SYSTEM OF A DOWN Drummer On New Studio Album: 'It's Gonna Happen When It's Right'

Didi Wagner and Luisa Micheletti of Multishow conducted an interview with SYSTEM OF A DOWN drummer John Dolmayan after the band's performance at the Rock In Rio festival in on October 2, 2011 in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil. You can now watch the chat below. Also available is professionally filmed video footage of the Rock In Rio concert.

When asked if SYSTEM OF A DOWN fans expect to hear a new studio album from the band following the group's reunion tour, Dolmayan said, "We're gonna take it day by day. We still have a few more shows to do in South America we're playing in Buenos Aires and we're playing Santiago, so we're looking forward to that. And then we're gonna home. We don't generally work during Christmas and New Year's that's a time for our family and stuff so we'll be home for the next three or four months. And then Serj [Tankian, vocals] takes off and goes to New Zealand for a couple of months he lives part time in New Zealand. And then I think he's got another solo album coming out next summer. So you might see SYSTEM touring next summer, you might not. But for the people who are waiting for an album I know there's a lot of people waiting for an album; I'm waiting for an album just like they are. It's gonna happen when it's right and when we can make something that tops what we've done in the past. Because we don't really wanna rest on our laurels where what you've done in the past is what you depend on. Well, I don't wanna do that, and I know the rest of the guys don't wanna do that. Instead of resting on our laurels, we wanna throw them away and create something new and specific for this generation that they can say that's their SYSTEM OF A DOWN."

Dolmayan previously told Straight.com about SYSTEM OF A DOWN's five-year hiatus, "I personally don't like breaks I like to continue playing. But it was nice to go off and be John Dolmayan, as opposed to John from SYSTEM, for a while. I think everybody had similar feelings."

The drummer explained that a desire to pull off the road for a while and reconnect with their lives is what led SYSTEM to take an extended vacation from each other, saying, "When you're on the road and in the studio all the time, it's kind of like traveling at light speed. When you come back, it's like 20 years have passed by, and you're only one or two hours older . . . You're living a nomadic life, and you lose touch with people because they have grown away from you. People get older, get married, die life is still going on."

Dolmayan admitted that he was lobbying to end the hiatus for the last three years, saying, "There's no real personality in the band that can be pushed to do anything that they don't want to. We are four very strong individuals."

But Dolmayan also said that the occasional clash of those four strong personalities led to the break as well, explaining, "We all have our idiosyncrasies and things that irritate the shit out of each other. Some of [singer] Serj's [Tankian] stuff irritates me, and I'm sure some of my stuff irritates the shit out of him. That's natural. You're in a relationship when you're in a band . . . But look at us we've been together longer than most marriages last."

"And a band is a marriage," Dolmayan continued, "except that you don't have one headache, you have three to four headaches, and, on top of that, everyone having other people that influence each member. It's almost like a congress, there are so many people involved. Ultimately, though, we make the decisions because we are the band. Our relationships are all intact, and we always have a great time together. The other day, it took us 20 minutes to start a rehearsal because we were all too busy laughing. I don't even remember what was so funny, but that's a sign that we don't take things too seriously. We like to just get up there and play."

SYSTEM's last two albums, "Mezmerize" and "Hypnotize", were released in 2005.

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