SYSTEM OF A DOWN's SHAVO ODADJIAN On 'Nu Metal': 'It's Not A Style. It Was An Era.'

In a new interview with Matt Pinfield of 95.5 KLOS's "New & Approved" show, SYSTEM OF A DOWN bassist Shavo Odadjian spoke about being part of the so-called "nu-metal" genre which swept the airwaves and peaked for a brief period in the late '90s and early 2000s. He said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "Someone asked me recently about being a 'nu metal' band. And I have a different outlook on nu metal. It's not a style. It was an era where bands played heavy music, but did it in another way. They didn't do the basic '80s heavy. They mixed rock-metal with something different, whether it be hip-hop, punk rock, eclectic stuff, complicated, progressive stuff, psychedelic prog. People did different things. For example, DEFTONES had that PORTISHEAD vibe that they brought into metal. It's so freaking cool. There's a whole style now — there's a whole DEFTONES-style music right now popping off on TikTok."

He continued: "If you think about it, bro, even though we got villainized a little bit — the nu metal thing was cheesy for a while because every era comes out and it's cool. Then some bands come up that ruined that cool vibe… Heavy metal was great in the '80s. Then these bands came out that kind of ruined it, the cheesier glam metal bands came out. I don't wanna name 'em, but some cheesy bands came out."

Last month, Odadjian admitted to U.K.'s Metal Hammer magazine that he was initially opposed to being lumped into the same genre as KORN, SLIPKNOT, LIMP BIZKIT and others but that he has since come around to accept it.

"I never liked being compared to anyone," Odadjian told the magazine. "When they put us in a group, I would always be, like, 'We're not nu metal. We're our own thing.' Now I'm older and wiser."

Speaking about some of the other bands that came out of the "nu metal" movement, Shavo said: "Those are my bros, man. I made great friends in that community. Touring with these guys and hanging out with them every night, it created some special bonds and I'm proud of that. We're still in that group and that era.

"You can't compare SYSTEM or KORN to STATIC-X. It was an era of doing metal a different way. It was bringing in other elements to metal as a whole and not giving a fuck. That's what the kids of today are attracted to and bonding with in that genre."

Comparing the diversity of the nu metal bands to the early days of punk rock in the 1970s, Shavo said: "Our era was like that in a different way: we didn't care we were mixing Arabic and Armenian elements with death metal, KORN didn't care that they were mixing in hip-hop, DEFTONES didn't care they sang like Sade. STATIC-X added disco… There was such a cool melting pot. You can't deny that it was cool and special, right?"

Nu metal thrived during the remarkable decade from 1994 to 2004 when mainstream charts, magazines, radio and TV were all taken over by a host of diverse artists performing their own brands of hard rock, hip-hop and heavy metal.

Essentially a fusion of rap and alternative rock (arguably born out of RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE),nu metal inexplicably swept the airwaves and peaked for a brief period, with Gregory Heaney of AllMusic describing the genre as "one of metal's more unfortunate pushes into the mainstream." Along the way, several bands associated with nu metal, including KORN, DEFTONES and SLIPKNOT, took a somewhat defensive stance against being labeled as such. Even those less apologetic nu metal groups eventually changed their sound, effectively disowning the genre that they helped pioneer.