Shavo was born in Armenia as Shavarsh
Odadjian lived there in his early ages before his family moved to
Italy for a short while and then headed to Los Angeles, California
eventually.
In his youth, Shavo used to spend most of his time skateboarding and
listening to punk rock and heavy metal music. Among others, he names
The Punk Angle, Dead Kennedys, KISS and Black Sabbath as his
favorite bands with great influence on his future musical
development.
Shavo was raised in a great part by his grandmother, after whose
death he claims to have lost faith and to have stopped praying every
night as he did before. He attended 'Alex Pilibos' High School in
Los Angeles, an Armenian parochial school, including his future band
mates Daron Malakian and Serj Tankian, although they were not
acquainted at the time due to age difference.
Apart from working in a bank doing wire transfers, he also started
managing Soil, the band of Malakian and Tankian in 1993 after
meeting them in a recording studio, where he was recording with his
own band. In 1995, Shavo became the permanent bassist of the band,
which from then on called itself System of a Down.
Before Odadjian and his high school friends formed System, the
band's bassist appeared on MTV as an extra in AC/DC's video for "Big
Gun" from 1993's "Last Action Hero" soundtrack. He was just 18 years
old. "You see me full-on," Odadjian said. "It just happened where
Arnold Schwarzenegger came next to me. ... It was bad lighting,
because they had more light on me than they did Arnold. And I'm
watching it going, 'Whoa, dude — I'm on TV!' It was really strange."
In addition, Odadjian is a popular DJ in the LA area, taking part in
such events as the "Rock/DJ Explosion" on March 2nd 2001 at The Roxy
in Hollywood, CA and collaborating with band mate 'Serj Tankian' on
SerArt, the singers side project with multitalented Armenian
musician 'Arto Tuncboyaciyan'. He goes by the name "DJ Tactic."
Stating himself to be a "very visual person," he has also
directed music videos for System of a Down ( Aerials, Toxicity,
Question! and Hypnotize), and Taproot, creating surreal atmospheres
and using innovative methods in filming.
Shavo made a short cameo appearance in the 2001 movie 'Zoolander' as
one of Hansel's friends. His favorite actor is Christopher Walken,
and he declares to be fascinated with occultism, mainly in the form
of movies.
Shavo was originally a guitarist, and claims to play guitar better
than he does bass. In fact, he was the guitarist for Soil for a
short period of time. Apart from playing bass, Shavo did a little
bit of vocals on the song, "Bounce", with a strange high pitched
voice. He usually plays bass with a pick, but he can be seen using
his fingers from time to time. ACHOZEN Recently Shavo started side project
with The Rza from Wu-Tang, they already entered the studio and have
plans for tours and even for a movie, read more about it
HERE.
The new formed band named:
ACHOZEN, and so far it has 3 members, Shavo, Rza and Kinetic 9.
Their first live show was at The Key Club in L.A on December 1st,
2006. The official myspace page of the new band released a bootleg
video for a song titled 'DEUCES' but its been taken off later. |
