Daron Malakian

00:00:15
Speaker 1: Pushkin. Darren Malachean first made his name as the enigmatic guitarist and songwriter behind System of a Down. Between nineteen ninety eight and two thousand and five, the band released five albums, three of which debuted at number one on the Billboard Charts. In two thousand and six, System announced an indefinite hiatus. Eager to keep creating, Darren launched a new project, Scars on Broadway. Their debut album arrived in two thousand and eight to critical acclaim. Since then, he's reunited with System for a series of live performances, including a recent South American tour that drew massive crowds. Their final stop in South Polo, Brazil attracted an estimated seventy five thousand fans. Now, after seven years in the making, Darren is releasing Addicted to the Violence, their third Scars on Broadway album, featuring what he considers some of the best songs he's ever written. On today's episode, Lea Rose sits down with Darren to talk about why he believes he was destined to be a rock star and how his parents' journey from Baghdad to Hollywood helped make that dream possible. He also explains what people often misunderstand about his relationship with System frontman Surge Tonkien and reveals the surprising contrast between this outrageous on stage persona and who he really is off stage. This is broken record, real musicians, real conversations. Here's Lea Rose with Darren Malachean.

00:01:49
Speaker 2: Let's talk about this new album, so Scars on Broadway. Album it's called Addicted to the Violence to first album in seven years. And I was curious, like, since it sounds like you've been working on the songs for a little while, and I was curious if in that process, because we live in such a tumultuous time, just every day just brings something new, something different, something that is, you know, more shocking than maybe the next day. Did any of those songs that you were writing. Did the meaning sort of change for you?

00:02:25
Speaker 3: The thing is, I didn't write these songs necessarily during these times. Some of these songs I wrote many, many years ago, but they still kind of relate to the world we live in. I think there's always some kind of chaos in the world, whether it was twenty years ago, ten years ago, five years ago, I think, one hundred years ago. So I think chaos and I think that's something that's been kind of that's always been there during mankind. So that's why I think. But you know, not all my songs are about chaos. But you know, the Idol track is called Addicted to the Violence. But I can't, you know, sit there and say every song on the record is about the same thing, and it is about there was this theme. Because I write songs. I always tell people write I write songs, I don't write albums, And those songs end up on albums. But I wasn't writing those songs for an album. That right makes sense. So at some point when I get off my ass and I'm like, let me, let me record some of these or you know, I play around them. I entertain myself with my songs. I don't really write them for anybody else. The fact that anybody else outside of me likes them is a complete bonus. They're usually just for me to begin with. The last thing I think of when I write a song is I can't wait till everybody hears this. It's just completely If I didn't have scars, if I didn't have system, I would still be doing this.

00:04:17
Speaker 2: Do you remember the first time you saw somebody react to something that you wrote.

00:04:23
Speaker 3: It was when I was a teenager. I used to have a group of friends that were because I wrote songs when I was like thirteen fourteen. You know, I started playing guitar when I was like twelve, and I started writing my own songs at around thirteen fourteen, fifteen years old. And my group of friends they were not and still aren't. All my friends are plumbers. They're all because they're all my old high school friends. And all my old high school friends weren't musicians. They were more kind of tough guy kind of you know, that's the kind of crowd I hung out when was like, we fought a lot out of school, and we were just we were those guys.

00:05:07
Speaker 2: Yeah.

00:05:07
Speaker 3: So we'd get together group of friends and I'd played my song's original songs that I had written when I was like maybe fourteen years old, more kind of folky, sometimes ballady type. Lonely Day, you could say, is a song that is kind of in that world of the type of songs I used to write at that time. And sometimes one of my friends, who's probably somebody that you wouldn't see, get very emotional or you know, that's just kind of the group that I was in would like get emotional after I sang one of my songs that like could get together or a party or whatever. And I could see that, like my song touched touched them. And it was then that I realized, Yeah, I love music. I've always loved music. I started collecting records when I was like four or five, really young. But it was then that I realized that but my path in music was it wasn't about being a shredding guitar player. It wasn't about even an instrument. At the end of the day, I realized the instrument is just a tool to bring out these songs. Writing songs is my strength. This is something that I can do and I love to do, and I do it myself, but it seems to touch other people as well, even though that's not why I wrote those songs, but it does, and that's how I kind of that's my focus kind of stayed through all these years. Like even if you you know, read my interviews from twenty years ago, I'd always say that I'm a songwriter. I write songs, I compose songs. That's what I did for System, so I do for Scars. That's my you know, in music, you got a lot of different you got the people who are technical musicians, You've got the composers, you got producing, and there's so many musicians that are just better musicians than I am. But if you put me in a room with musicians, I can make I can make those musicians sing together with my song.

00:07:22
Speaker 2: Mm hmmm.

00:07:23
Speaker 3: Because you guys, you got guitar players who are amazing guitar players, but they can't write songs.

00:07:29
Speaker 2: Do you like amazing guitar players?

00:07:30
Speaker 3: Like?

00:07:31
Speaker 2: Do you like super technical players?

00:07:33
Speaker 3: I appreciate it, but it's not what I want to do or even I have moments where I'll listen to somebody like that. But if I want to talk about like my I was always into drums more than I had drums and vocalists, and I am into guitars. But if I had to pick like guitar players, I like like I like Roy Buchanan, I like Jerry Garcia. Oh nice, just dudes that aren't necessarily But you know, growing up, I used to really love Randy Rhodes, But as I got older, the guitar players I enjoy listening to are not necessarily shredders there, And when I do a guitar soul in a song, it's usually kind of melodic. I like the melodic kind of guitar players, So yeah, I mean, but the guitar for me is just a tool to write songs. I've written plenty of songs on synthesizers and just maybe a vocal comes out first, never really focused on it being you know, the guitar, being like I really have to perfect this instrument or anything like that.

00:08:41
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's so interesting. Does it feel for you like when you're up on stage? Is it an outlet to get something out and to express something.

00:08:50
Speaker 3: When I'm on stage, there is a personality that comes out of me. I don't fake it, It just comes out. And that dude, that dude's really different. Like I don't know how to explain it. But the second I walk onto that stage, you put a microphone and the guitar on my shoulder, and I start turning into a much more confident version of myself and I'm comfortable up there. I've always loved performing. Performing is also something that you know, aside from the songwriting, I consider myself a performer as well. But it's it's it's something that is just all of it has just come natural to me. It's never been something that I think about too much. It just happens. I get on stage and I say shit that I would never say real life. I do things that I would never do in real life. I could see, like when I see pictures of me, I see the way I am on stage. You know that guy dances, that guy screams, that guy yelled, that guy does all these things Like I don't dance. I'm kind of really, kind of mellow most of the time. It's almost like that guy is not a good representation of who I am in real life. But that's who comes out. That that's who comes out when I walk on to stage, and and that's cool. But you know, he just I'm glad he stays there.

00:10:24
Speaker 1: Is it?

00:10:24
Speaker 2: Is it? Is it therapeutic for you?

00:10:27
Speaker 3: Like? Does it?

00:10:27
Speaker 2: Does it achieve something? Help you work through something? Whereas I'm thinking of your friends, like your friends maybe aren't as vulnerable and expressive as you, like, I feel bad for people who don't have that outlet like you have this amazing outlet.

00:10:43
Speaker 3: He too, No, it is therapy. I look, I'm sure everything that's there is here, but I can't express it here. The same way, you know, and then it feels comfortable to let loose and be angry, be you know, sometimes I'm completely stupid. I say some stupid shit up there. Sometimes I'm funny, like, uh, you know, Sarah. Sarah will come to me after the show and he's like, dude, you had me laughing the old time, like I could barely fucking say out laughing, you know. And the rest of the band, you know, they they have like I turned, I say something. I turned to my band and they're all like laughing because they didn't know I'm gonna say that. I didn't know I was gonna say that, and it just you know, I'm the audience doesn't know what's about to happen. And there's just different sides that, you know, and even in the songs that I write, Yeah, I can't sit there and say that, you know, whether it's System or Scars, that it's just like pure I mean metal, because it's not.

00:11:48
Speaker 2: No, it's not. It changes, it's changed a lot.

00:11:52
Speaker 3: There's all kinds of emotions that human beings go through. Yeah. Uh, you have your like I said, you had your funny times, you have your stupid times, you have your sad times. You have your angry times, you have your times that you're concerned out society. I mean, and you're this person and you're living in this world. And for me to just be like, well, I write angry music and it would it wouldn't seem honest to all of my emotions and all of the human emotion that's out there. And and so when I'm writing songs, I never like put a wall and say, well that's that doesn't fit in this rock metal world or that doesn't and so you know, and then sometimes I'm expressing like Killing Spree for example, the song is like, you know, it's very heavy riff, kind of driving song, but if you listen to the way I'm singing the song, it's very cartoon cartoon like you know, uh wow ow how wow. You know, there's all these and so there's like this series and the topic is maybe some thing that's kind of serious. The song is kind of heavy, but the emotion that I'm singing with is kind of like not heavy, not serious. It's cartoon cartoon esque. Yeah.

00:13:24
Speaker 2: I love that. Yeah, I was thinking. One song that stood out to me was The Shame Game.

00:13:30
Speaker 3: Oh cool, Yeah, I like that.

00:13:31
Speaker 2: I love that song. Yeah, I think that might be. That's one of my favorites on the album. But that like how you were saying, it's not all heavy, it's not all metal. That's definitely a different sound, kind of psychedelic.

00:13:44
Speaker 3: It's exactly.

00:13:46
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's what I thought. It feels sort of like I mean, it's hard to classify, but I was thinking kind of like nineties kind of psychedelic. But that song. I think that song's gonna sound super good live.

00:13:58
Speaker 3: Thank you. Yeah, proud of that one. You know. I tend to really enjoy those type of songs, and I feel like as I go into my writing, I kind of write more of those type of songs these days than I do the heavier stuff. And Scars kind of system has that stuff too, Like I wrote when I wrote Aerials, Uh, you know, a song like Atua has both of those things in it, Like this, the verses are very kind of you could say, uh, everly brothers Simon and gar. Then we go into you don't care about how I feel I don't, and it turns into this metal thing and goes in and out of that lonely day lost in Hollywood.

00:14:46
Speaker 2: So lost in Hollywood for sure.

00:14:49
Speaker 3: Scars kind of especially the first album you know, kind of has more of that kind of stuff in there. Yeah, people ask me to compare Scars to System. I would always say, Scars kind of moved into a more rock direction and and you'd have those dark moody, more of those dark moody, mid tempo kind of songs, songs like Insane on the first record Babylon.

00:15:21
Speaker 2: I Love Babylon.

00:15:22
Speaker 3: Like System, we didn't make any more records, but I was still going into that direction, and you can see it and mesmerize and hypnotize them that direction. So if if System continued to make records, I could see that System would have moved into that direction. But since there we kind of took the hiatus and didn't make the records anymore. Scars took me into that direction, right, and so that's why you know you hear it moving into a more rock direction. Babylon. Babylon is you know, my family was in all the wars in Iraq during you know, the first Bush, the second book. They were there during Iran Iraq War. So it's kind of a song about me and my family and my connection to my family in Iraq and my concern running to Babylon like to you know. And then there was a there's a line that's like, I like the way we slept on rooftops in the summertime, if we were And so that line comes from when I was a kid, my parents would always tell me, in the summer, people because it's so hot, people would sleep on the roofs, you know. And when I went to I went to Iraq when I was in like fourteen years old, and it was in the summer, and I was like, I would like to sleep on the roof because I always I always heard about that from my family. So I did. And so a few nights at my I think it was my uncles or my aunts, I can't remember, but we slept up on the rooftop in the summertime. So that was like a lived experience that I had that I you know, was in the lyrics of the song Oh yeah, yeah.

00:17:24
Speaker 2: How was Iraq different than what you had imagined it would be like when you were living in Hollywood. You're living in la and you imagine what life was like there. How was it different actually being there than what you thought it would be like?

00:17:39
Speaker 3: Well, I had probably the same perception as most Americans would maybe you know, maybe a little different because my parents were from there. But you know, I thought I'm going to a place where it's like sand and camels, you know, honestly, Yeah, But no, there was a it was a city, there was cars, There was a city, like a very different kind of city, a very different kind of vibe obviously because of you know, Saddam and all that stuff. But like it was, you know, just not as modern as where I was used to growing up. Yeah, more modern than I thought it would be at the end of the day.

00:18:27
Speaker 2: Do you remember questions people asked you about Hollywood or about la it.

00:18:32
Speaker 3: Was I was fourteen years old, such a yeah, totally. But I remember, you know, I had all my metal cassettes and all the stuff, because that's you know, I would. I would just I took a bunch of like rock magazines, metal magazines, and I took a bunch of my cassettes and I would listen on my headphones. I just remember when I would like show and Slayer was extreme for that time in the United States in nineteen eighty nine. You know, yeah, player was like pretty extreme for your average metal guy at that time. But I would sort of show the Slayer show No Mercy, and they would they would almost like question, It's like, is this even music? What is this even? Like I said, it was even extreme for the United States at that time.

00:19:30
Speaker 1: We'll be back with more from Darren Malackean and Leah Rose after the break.

00:19:37
Speaker 2: Do you still listen to hard music? Like, do you find that as you've gotten older, has your music taste has it gotten a little softer? Or can you still listen to hard music?

00:19:49
Speaker 3: I've always listened to all kinds of music. I could. There isn't much that's new in metal that I'm really gravitating to, Like I don't, I don't, I don't. I mean, I'm I don't. I'm not talking shit about any of the bands, but it's just I don't. It's it's not turning me on.

00:20:10
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, yeah, no, I get that.

00:20:12
Speaker 3: But uh, I've always had a My taste in music has always been like this place, that place. It was just always been all over the place, you know. When I was a teenager, yeah I was more metal. But as I got older. But when I say older eighteen nineteen twenty twenty one, I started listening to Bowie, the Beatles, Grateful Dead, stuff, that wasn't stuff that people turned me on to yet at that point in my life, or I didn't get turned onto yet. Yeah. And the thing about me is I just I go through I mean so many different kinds of music every other week, Like this week I'm into like or this five months or six months dub reggae, oh cool, Yeah, like kick Uppy and these cats and the like. I go through phases of like Miles Davis and uh, you know, I sese phases that I've always gone through in my life, you know, my twenties, like the goth bands that I was listening to the early eighties, goth cool. When I was writing mesmeriz and Hypnotized. Back in the day, I was really into a black metal Norwegian. And I have to say, if I listen to heavy music or metal music, if you want to, you know, it's usually my go to is black metal. I there's melody in the music, it's it's there's just something that I really love about black metal music. When it comes to what I listened to. If I was to you know, I'm gonna turn on something heavy, you know it would be dark Throwneh, satiric, con immortal, those.

00:22:07
Speaker 2: Cool have you ever met any those guys, Like have you been over to Norway and like played with any of those guys.

00:22:13
Speaker 3: I'm very close friends with Satyr from Satyra Khan. I have been for probably twenty five years now. He's still keep in touch. He's I don't really have that many friends that are in bands. I have acquaintances, but nobody that I really regularly keep in touch with. Joey from Slipknot was a friend of mine, and you know, it was tough to lose him every so often. I'd been from Dillinger Escape Plan and I kind of talk. But Satyre from satirra Khan is somebody that I really keep in touch with or you know, our friendship is a little closer and more personal. And I really respect his band. I love his band. I'm a fan of his band. And that whole scene to me is one of the last great metal if not the last great metal music scene that I can recall.

00:23:15
Speaker 2: And when were they active, like around what years.

00:23:19
Speaker 3: Uh nineties up until now? A lot of those bands, yeah still but early nineties. Because there's two waves of black metal. There is the first wave with the bath Ory, Venom, Celtic Frost that was in the early eighties kind of. And then there was the second wave of black metal, which came in the early nineties with Mayhem, Dark Throne, Satiric Kron was part of that. But a lot of black great bands. You know, a lot of people kind of you know, they see the imagery and they see all that stuff. But the music you listen to the music, it's really melodic and it's kind of like classical music cool. There was a mood. There was a scene same with the like I mean, I know a lot of people like to you know, lup Us in with new metal, but that is the scene that we came up in. And even in Los Angeles, you know that kind of music Corn Deftones. When we first heard it and we were part of it, we were being honest, we were being original. We were you know, it was something. It was a scene that I guess wasn't even meant to be a scene, right. It just accidentally happens that all these bands and they share these things in common, they share a sound in common, and then what ends up happening is it becomes popular. And when it becomes popular, it starts becoming kind of cookie cutter, and it becomes something at that time out labels these days I don't even exist or they don't. But like at that time, the label wanted to next System of a Down and I was like, that's funny because none of you motherfuckers wanted to sign us.

00:25:15
Speaker 2: Yeah right, you know.

00:25:16
Speaker 3: But now that we're thing, you know, being Armenian is really cool now, isn't it. Like when we were coming up there like, well, you guys are Armenian. I don't know if anyone's gonna get what's an Armenian? You know? And now that we were signed there was funny because at that time not anymore, but like people were looking for is there an Armenian member in that band? Like really, yeah, it kind of funny, man. But all of these bands I just mentioned the original ones, the ones that were the first. We're not cheesy, We're not We're doing something unique. I remember when I first heard the first Corn album, I was like, dude, this is fucking different. It's heavy. Yeah, the way that it sounds is even different. The way that it's produced is different. It was like something I'd never heard before. But then ten thousand bands came out copying Corn and that's what turns it into oh, and then it gets labeled as a genre. Yep, you metal, Like we never called it that. And I hate genres. To me, all music is the same.

00:26:29
Speaker 2: I know the thing about the genres though, Like I understand that because I hate genres too, and I know musicians hate genres. But if you're like a journalist or you're trying to write about this stuff, it's like it's helpful just in those terms.

00:26:43
Speaker 3: Look, the notes on a piano where I'm a guitar are all the same. It's like a cow and a cow has like beef, and I give beef to the guy who makes Mexican food and he's gonna make Mexican food with the beef. And give beef to the guy who makes Armenian food. He's gonna make Armenian food with the beef. And you know, and so it's how it's the music is presented. Yeah, and as you know, it turns in I don't know, it's kind of weird. Music turns into like how you know, Mexican food or a Median food. I mean, but for me, I don't know, man, the kind of music I write, whether once again system of announced Scars on Broadway, I feel weird. I like being put into like a genre because yeah, there's heavy stuff that's going on, but once there are songs on the same album that don't even fit the genre likely and shame game. I don't feel like I all my songs fit into the same place. Yeah, and so when you put me in a genre, I'm like, Okay, maybe you could put that one in that genre, but how about that one? Like So that's why genre bother me because I don't feel like I always fit into them. I don't feel like all my songs fit into the same ones totally.

00:28:03
Speaker 2: I wonder, like, how has it been for you since you've had the experience of releasing albums that have been super successful through traditional record companies and also releasing albums through independent because you released it on your own label, right.

00:28:20
Speaker 3: Yeah, well it's not really label just do you do it yourself kind of thing.

00:28:25
Speaker 2: But yeah, which do you prefer, Like, are there advantages to the major label system that you see now or do you prefer just DIY?

00:28:36
Speaker 3: They were both fine because nobody ever told me what to write ever. Rick never did, the Columbia Never Records never did. We kind of did our own thing, and I wrote the songs that the kind of songs that I wrote, and nobody ever like said, well, you got to be more like lymp Biscuit. And because lymp Biscuit was so big when we were coming out, you know, and so we were kind of coming out and just doing our thing and gaining and gaining and gaining and gaining. And uh Rick told me a story where he when he went to the head of K Rock once and I don't know, I think he played them Chop Suey and and he the person that was ahead of K Rock at that time. I don't know if he still is or she still is or isn't. He told Rick that this song will never be played on this station and this band will never be played because they just it does not they're not what we do, you know, type of And I guess soon after that, Chop Suey became like the biggest song in the freaking you know, on K rock or on their station, and we didn't do anything to conform to Oh, you know what, then I should write a song that you're gonna like feel like fits in.

00:30:10
Speaker 2: Nothing like that song.

00:30:11
Speaker 3: Still, yeah, thank you, But we never had to deal with so when it comes to like major labels or radio stations or anything like that. So the difference is that there is like a machine that's pushing your shit. Yeah, that world at that time. You know, I haven't really dealt with the label for quite some time, so I don't real I don't know what kind of power, what kind of thing they have now, But at that time they had power. Yeah, and they push your stuff. And next thing, you know, their MTV at that time was still playing videos, and they played Chop Suey and you know, you get.

00:30:53
Speaker 2: Like crazy that video was always on.

00:30:56
Speaker 3: And so the machine was doing its thing. When I'm doing it myself, there is no machine. I hire a publicist, let's put some money into this, you know, and and the fans or the streams or people buying vinyls pretty much bring back and pay for the stuff that needs to be paid for a video. You know, all these things cost money. Sometimes going on the road, you know, it costs money because SCARS doesn't get the same guarantees as system does. So we still need buses, we still need all this stuff. So this what I do with SCARS, it's kind of yeah, I run it, but it's funded by the fans. Yeah. Yeah.

00:31:49
Speaker 2: And also I mean, you have the benefit of when you go out with System that can help fund it too.

00:31:56
Speaker 3: Sure, I have a separate thing that when Scars, any money comes in from Scars, I put it into that and I'm like, this is the Scars you know, Piggybank.

00:32:09
Speaker 2: Okay, that's cool. So you can actually see what's being generated.

00:32:12
Speaker 3: Yeah, and what I put back into the band and what I.

00:32:16
Speaker 2: I guess tell me the story of Scars, Like when you started the band. I know the first album came out in two thousand and eight.

00:32:22
Speaker 3: Where were you.

00:32:23
Speaker 2: At professionally, Like, why did you decide that was the time to start the band?

00:32:27
Speaker 3: Well, I knew System was not going to be making records. I didn't know that we were never going to make records, but at the time we were like, okay, we're taking a hiatus, and for me, I was like okay. I at that time, I mean, I was used to like I have an outlet for my songs, and my outlet for my songs was System. So Scars kind of started even before I knew there was going to be a hiatus. I was like, here, I want to do this second band kind of thing. I tried out a lot of different renditions and different musicians and different things before I got to work. I got on the first Scars record, but when System kind of took the hiatus, I was like, well, I gotta do something here. I can just sit here on my hands. I have songs, and so it just seemed like the natural thing to do is like, Okay, let's take this band that I was kind of working on already and put a little more focus into it.

00:33:40
Speaker 1: Well, last break and we're back with the rest of Darren Malachean.

00:33:47
Speaker 2: Do you think that the fact that your parents are both artists, how does that influence the way that you make your art? Do you think there's any connection to the way you approach your work as a songwriter, as a singer, as a producer. Did you inherit any approach from your parents? Is there any commonality?

00:34:09
Speaker 3: I watched my dad paint paintings my whole life, and my dad has never done an art exhibition. He has a house full of hundreds of paintings that he paints, but he paints them for his He's always trying to like find something new, but it's not about showing anybody else. And I think that's where I get my thing from. Is where I would do it regardless, because I've seen him do it regardless. Yeah, I mean the only thing that I like, I'm the one that like put his stuff on my album covers or system album covers, Like, well, Mesmeriz hypnotizes my dad's stuff.

00:34:47
Speaker 2: Oh wow, I didn't know that all.

00:34:48
Speaker 3: The star stuff is my dad's stuff. Oh cool. But his stuff on his own is very different than that stuff. That's me pushing him in a direction because I'm like, it's an album because this stuff's very abstract. So his approach is I approach. I mean, that's just kind of watching the way he does it. And it wasn't like, well I'm gonna watch him and take that. It's just in the house. This is ye, this was how we did things. This is how it was. My mom when she was in Iraq was a sculptor and and she does she did, but when she came to the States, my mom is the responsible one, yeah, in the things. So she was kind of like saving the money and working and my dad worked too. But like you know, if it wasn't for my mom, like we would have just been like homeless problem bohemian art. Yeah. So luckily she has a side to her that was very responsible and organized, so she kind of had to leave her art to the side. And but you know, she's one of those people that will sit there and then like ten minutes can draw your face.

00:36:09
Speaker 1: Wow.

00:36:10
Speaker 3: Very she went to school for art. That's another thing where it's a little different with my dad and my mom. My dad never went to school for I never went to school. But my mom is more training as an artist in that way, but through the ears, like she she is an artist, but had to kind of put her art to the sode for Yeah, got understand. He came from Iraq with nothing. Yeah, like nothing and uh coming from bag Dad to Hollywood, yeah, you know, and uh so you know they they had to make some sacrifices and it's it's I know, this is a crazy fucking thing to say, and and but it's true that since I was a kid, this is what I do now is what i've I always was like, since I saw all the early bands that I was in to, it was an obsession and it was something that I was interested in, and it was always like music was always a big deal in my life. And even as a kid, in my head, I was like and I I guess I had the maturity as a kid to think this way. But it was like I knew what kind of sacrifice my parents had made. I knew that my parents were both artists, and it felt like this like was your like it's my destiny, like to to become one of these, like this musician or whatever it is. And then as I got older, you know, eight, nine, ten, eleven years old, I would start telling people like I'm going to be in a band one day. I'm going to do this. Like I mean, as a really young child, it's crazy. Anybody, anybody who knew me at that time will tell you he's not fucking like he said that, and he kept saying it. And as I got older, people would say like, well, you know, one of the chances that that's gonna happen, and I go in my head, I was like, this is why my parents moved here. Wow, that's how That's how my head was saying, this is why this was like this is all supposed to fucking happen and and yeah, then then when they would tell me, oh, you know that's a long shot or your Armenian and no Armenians ever made it in that kind of thing, and I was like, just watch, I have this crazy confidence. Like even in high school. They sent me to a thing and.

00:38:52
Speaker 2: I was like a prophecy.

00:38:54
Speaker 3: It's it's weird. You know, it happened. And when it happened, I got like panic attacks because I was like, Jesus, this fucking happened until this day, till this day. I get on stage and we just went played South America. It was like sixty people, and I was still.

00:39:12
Speaker 2: Saying those crowds in South America.

00:39:15
Speaker 3: Yeah, but till this day, I'm like, dude, this fucking happened.

00:39:20
Speaker 2: Man, who does that happen for? I mean, do you know how many people have that dream?

00:39:24
Speaker 3: Yeah? You know what?

00:39:26
Speaker 2: But that's crazy? Like how what was your parents' reaction to your success?

00:39:31
Speaker 3: They'll tell you the same thing. They'll say, he was always into this, he was always saying he's gonna do it, and and they're obviously when you're like fourteen years old and you're telling and you're dropping out of high school and you're failing all your classes, and you know, you run with a crowd that's like you know, fighting and all this shit your parents and you're telling your mom, I'm going to be a musician. And these are two artists that are have been struggling artists their whole lives, so they know what the artist life is, right. Yeah, Oh they were worried. And it's funny because me and my mom talked about this just two or three days ago. She's like, at some point, she told me, I realized that this is what you want, this is what this is what you are. And she said I would be be like she's you know, she's religious in some ways. She said, like I felt like I would be like sinning if if I stood in your way. Yeah, what you felt like this was your calling in life, you know. And so she's like, at some point I just let it go and I and I supported, and she did. I wouldn't be here today without my mom's support.

00:40:50
Speaker 2: She's a good mom.

00:40:51
Speaker 3: Oh, she's she's amazing. I owe her everything, like she would give me. I didn't have a job, i'd have shit. And when I was sixteen, I started playing in bands that we needed rehearsal studios, you know, and I would have to ask her and we weren't rich, but she would give me rehearsal studio rent every month so I can do what I do She knew that I loved music, so she would let me take her credit card and go to the record store and buy me records because she knows that all I did was sit in my room and listen to record yeah yeah, And she supported that man and so so watching my dad as an artist shape me in one way. But my mother's support is like priceless, especially their Armenian Armenians, you know. And then at some point I started painting my hair fucking pink and when nail and all this fucking shit. These people are from Iraq, you know, like that.

00:42:01
Speaker 2: Takes guts on your part. Though I was, you know.

00:42:06
Speaker 3: As an Armenian guy. There was and even my friends they didn't look like that. They did interest yeah that so yeah, I mean I just it felt natural to me. It felt right, you know. The music I was listening to at the time was like, you know, in my eighteen nineteen twenty twenty, I was like loving a lot of god like alien sex been and you know, when you're young, you're kind of looking at people, you know, I like that style. I like that. So that style and that style and that style kind of together and make my own little style. Do the same with the songs I write, you know, I take you know, I like that.

00:42:42
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it's like a pastiche.

00:42:46
Speaker 3: I think the bands that do something unique do that.

00:42:52
Speaker 2: Yeah.

00:42:53
Speaker 3: Oh, even if you listen to like Van Halen, for example, you know, you're yeah, it's rock, it's shredding, but like David Lee Roth's vocals are not your typical fucking rocky you know. He brought in a lot of different kinds of things in that style, and.

00:43:13
Speaker 2: That's part of the reason they're so good.

00:43:15
Speaker 3: Yeah. They So you messed this, meshed, that messed it, and you make this new thing because everything is inspired by something.

00:43:22
Speaker 2: Yea.

00:43:23
Speaker 3: It's the bands that copy that are kind of like, okay, I could tell you listen to Tool because sound like Tool, you know. Yeah. But the bands that kind of bring their influences in worlds together and create this new thing and you're like, well that sounds familiar, but that mixed with that, I never heard that before, and so you make some new thing with that.

00:43:51
Speaker 2: That's exactly what System was. It was so new and so different.

00:43:56
Speaker 3: Yeah, and we all are very different people in System, and I think that also kind of comes out, yeah, in in this in the dynamic, in the band, Like, it's the personality and our band are completely not Each one of us is nothing like the other.

00:44:15
Speaker 2: That first, I'm glad you guys are able to still tour and still do what you're doing. And I know fans are so appreciative of it. And you can see that in those massive crowds in South America. That was what was that experience for you, Like being on stage with those crowds.

00:44:32
Speaker 3: The response was going to South America. You're always like, dude, those are probably the best fans in the world. I mean the way they are so passionate. Yeah, So before I went there, I would always tell everyone, like, dude, I'm going from this quiet life to like that. And and when it comes to like there is like two hundred and three hundred people outside the hotel room. Really like it was the second you stick your head out of the window, it's like, you know, yeah, it's it's.

00:45:05
Speaker 2: That's like the stuff you see from like Madonna and Michael Jackson back in the.

00:45:08
Speaker 3: Day, like that. It is it's like that. And uh, but this time around, because we'd been there before, Yeah, this time around the crowd so they would bring these flares and it was a lot of them, so I posted that and I posted, oh, check out the Pyro. I wrote something like the Pyromaniacs in Peru or something like that. But what in every show we did after that, it was like the crowds started one upping each other with the players and the fires, and then they started they started seeing footage of people breathing fire into the thing. So then I made it a thing where I was like, because we never have Pyro on stage, So I turned and said, if you notice that we don't have any Pyron stage, but our fans they break the fire, you know. And so by the time we got to that last show in sal Paulo, it was it was a scene that I never see that with my band or I never seen that anyone else's band.

00:46:13
Speaker 2: I've never seen a crowd that big.

00:46:16
Speaker 3: I mean I've seen crowds that big. I just never seen that much fire.

00:46:20
Speaker 2: Yeah, the fire and then it's smoky too, so it creates this like really spooky ambiance, like it's like you're in hell.

00:46:29
Speaker 4: But it's like, yeah, so I don't know, man, I mean, you know, we haven't put out an album with the System in so many years and for.

00:46:41
Speaker 3: And it feels like it's in when I go outside and I meet the fans, I'm not meeting people that are my age. I'm meeting people that are eighteen wow for thirty around that age where some of these people were not even born when our last album came out. Crazy. So the fact that the music has still you know, it's it's still lived with people, and some people are either rediscovering or just or just discovering it, you know, I means it means a lot to me. Man. Obviously, as someone like I told you before, like dreamt from a really age to that you know, was this is my life, this is what I'm going to do, and and it's still happening. And I'm this many years in and I have you know, I got two bands that seem like you know, when when we get I get I get a response, and we get a response with these bands, and uh, it's still something that you know, sometimes people who do it as long as I've been doing it kind of be like, oh, yeah, that is what it is. But it's not like that for me, man. For me, I'm like, I still can't believe this is happening. Cool.

00:48:05
Speaker 2: So when you do run into people and you have more time to talk to them beyond like, hey, can I get a picture? What are people asking you about System? Like what's the most common thing people ask?

00:48:17
Speaker 3: Well, when I meet them face to face like that, they don't really ask me anything. There I mean South America, they were shaking and crying wow. And so I'm like, I always have to be kind of like, you know, I try to ask like what's your name? Personal, make them realize that I'm a human being. Likes I'm like, this feels like I'm some cartoon character you know that came in front of their eyes, just you know, try to put them at ease, show them I appreciate them. But obviously the question that comes the most when it comes to System is like, well, you guys going to make another album and you know all that stuff, And for now, I'm happy we got those albums. Like I said, people have just discovered it. People rediscovered it, or people have lived with it and it's become the fabric of some of their lives and that's cool, man. And so I don't really entertain the whole Like if you've talked to me maybe like ten years ago, I might have like a little bit more like, oh, I wish wish it maybe, Yeah, how much time has passed. I'm kind of like, I don't know. I mean, if it happens, it happens. I'm not really pushing for it so much. Yeah. The thing is, we really get along as as friends, and we always have as friends. But then when banned politics comes into the thing, that's when the resentments come in and all this shit comes in, and we're kind of like hanging out again as a band, which we hadn't done. You know, Sarah and I hadn't really hung out that much in the last quite some time. But the se and I text each other and I see each other serge and I feel friendly and friends and have kind of reconnected that And I don't know, I don't want something. I'm enjoying that.

00:50:25
Speaker 2: So that must feel so good.

00:50:28
Speaker 3: It does because I never hated any one of my band members. You know, we each had certain issues with each other within the band, but take the fan out of the situation, I think we all really like each other as people and as friends. Yeah, that's why it's like it call some bands stay together and make records together, but they can't stand each other through all the years. We don't have that like, we've never been the guys that were like, well, I can't be in the same room with that guy. Yeah, it's never been that way with System, And I think fans need to hear that, because fans think that Sarage and I hate each other and they pick sides. They're like, I'm on team Sarage and I'm on team Darren, and it's like, you guys don't realize that we love each other, Like we we don't hate each other. You guys don't need to get on teams. You guys like us both.

00:51:25
Speaker 2: Yeah, they love conflict and it.

00:51:29
Speaker 3: Becomes the That's the sad thing for me is because it becomes clickbait and it becomes all this crap and I'm like, it's not really showing an accurate picture of what we're really like and how we really feel about each other.

00:51:47
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I'm happy to hear that. I'm happy there's love there and that you're reconnecting. And I don't know that sounds like a step in the right direction. Maybe something will happen. If it doesn't, it doesn't, I mean, you have your you haven't a whole nother outlet, and you know you've made do.

00:52:05
Speaker 3: Yeah. And another thing is when there's so much of a gap between that last record and then something if we it just for me, I like to see evolution, and when we stopped, Scars became my new evolution with my writing, and those albums will be those albums, and they've lived with people for such a long time that anything we do it feels like it might even be criticized and be like, well it's not as good. Well, different times.

00:52:41
Speaker 2: It's going to be compared, for sure, Like.

00:52:43
Speaker 3: There's something nostalgic about the old stuff, and you can't fuck with nostalgia at the time.

00:52:51
Speaker 2: No, I know, it means so much to so many people.

00:52:55
Speaker 3: Years have gone by and years of people living with that, and so you can't just make up years that that's something that is just organic and the natural way that things moved, you know.

00:53:11
Speaker 2: Yeah, but you guys have always been so authentic, Like whatever comes out will be authentic.

00:53:16
Speaker 3: I'm not saying it would suck. Yeah, really fucking good, it might be. I have so many songs that if the band wants to do that, yeah, I have music that I already know would be on that that's not going to happen. I will take that music and put it onto a Scars record, and the two songs that we did a few years ago, protect the Land, well, Protect the Land was supposed to be on Addicted to the Violence, but because there was the war in arts off, yeah, and we wanted to say something because we had a platform and nobody was talking about it. So we all out on the phone and we're like, well, maybe we should release two songs. And I was like, I have a song that's about that, like and I didn't even and I wrote that song before the conflict happened. It's just weird. Yeah, that is weird and so uh out. And so I was kind of like willing, like, okay, I'll take that song off the Scars record, And well, we had it recorded. I had all my vocals on that song are from my Scars recording. We just had John play the drums and Shallo play the bass and Sarah's kind of sang with me. But my vocals from that track are all from my Scars session. So the song was pretty pretty much the same, yeah, except we brought in different people to perform it. Yeah, you know, I'm proud of that. It's cool that we did that. But if I didn't take that to System. It would have been a SCAR song. If Mesmerized and Hypnotize never became System Records Lost in Hollywood Lonely Day maybe, I mean by all of that shit would have been Scar stuff.

00:55:07
Speaker 2: I wanted to ask you, speaking of of those albums, I want to ask you about Soldier Side Yep. Was there a read that's such a beautiful song? Was there a reason you put that just thinking about the track list? Was there a reason you put that as the last song?

00:55:24
Speaker 3: Well, the intro of Soldier Side comes in in the beginning of Mesmeriz and then the rest of the song is the last song. We didn't know that it was gonna be a double album when we were in there recording the songs. Neither, and I didn't know that when I was writing the songs. The thing with me is I always brought in a lot of songs. Yeah, Toxicity had Toxicity, but then we had steal this album. But all the steal this album stuff was from Toxicity sessions. And that's just because I would just bring in so many songs, because for me, I was like just writing like crazy focused and here guys, and and uh, let's pick the best ones. You know. Yeah, And so same with Mesmerise Hypnotize. I came into like thirty songs or more. We still have stuff that we hadn't even haven't even released off Mesmeriz and Hypnotized, and nobody's heard that. We listen back to and were like, shit, we forgot we had this. Uh, well there you go.

00:56:33
Speaker 2: You got a little at least an EP. Maybe put that out.

00:56:38
Speaker 3: That's peak System, We'll see it's some of it. I felt like just wasn't good enough to be on the record, you know, yeah, you know. What we did with Steal this album was those songs we felt like weren't as good as maybe the ones on Toxicity, but then somebody leaked them and they were leaked in a way that we're like, well, we didn't want them that So what we did was go back in the studio and make them as good as what should have been on Toxicity. So we rearranged. We did that, so if we ever did that with the Mesmerize, and that's something we would have to do with those songs as well, because there's something I don't know. I look at him and I'm like, ah, this could be better. That could be better. So they need to be redone that's ever gonna happen. But going back to the Soldier Side thing, so we had the thought of it making a double album came up along the way, and so in my head, I was like, why don't we use the intro portion of Soldier Side as the intro for Mesmerized and then end the album with the song and it yeah, yeah, yeah, So if you've heard both records and then you hypnotize and that comes back at the end the way it starts already in the beginning, it just book ended both of the records and a kind of creative in a very If I was a listener, I would be like, wow, that just came back from that, like you know, And and the records were also not released together. There was months or I don't remember how Yeah, they were apart. So I just thought it was just this cool emotional thing that would happen to the listener. Yes, if they if it all comes back at the way end of the second one. You know.

00:58:45
Speaker 2: I love when artists are thoughtful like that, you know, because there are a lot of listeners who appreciate that, well.

00:58:51
Speaker 3: You're creating a painting at the end of the day, and once again going back to my dad, and now I see records and how I see albums. You're creating this work. It's not just okay, individual songs, but it's this. It's an album. And I know people nowadays don't have attention spans on, but I still make albums like I want the album to flow song into song into song, and there's a reason why I ended it that way. Like Addicted to the Violence is the last song, the final track, but it's the last song on the record, and it's this really kind of for me. The song has this epic the keyboards and the mood, but the way the song ends and it just goes bone and it reminds me of like the day in the Life of the Beatles, where it just kind of ends and it feels like an ending, like duh yeah, And I wanted the album to end with that vibe it felt. I don't know that that's just the picture I wanted to paint, you know.

00:59:58
Speaker 2: Yeah, No, that's cool. Who We've been thinking about this just at Broken Record, talking to other people I work with, And this is a random question, but curious where you'll go with it. Who do you think are the best Like the five best American bands.

01:00:17
Speaker 3: Jesus van Halen. For me, I I love van Halen and it ain't because like, it ain't because my favorite part of van Halen is Alex and Dave to me, and that's weird coming from a guitar player. Yeah, I love Alex van Halen like I'm a huge fan of his drumming, uh and David Lee Roth as a vocalist. And it's just to me, it's such a complete It's what like a great rock band should be. Is that energy of the first all the David Lee Roth stuff, you know, pick but then you know Grateful Dead. I love the Grateful Dead. Uh shit. And even people ask me questions like this, I always walk away and I'm like, shit, I should have mentioned that guy.

01:01:08
Speaker 2: Yeah, I know. It's it's hard to be put on the spot. But it's also kind of like, yeah, it's an interesting thing because a lot of you go to like British bands usually, but American is a whole different thing.

01:01:20
Speaker 3: Yeah. Fuck man, I didn't expect the questions.

01:01:24
Speaker 2: So I no, no. And then you could think, like, you know, do the Beach Boys count?

01:01:30
Speaker 3: Oh? Yes, thank you, I don't know do they they do? Yes? They do.

01:01:34
Speaker 2: Okay, so the Beach Boys, and then what about newer bands? Does Nirvana? Is Nirvana one of the best guns and roses? You know, there's so many places you can go with it, Sly in the family Stone, Yeah, Earth Wind and Fire do they count?

01:01:54
Speaker 3: Yeah? All count? Yeah? I mentioned there is good stuff. It's great. But you know, everyone has their taste on you know, who they think is the best. Like, you know, Nirvana was a great band, but yeah, impact me as much as you know some other people. Man, you know, I don't know. Did you love great you know?

01:02:14
Speaker 2: But yeah, do you go to dead shows? Did you used to go to dead shows?

01:02:18
Speaker 3: Not a lot. I wasn't like following them, but I would. I saw them at the La Sports Arena when Jerry Garcia was still alive and I was on mushrooms, so it was really good.

01:02:31
Speaker 2: They're so good. They're just like a good band to have just playing in the house like throughout the day.

01:02:37
Speaker 3: American Beauty is one of the just one of my favorite albums, man. Yeah, from up to Bottom is I know they're known as a jam band, but yeah, these songs on those records ripple yeah, Oxa.

01:02:54
Speaker 2: Ray Yeah, Oh I love that you love that. That's so nice. I wouldn't have expected that.

01:03:00
Speaker 3: Great, great songs, some of my favorite songs. But you said the Beach Boys, you know, early Beach Boys. I love of the twenty twenty album is such a good fucking album. I love it. I know Pet Sounds is the one that everyone talks about, But there's more to the Beach Boys than just Pet Sounds. Man. Yeah, local harmonies, Uh, I don't know. Great bands. I don't know the Everly Brothers considered as a band, I don't know. They inspired so many people like those, you know, Aside from bands, you have just a lot of individuals in American rock that you know. Obviously Elvis, Neil Neil Young.

01:03:48
Speaker 2: He's Canadian though.

01:03:49
Speaker 3: Oh okay, But when people ask me about some of my favorite guitar players, I always bring up Neil Young. Yeah, he's not a shredder, you know, he does his thing, but I love that thing. Oh, let's not forget the Ramones should be.

01:04:04
Speaker 2: Yeah, the Ramones are so awesome.

01:04:06
Speaker 3: Ramos definitely should be mentioned in.

01:04:08
Speaker 2: That They're so awesome. I love them.

01:04:11
Speaker 3: A lot of great punk bands, the Dead Boys, the Misfits, all American bands, Bad Brains, Yeah.

01:04:20
Speaker 2: Were you into like hardcore like New York City hardcore or the bands coming out of DC. Were you into that too, sure? Like Minor Threat, Yeah, like Fugazi and all that. Oh cool? Was there anything else you wanted to say or talk about with a new album that we didn't cover?

01:04:40
Speaker 3: You know, it's just I don't put out albums a lot, but when I do, it's something I really believe in. Like, for example, if ten years down the line people ask me, well, what are some of the most proudest moments you had as a songwriter, the song Addicted to the Violence will come up, just like Aerials or just like anything I've done with System, just like Babylon is one of the those songs. There's a song called Till the End on the second Scars record. These songs that I've had, these moments where I'm very kind of you know, you have a lot of children, but some of your children kind of you have this pride. I don't have any children, but I'm saying what I'm saying. People who have a lot of children, you know, you have some that you might be a little bit more proud of than So there's stuff on this record like Shame game or addicted to the violence, or it's just if you ask me ten years from now, I guarantee I will tell you that those songs will fall into the group of songs that I'm very very proud of in my history or in my you know, discography, or.

01:06:09
Speaker 2: That's awesome, it's awesome you can still do it, and that you still have this band and that you have you have so much pride in the new music that you're making.

01:06:18
Speaker 3: I wouldn't put it out if I didn't have that. I second guess myself constantly, and I'm very picky about what I put out there. Dude. I have a roll index of songs. I have albums worth of songs that I'm still tinkering with. Yeah, playing with people are like, well, it takes forever for you to take put out albums, and I'm like, well, when I put out an album, that album is forever.

01:06:51
Speaker 2: Yeah, No, that's real.

01:06:53
Speaker 3: So I will take forever to make sure that that song is finished. Or you know, if you're cooking food is ready to eat, Yeah, you know, it's it's not half baked, it's ready to god, it's ready to be absorbed. Taking it and and I make that decision. Yeah, I see it, and I see well, it's finished and it's ready to record, and if it takes me forever to do it, I will take forever to do it. To put out something that's going to be forever out there.

01:07:32
Speaker 2: Makes sense. Yeah, that makes sense.

01:07:35
Speaker 3: Cool.

01:07:36
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for your time. I appreciate you talking.

01:07:39
Speaker 3: It's yeah good.

01:07:42
Speaker 1: This an episode description, you'll find a link to a playlist of our favorite Scars on Broadway and System of a Down tracks, and also some of Darren's favorite black metal cuts. Be sure to check out YouTube dot com slash Broken Record podcast to see all our video interviews, and be sure to follow us on Instagram at the Broken Record Pod. You can follow us on Twitter at broken Record. Broken Record is produced and edited by Leah Rose, with marketing health from Eric Sandler and Jordan McMillan. Our engineer is Ben Tollinday. Broken Record is the production of Pushkin Industries. If you love this show and others from Pushkin, consider subscribing to Pushkin Plus. Pushkin Plus is a podcast subscription that offers bonus content and ad free listening for four ninety nine a month. Look for Pushkin Plus on Apple Podcast subscriptions, and if you like this show, please remember to share, rate, and review us on your podcast app Our theme music's by Kenny Beats. I'm justin Richmond.