SYSTEM OF A DOWN's DARON MALAKIAN On His First Exposure To KISS: 'It Scared The S*** Out Of Me'

Daron Malakian, composer, guitarist, vocalist and a founding member of SYSTEM OF A DOWN, returned to music producer Rick Rubin's podcast "Tetragrammaton" to reflect on his lifelong relationship with heavy metal. Using music as a guide to discuss how different styles, sounds, and eras shaped his identity as an artist, Daron talks through what he listens for in metal, including riffs, mood, aggression, and atmosphere, and how those elements influenced his own songwriting and creative direction.

Speaking about his early exposure to KISS, Daron said in part (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): " It's the image of [Gene Simmons's character] the Demon, the fire breathing, the blood, that was huge to the kids that grew up with that and then started bands. It was huge for me. I mean, I was three years old, three or four years old, when I first saw KISS. It scared the shit out of me, but I was just obsessed with it. I couldn't stop looking at it. I'd never heard a song yet even at that point. Just the image, just seeing them [caught my attention]. Maybe KISS's music wasn't as heavy as what BLACK SABBATH was doing, but BLACK SABBATH didn't look like KISS."

Elaborating on the impact the imagery of the heavy metal bands in the 1980s had on him as a young listener, Daron said: "People [were] starting to accuse these bands of being devil worshipers, which was also something that was appealing to me as a five-year-old. But I'm sure as kids that were 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, whatever, I'm sure that was also something that was dangerous… And you were, like, 'Are they? Were they?' Like KISS, the Demon. Is this guy really — he lives like this? Is this really his life? Does he walk around the street like this? We didn't have the Internet back then. We didn't have social media where everybody sees the person's life and what they are off stage. And in my head Ozzy [Osbourne] was, like, this, 'Wow, dude.' This guy was not even from this planet. I imagined what they were like. This person is really like this all the time? I never even thought about, like, 'Oh, they're not like this.' I was very young, so in my head they were a fucking cartoon. I was still watching cartoons at this time of my life."

He continued: "I would take my mom to the record store, and the bands started playing into the Satanic thing and IRON MAIDEN had Eddie, the mascot. It was always these evil album covers… But I always wanted to get those albums, but I knew if I took those albums to my mom, she wouldn't buy 'em for me. So I would like try to go to this safer [route, like], DEF LEPPARD's 'Pyromania', which didn't have that on there. It had a building burning. But I had my way of getting those albums to me through an older cousin or whatever. They would record them on a cassette that didn't have the album cover. So I still get to listen to, like, DIO 'Holy Diver', because the album cover for that is, like, the devil has this priest in chains."

As a songwriter, vocalist, producer, and guitarist / multi-instrumentalist, Grammy Award-winning Daron Malakian creates from a limitless palette. Like painting a moving target, he seamlessly integrates elements of rock, punk, metal, pop, psychedelia, electronic, and Armenian stylings into a living sound untethered from tradition and bound only to inspiration. The music grows and evolves with him. Under the moniker of DARON MALAKIAN AND SCARS ON BROADWAY, he continues to approach his craft with an alchemist's open heart, an absurdist's appreciation for the ridiculous, and an artist's attention to detail. Malakian introduced SCARS ON BROADWAY with its self-titled debut in 2008. The LP bowed in the Top 20 of the Billboard 200, spawning fan favorites such as "They Say", "Serious" and "Funny". The follow-up, "Dictator", arrived exactly a decade later during 2018. In addition to praise from Billboard, Revolver and more, Rolling Stone hailed it as one of the "20 Best Metal Albums of 2018."

The world initially got to know Malakian as a co-founder, songwriter, vocalist, producer (alongside Rick Rubin) and guitarist for SYSTEM OF A DOWN whose legacy encompasses global sales of over 42 million records, a Grammy Award and countless sold-out stadium shows. Now, the same creative instinct and internal compass led him to "Addicted To The Violence", the third full-length offering from SCARS ON BROADWAY, which came out in July.

Photo credit: Travis Shinn