SHAVO ODADJIAN On Playing Stadiums With SYSTEM OF A DOWN: 'We're Having Fun Again'

In a new interview with the Essential Watches podcast, SYSTEM OF A DOWN bassist Shavo Odadjian addressed the fact that his band remains one of the most commercially significant heavy acts of its era despite not having released a studio album since 2005. The quartet consistently sells out stadiums across the globe, and regularly registers over 26 million monthly listeners on Spotify, making them one of the most-listened-to rock/alternative bands in the world.

After one of the interviewers noted that ChatGPT says that SYSTEM OF A DOWN concert tickets have an average price of $70 to $125, Shavo said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "[Those are] good seats. We still have the floor seats. We try to bring [the prices] down as much as we can, that the promoters will let us. 'Cause our band is always like that. And when they raise the prices, actually, I don't like it. I'd rather make a little less and have more people enjoy the shit and just add more shows. I don't care. You know what I'm saying? I'll play more and make less, just for everyone to get to see us."

Asked if he is attributing the growth in SYSTEM OF A DOWN's concert attendances to "a lot of new kids coming in", Shavo said: "Bro, it's all kids. And then it's like kind of having our old audience — they're in the front. The ages of our old audiences that we started with, they're the same age in the front. And then the dads that were around and moms that were around back then are sitting in the seats. So that's what contributes to it."

Referencing the fact that the Serj Tankian-fronted outfit has toured intermittently since ending its hiatus in 2011, but has yet to record a full-length follow-up to its "Mezmerize" and "Hypnotize" LPs, which came out in 2005, Shavo continued: "Okay, there's many things [at play here]. We haven't been around for a while. We don't do full tours. We're in the market of, like… We make events happen now. We're just doing events. We're not gonna do vast touring. We don't know if we'll stop for a while after this. We don't know. We don't know. We're just kind of doing it as we go, and we're having fun again, and that's number one, because it wasn't fun for a while, and that's why the gap existed. We could have banked out and made all that money and did fake tours and pretended like we were happy up there, but we didn't. [We took a hiatus], and it wasn't because people didn't want us and we had to take a hiatus. Bro, we stopped after winning a Grammy. We stopped. Instead of taking that and running, we said, 'It's not...' It kind of broke us down, bro. Everyone was in another head space. So it was hell at the time, but it was meant to be."

Shavo went on to say that he is thrilled to be playing shows with SYSTEM OF A DOWN again, especially now that he and his bandmates are playing the biggest venues of their career.

"When you look back and say everything happens for a reason, it literally was perfect for… And I'll speak for myself," he said. "To me, it was perfect even though I was the one pushing for us to play as much as possible together. I was the one grasping at every member. I was that person, and you can ask any one of them. They'd be, like, 'Yeah, Shavo was the one.' Because I was hurting because I love doing this. I felt, like, 'Why the fuck did we get so famous and then we can't do it now?' I didn't wanna get famous and not do it. Fuck the fame — I wanna do it. I'd rather do it without fame than have fame and not do it. That's the passion, 'cause I love what I do. It's not like I do it because it makes money. So, yes, I'm very grateful for all that stuff, but it's because we're having fun again, bro. We're having fun."

Shavo added: "I could have died, bro, 'cause I was in a bad place when it was ending [two decades ago]. I was drinking, I was doing stuff. I was using substances because I was unhappy thinking that the thing that we built is ending, and that was hurtful, bro. It was like a marriage that you were still in love with [the partner], but there's four people, and they're not in love with each other, and it's, like, fuck. You can't help their love. You try, but... But it wasn't love that was ending. It was exterior forces that were built. And shit happens, right?"

As previously reported, SYSTEM OF A DOWN will return to Australia and New Zealand for the first time in more than a decade in January and February 2027. Special guest at all dates will be FAITH NO MORE.

SYSTEM OF A DOWN recently completed a European tour and headlined Las Vegas's Sick New World festival in April.

In 2005, "Mezmerize" and "Hypnotize" both debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart six months apart.

Three of SYSTEM OF A DOWN's five studio albums debuted atop the Billboard 200.

SYSTEM OF A DOWN has only managed to record two songs in the last 20 years, "Protect The Land" and "Genocidal Humanoidz". Released in November 2020, the tracks were motivated by the conflict between Artsakh and Azerbaijan, with all proceeds supporting humanitarian efforts in SYSTEM OF A DOWN's ancestral homeland of Armenia. Along with other donations from fans on their social pages, they raised over $600,000.