gathering
up his room key in preparation for a quick flight in the band's personal
Gulfstream to Philly, where SOAD will play that night before returning back to
their New York City hotel. "There's so much talent in this band, it's too much.
It's overwhelming. If we can maintain egos, we can accomplish great things.
"You know what? There's fish that travel thousands of miles through great
adversity, just to go up a river at great peril to spawn and die. If you want to
make it, you'll make it. Whether you sell ten albums or ten million, don't ever
give up your integrity, and you'll remain intact. Now we are a one-in-a-million
band - I know that. We do whatever we want, and it sticks. We're lucky to be
that band. That doesn't mean there won't be another band to do that, does it?
There has to be that band."
story by David Weiss
Cover story of
DRUM! Magazine, March 2006
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