SHAVO ODADJIAN: 'I'm Not Closing The Book On SYSTEM OF A DOWN'

August 12, 2020

Shavo Odadjian says that he is not giving up hope that SYSTEM OF A DOWN will one day record a follow-up to its "Mezmerize" and "Hypnotize" LPs, which came out in 2005. The Serj Tankian-fronted outfit has toured intermittently since ending its hiatus in 2011 but has yet to record any new music.

Odadjian, who recently unveiled his new band NORTH KINGSLEY, says that his outside projects are not meant to take away from his ability to focus on his main group.

"[NORTH KINGSLEY] is new and it's great and I can't wait to take it over the top, and my heart is in this because SYSTEM is not working," the bassist told Metal Hammer. "But my heart is always with SYSTEM as well.

"I'll take the time off and work with SYSTEM any time they're ready," he explained. "I have about 25 different things that I could still bring to SYSTEM. I know Daron's [Malakian, guitar] got tons of music. We are always writing music.

"I'm not closing the book on SYSTEM because I'm doing this. I know a lot of people are like, 'Oh no, it's the final guy, the one who was always SYSTEM OF A DOWN, always pushing for SYSTEM, the cheerleader — now he’s doing this.'

"Yeah, I'm doing my own thing because I need to," he added. "And when the time is right, I'll be doing that other thing. I'm not going to close any doors to anything ever."

In 2018, Malakian publicly accused Tankian of not wanting to record, with Tankian responding that creative and financial issues with Malakian led to the stalemate. In a message on Facebook, Tankian wrote that Malakian wanted to control SYSTEM's creative process, take more of the publishing money and be the only band member to speak to the press.

Back in May, Tankian revealed that he will put out a solo EP of what he described as "rock songs" later this year. Tankian told SPIN that they were first meant for SYSTEM OF A DOWN, saying: "Originally, I had these songs in mind for a SYSTEM record if we were to end up doing a SYSTEM record. But as we could not really see eye to eye on how to go forward with that, I decided to finish them off myself and release them as an EP."

Tankian said he's considering calling the EP "Elasticity", a play on SYSTEM's massive 2001 album "Toxicity".

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