Tweet
Phoenix New Times (Arizona)
August 4, 2005 Thursday
New School Hollywood
System of a Down's Daron Malakian plays it cool in the big league
By Rob Trucks
Famed producer Rick Rubin, the man responsible for signing the now
uber-successful System of a Down, recently told the L.A. Times that
SOAD guitarist/songwriter/vocalist/mastermind Daron Malakian is
"a true artist." Malakian, said Rubin, "doesn't really live in the
world. He lives in a bubble and the bubble is filled with music. All
he does is listen to music and play music all day every day."
"I don't know about the true artist part," Malakian tells New Times
from his Glendale, California, home, "but the way he explained the
way I live was pretty right on."
But as it turns out, there's at least one other thing that Malakian
likes to do.
"I'm a sports fan in general, you know," he says. "I really love
sports. That probably doesn't fit very well with the art part,
does it?"
Not that the 29-year-old guitarist is concerned with appearances.
"You've got a lot of people who are really into making people think
they're an artist," he says. "I think an artist should just do whatever
the hell they want and stop trying to be artists. That's pretty much
how I live my life."
In actuality, the members of Malakian's band, a quartet of Los
Angeles-based Armenian-Americans and surely the only arena rockers
in history whose names all end in "an," go out of their way to stand
apart. Mezmerize, their latest disc and just the first half of a
double album pairing released six months apart, furiously propels
a now signature mix of hardcore, metal, opera, and Armenian folk
riffs behind vigorous political invectives. And yet SOAD's singular
amalgamation of sound has certainly found an audience. The group's
first three albums have all gone platinum. 2001's Toxicity has done so
three times. And Mezmerize is well on its way to its own certification.
"I'm proud that we're a band that isn't made by a machine," Malakian
says, "and I know the machine has taken effect in some ways, but I
can't say that the machine was there when we were building from the
ground up, you know? I'm really proud that System of a Down isn't
like that and never was like that."
To be sure, System's ground-floor, lyrical politics are often painted
with an overreaching brush. Take the tag from SOAD's current single
"B.Y.O.B." -- "Why don't presidents fight the war? Why do they always
send the poor?" -- which both literally and figuratively raises
questions it can't, or refuses to, answer. Still, it's a discourse
that, in the past, has only been pursued by a legion of folkies and
the stray, politically aware punk rocker -- certainly not by any
metal act that, against all odds, has managed to reach out and touch
the face of the mainstream.
So while Malakian and fellow SOAD writer/vocalist Serj Tankian
habitually editorialize on the cornerstones of societal ills --
violence on television, a Statue of Liberty weeping over America's
polarization, and genocide ("P.L.U.C.K.," a song from their debut
album, functions as a history lesson on the Turkish slaughter of
neighboring Armenians in the early 20th century) -- Mezmerize also
brings to the table "Old School Hollywood," a rare personal take on
the guitarist's participation in the L.A. Dodgers' annual celebrity
baseball game.
"My publicist said, 'Hey, they play this game every year at Dodger
Stadium, and do you want to do it?' And I was like, 'Cool, man,'
because I was such a big fan. When I was a kid, like in elementary
school, I played basketball on the Forum floor. And I was like, 'Wow,
I did that.' It would be kick-ass to play baseball at Dodger Stadium.
"I ended up going there, and you've got all these actors who like
haven't been in a show for 15 years or so. And they're really taking
the game seriously. Like they're wearing like fucking uniforms and
shit. And I felt very awkward, because my whole thing was not to go
there to win. I was there just so I could get a chance to play at
Dodger Stadium."
"It kind of turned out," Malakian says, "to be a really surreal,
weird experience. And a song came out of it."
Two participants whose careers have seen better days, Tony Danza and
Frankie Avalon, make appearances in Malakian's composition, as does
the manager of Malakian's team, Jack Gilardi, agent and husband to
Annette Funicello. But don't expect any dinner for five to be held
at the guitarist's home.
"When they let me play," he says, "they stuck me in the outfield for
like two minutes, and then they sat me back down. I was so benched
it wasn't even funny.
"Here I am in the middle of all these huge like television sitcom
actors and fucking movie actors, most of them from like my childhood,
and just the whole experience, playing baseball with Frankie Avalon
on your team, is just, I mean, come on. You couldn't dream that."
Ah, but this is L.A. La-La Land. The place where rock 'n' roll dreams
can come true.
"I remember coming home," Malakian says, "[and in] no more than like
half an hour, picking up the guitar, and that song just shot out
of me. It was a very spontaneous thing. A lot of the stuff that I'm
proud of usually comes out very natural that way. I don't even feel
responsible for it sometimes."
The night after he talks with New Times, Malakian will return to the
scene of the crime to take in a Dodgers game at Chavez Ravine. But
make no mistake, his heroes extend past the diamond. Take former
Laker Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (which may at least partially explain
why two consecutive songs on Mezmerize contain the phrase "10 feet
tall"). And Malakian's musical paladin?
"Keith Moon is my biggest guitar hero," he says. A surprising choice,
since the late Who drummer, you know, wasn't a guitarist. "He played
so free and powerful," Malakian says, "but also changed rock drumming
forever."
Over the years, Moon's balls-out, bull-in-the-china-shop persona
has drawn more than its fair share of rock 'n' roll followers who,
like Malakian, just want to make a difference.
"[I want ] to affect art," he says. "To do something that kind of
contributes to art. Not just follow the trend or something like that.
Something that kind of helps. Something that helps it evolve, you
know? That's still my dream today. I've never lost that."
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
August 4, 2005 Thursday
New School Hollywood
System of a Down's Daron Malakian plays it cool in the big league
By Rob Trucks
Famed producer Rick Rubin, the man responsible for signing the now
uber-successful System of a Down, recently told the L.A. Times that
SOAD guitarist/songwriter/vocalist/mastermind Daron Malakian is
"a true artist." Malakian, said Rubin, "doesn't really live in the
world. He lives in a bubble and the bubble is filled with music. All
he does is listen to music and play music all day every day."
"I don't know about the true artist part," Malakian tells New Times
from his Glendale, California, home, "but the way he explained the
way I live was pretty right on."
But as it turns out, there's at least one other thing that Malakian
likes to do.
"I'm a sports fan in general, you know," he says. "I really love
sports. That probably doesn't fit very well with the art part,
does it?"
Not that the 29-year-old guitarist is concerned with appearances.
"You've got a lot of people who are really into making people think
they're an artist," he says. "I think an artist should just do whatever
the hell they want and stop trying to be artists. That's pretty much
how I live my life."
In actuality, the members of Malakian's band, a quartet of Los
Angeles-based Armenian-Americans and surely the only arena rockers
in history whose names all end in "an," go out of their way to stand
apart. Mezmerize, their latest disc and just the first half of a
double album pairing released six months apart, furiously propels
a now signature mix of hardcore, metal, opera, and Armenian folk
riffs behind vigorous political invectives. And yet SOAD's singular
amalgamation of sound has certainly found an audience. The group's
first three albums have all gone platinum. 2001's Toxicity has done so
three times. And Mezmerize is well on its way to its own certification.
"I'm proud that we're a band that isn't made by a machine," Malakian
says, "and I know the machine has taken effect in some ways, but I
can't say that the machine was there when we were building from the
ground up, you know? I'm really proud that System of a Down isn't
like that and never was like that."
To be sure, System's ground-floor, lyrical politics are often painted
with an overreaching brush. Take the tag from SOAD's current single
"B.Y.O.B." -- "Why don't presidents fight the war? Why do they always
send the poor?" -- which both literally and figuratively raises
questions it can't, or refuses to, answer. Still, it's a discourse
that, in the past, has only been pursued by a legion of folkies and
the stray, politically aware punk rocker -- certainly not by any
metal act that, against all odds, has managed to reach out and touch
the face of the mainstream.
So while Malakian and fellow SOAD writer/vocalist Serj Tankian
habitually editorialize on the cornerstones of societal ills --
violence on television, a Statue of Liberty weeping over America's
polarization, and genocide ("P.L.U.C.K.," a song from their debut
album, functions as a history lesson on the Turkish slaughter of
neighboring Armenians in the early 20th century) -- Mezmerize also
brings to the table "Old School Hollywood," a rare personal take on
the guitarist's participation in the L.A. Dodgers' annual celebrity
baseball game.
"My publicist said, 'Hey, they play this game every year at Dodger
Stadium, and do you want to do it?' And I was like, 'Cool, man,'
because I was such a big fan. When I was a kid, like in elementary
school, I played basketball on the Forum floor. And I was like, 'Wow,
I did that.' It would be kick-ass to play baseball at Dodger Stadium.
"I ended up going there, and you've got all these actors who like
haven't been in a show for 15 years or so. And they're really taking
the game seriously. Like they're wearing like fucking uniforms and
shit. And I felt very awkward, because my whole thing was not to go
there to win. I was there just so I could get a chance to play at
Dodger Stadium."
"It kind of turned out," Malakian says, "to be a really surreal,
weird experience. And a song came out of it."
Two participants whose careers have seen better days, Tony Danza and
Frankie Avalon, make appearances in Malakian's composition, as does
the manager of Malakian's team, Jack Gilardi, agent and husband to
Annette Funicello. But don't expect any dinner for five to be held
at the guitarist's home.
"When they let me play," he says, "they stuck me in the outfield for
like two minutes, and then they sat me back down. I was so benched
it wasn't even funny.
"Here I am in the middle of all these huge like television sitcom
actors and fucking movie actors, most of them from like my childhood,
and just the whole experience, playing baseball with Frankie Avalon
on your team, is just, I mean, come on. You couldn't dream that."
Ah, but this is L.A. La-La Land. The place where rock 'n' roll dreams
can come true.
"I remember coming home," Malakian says, "[and in] no more than like
half an hour, picking up the guitar, and that song just shot out
of me. It was a very spontaneous thing. A lot of the stuff that I'm
proud of usually comes out very natural that way. I don't even feel
responsible for it sometimes."
The night after he talks with New Times, Malakian will return to the
scene of the crime to take in a Dodgers game at Chavez Ravine. But
make no mistake, his heroes extend past the diamond. Take former
Laker Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (which may at least partially explain
why two consecutive songs on Mezmerize contain the phrase "10 feet
tall"). And Malakian's musical paladin?
"Keith Moon is my biggest guitar hero," he says. A surprising choice,
since the late Who drummer, you know, wasn't a guitarist. "He played
so free and powerful," Malakian says, "but also changed rock drumming
forever."
Over the years, Moon's balls-out, bull-in-the-china-shop persona
has drawn more than its fair share of rock 'n' roll followers who,
like Malakian, just want to make a difference.
"[I want ] to affect art," he says. "To do something that kind of
contributes to art. Not just follow the trend or something like that.
Something that kind of helps. Something that helps it evolve, you
know? That's still my dream today. I've never lost that."
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress