Although it's often lumped in with lunkheaded nü-metal bands like Limp Bizkit, System of a Down makes some of the smartest music in mainstream rock.
The LA-based quartet's complex instrumentation and innovative production techniques produce a provocative fusion of punk, prog, and indie rock. The driving force behind System's style is guitarist and songwriter Daron Malakian, a gearhound whose hobbies include studying sound design and engineering guitar hacks.
After the band sold 5 million copies of the 2001 album Toxicity, Malakian holed up in his house and wrote more than 100 songs - roughly 30 of which are on System's two-part release, Mezmerize/Hypnotize. Wired talked with Malakian about his magnum opera.
WIRED: It's been four years since System's last major release. What took you so long?
MALAKIAN: I spent a lot of time in pre-production. There were months on end where I was locked up at home, writing and obsessing about how to record the wild sounds I had in my head. How'd you finally pull off the brain dump?
A lot of experimentation. Like, for one song, I put together a room where I covered the walls and the ceiling with dozens of acoustic guitars. I set it up so that the noise that came out of my amp resonated with the vibration of all the guitar strings in the room and created this really unique tone. Got any other hacks up your sleeve?
I have one of those crazy double-necked guitars like Jimmy Page played. I turned the pickups off in the bottom neck and left the top neck's pickups on. But I played the strings on the bottom neck and got an awesome drone sound that I used on a few songs. My experiments don't always work out so well, but when they do, there's a huge payoff. Dude, you truly are a music geek.
I love the fine-tuning of it. When we were recording this album, I'd spend days working on a single snare drum sound. Music's my life. Well, I like hockey, too, but not in the same way. Why release Mezmerize/Hypnotize in two parts?
Everybody's walking around with 10,000 MP3s in their pocket. If we put out too many songs at once, we'd be inundating people who are already suffering from music overload. This way, we're giving people time to develop a relationship with a smaller batch of songs. So it's a statement about the experience of listening.
Absolutely. We still put our albums out on vinyl for the same reason. Because when you play a record, you can't just skip around through tracks like you do with CDs or MP3s. You actually have to get out of your chair and turn the record over when the side is done. Physical interaction requires you to focus on the songs in an entirely different way. What are you listening to these days?
Anything by Kraftwerk - it's the most precise and perfectly produced music ever. I want to incorporate some of that stuff into our new songs, but the challenge is to do it without coming off like we're on some sort of corny retro trip. A lot of new bands come out sounding exactly like some '70s act. That's not modern rock - it's just classic rock done in modern times.
By Eric Steuer of Wired Magazine. May.2005
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