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 System
of a Down is a heavy-metal band that can do fury and aggression with the best of
them. And yet here is Daron Malakian, the chief architect of the group's
sound, shuffling into the 1st Mariner Arena dressing room, shoulders slumped,
face drooping, eyes averted, as if he's the most timid person in the building,
if not the entire Inner Harbor. He nods at a visitor, then meekly extends his
arm and offers a totally un -rock-and-roll handshake, a sort of dead fish with
fingers.
His assistant appears more self-assured than Malakian does. So do the System
roadies, the band's personal chef, Malakian's leggy fashion-model girlfriend,
the tour-bus driver -- even the woman selling hot dogs at a concession stand
upstairs on the fan-filled concourse, where the hair is long, the testosterone
is thick and the dress code calls for black T-shirts celebrating this god of
thunder (Iron Maiden) or that one (Metallica).
Oh, if only the belligerent kids could see the new metal deity, Malakian,
right now, in the arena's bowels. System's guitarist, part-time singer and
principal songwriter -- the man behind the majority of the Los Angeles-based
Armenian American quartet's lyrics and melodies, not to mention some of the most
unconventional arrangements to reach the top of the Billboard charts in ages --
is slouched in a ratty armchair, appearing fragile, shy and not a little uneasy.
Speaking so softly that it's hard to hear his quivering stoner's voice over the
hum of an air-conditioning box, Malakian addresses the dichotomy of his System
of a Down persona and his downtime self.
"It's crazy, like a complete Jekyll-and-Hyde syndrome," he says, two hours
before System takes the stage for a set of artsy, idiosyncratic hard rock that
defies tidy definition. He shrugs almost apologetically, then takes a drag from
a small pipe packed with weed. "It's like Prozac to me -- it takes the edge
off," he says. He is wearing a T-shirt that declares: "Hard drugs made me a
better person." He is also wearing metallic-silver sneakers. He is slight and
relatively short, with a boyish face lined with a C. Everett Koop-style beard.
While Malakian might seem like a man in need of a self-help book, or at least a
pep talk from Stuart Smalley, he needs none of that in the studio or onstage,
where he's bold, brash and cocksure.
Just watch him later on this hot August night as he shrieks into a microphone,
his posture straightened, his bloodshot eyes popped open like a bug's as he
glares at the crowd, which he antagonizes with obscene gestures that, in the
calculus of hard-edged music, have a funny way of strengthening the artist-fan
bond. His guitar riffs occasionally reach breakneck speed (not to mention
ear-shattering volume) and have the overall effect of whipping the audience into
a frenzy, particularly in that elbows-up caldron of rage known as the mosh pit.
Even the Armenian-flag-waving fans in the green zone of reserved seating can't
help but thrash about.
A similar sneering attitude comes through on System of a Down's studio albums,
the newest of which, "Hypnotize," will be released Tuesday. (It's the second
part of an adventurous double album that the band sliced into halves. The first,
"Mezmerize," was released in May.)
"I don't think when I'm doing music," Malakian says backstage. "Things just
happen. I've even taken my clothes off while performing. But then I'm so shy
that I can't even take my clothes off in the dressing room, even though it's
just the other guys in the band in here with me. It's really weird."
Which pretty much sums up System of a Down.
Though hard and heavy at its core, with a strong sociopolitical foundation
(Michael Moore directed one of the band's videos), System's music is also funny,
satirical and singularly bizarre. The group, which suggests the Mothers of
Invention headlining at the Headbangers Ball, has a penchant for spiking even
its thrashiest songs with pretty pop melodies, circus-opera flourishes and
Middle Eastern and East Asian instrumentation, not to mention tricky time
signatures, unusual chord progressions and the occasional oddball lyric such as
"gonorrhea gorgonzola."
A System-listening experience, then, might go like this: One moment you're
pummeled by speed-metal riffs, a furious kick-drum assault and a howling rant
about hypocrisy and war; the next, you're humming along to a buoyant pop-reggae
chorus about "going to the party" (in the desert) and having "a real good time"
(at war). Then the hammer drops again, and the tempo shifts, and the thrashiness
and cartoonish vocal absurdity resume, and the song eventually just takes you to
the land of the berserk.
And yet, despite its inherent strangeness, or maybe because of it, this song,
"B.Y.O.B.," became one of 2005's biggest rock-radio hits.
"We're still playing it," Jim Fox, station manager for KRXQ-FM in Sacramento,
says of the single, which System performed in May on "Saturday Night Live,"
adding an expletive in the live-TV process. "I think the weirdness is a lot of
the band's charm. There's a lot of sameness [in rock]. . . . System of a Down
really stands out because it sounds so different."
The band is one of the more unlikely success stories in post-millennial popular
music, with two consecutive albums -- 2001's "Toxicity" and this year's
"Mezmerize" -- entering the Billboard chart at No. 1.
"It trips me the hell out," Malakian says of the band's success. "We don't make
easy music, so it's kind of crazy to be here."
In a separate interview, System's lead singer, Serj Tankian, says: "We always
knew people connected with our music. From Day One, even before we toured or got
signed, before 'Sugar' [the band's first important single, from 1998], the music
seemed to touch people in an honest and raw way. But no, I didn't think we'd do
these kinds of numbers."
Tankian and Malakian formed System in 1995 with drummer John Dolmayan and
bassist Shavo Odadjian. They were four guys in their 20s with disparate musical
interests (Depeche Mode, Chet Baker, Christopher Cross, Madonna, etc.) but a
shared love of hard and heavy rock.
While cutting their teeth on the Southern California club circuit and
watching other bands with less local success land fat recording contracts,
System of a Down was, according to Malakian, told by various music-biz suits
that to succeed, the band needed (a) a new lead singer and (b) stronger pop
hooks, even though (c) it might be impossible to market them to the mostly white
metal audience because (d) the musicians were, you know, so Armenian and (e) too
weird, anyway.
Eventually, System signed with the visionary producer Rick Rubin, and the band
made its major-label debut on his American Recordings imprint. The operators of
the industry propaganda machine at Columbia, which distributes American
Recordings, cast the band as a nu-metal outfit. The tag didn't make much sense,
since System wasn't aligned stylistically with the Deftones and Tools of the
world. Still, the mislabeling may have been a blessing for the band, says Brad
Tolinski, the editor of Guitar World.
"These guys were grouped in with bands like Korn and Limp Bizkit, and they were
able to sneak in under the wire because of those affiliations, even though they
didn't sound like them," he says. "And when nu-metal got cleared away, System of
a Down was still standing. It was a neat trick. They were clearly able to create
their own identity and unique sound."
Here's what System isn't, says Tankian: "We're not the Armenian Rage Against
the Machine. Yeah, we have some political songs, but we have more that are about
love and life and sex and pogo-stick orgies and all that." There are also
entries in the System songbook about, among many other things, Armenian genocide
("P.L.U.C.K." and "X"), media brainwash ("Violent Pornography"), drug possession
penalties ("Prison Song"), riot police ("Deer Dance"), war ("Cigaro") and Tony
Danza ("Old School Hollywood").
None of which helps anybody put together a neat, pithy description of whatever
it is that System of a Down does.
"I've heard us called a wacky, crazy, political Armenian art band," Tankian
says. "I guess I'll take that one after 10 years."
Says Malakian: "I even have a tough time explaining the music myself. If you ask
six different people, you'll get six different answers."
By J. Freedom du Lac
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, November 20, 2005; Page N01
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