“I know you guys have some crazy questions sometimes,” Shavo Odadjian chuckles anxiously, when he joins Metal Hammer’s video call to answer your queries. You can understand his nerves. As a founding member of System Of A Down, Shavo has seen both success and controversy, his band’s outspoken stances over war, politics, race and more always inciting passionate reactions.
It may have been two decades since the last System album, but Shavo is still out there. Not only is he filling stadiums with the Armenian-American crew, he recently launched alt-metal-via-deathcore venture Seven Hours After Violet, and has plenty of live plans for it. In the lead-up to a Seven Hours European tour, which includes a set at Download, we hit the bassist with your questions both curious and cruel.
Have you heard many System Of A Down copycats?
Lais Warner, email
“There aren’t too many bands that can get away with taking our style, because people would hear it right away. I’ve heard other bands get ripped off more than us. Korn got ripped off a lot!”
Seven Hours After Violet was your first metal album since SOAD’s Hypnotize 20 years ago. Was that intimidating?
Molly Helwani, Facebook
“It was the best! I can’t wait to do another. I had a band with [Wu-Tang Clan rapper] RZA called Achozen that was, like, genre-bending. I had to work with styles I’d never worked with, so that was intimidating. This felt natural – I was in my element!”
Biggie or Tupac?
Cat Banner, email
“Wu-Tang.”
What instrument would you like to learn? Leonorpera66, Instagram
“Piano. I can play enough to write a melody or something, but I wish, when I was a kid, that I took piano lessons. It’s a wonderful instrument.”
Which genre gets shit on worse: nu metal or deathcore?
Ollie Price, email
“We never considered ourselves nu metal, but we got put into that world. We never got shit on [personally], but nu metal got shit on a lot. I like deathcore, but there’s a lot of similarities with the bands in deathcore. Nu metal got shit on a lot more. I haven’t heard as much negativity towards deathcore yet.”
What’s your favourite song you’ve written so far
Cyprian.grabarczyk, Instagram
“I can’t answer that. We’ve been playing System songs for a week in rehearsals. I was hearing all these songs and going, ‘Fuck, man! I miss this. That song was cool and I forgot about it.’ We’re about to start playing some very old songs and I’m really having fun with them. And the new stuff, Seven Hours, I appreciate that too! It all came out of my heart.”
What’s your favourite hobby?
Gul_paron, Instagram
“I like collecting things. I like Cuban cigars, they’re my only vice nowadays. I like to paint, but I haven’t done that in a bit because I don’t have my room set up. Oh, John [Dolmayan, System drummer] and I play poker together.”
HAMMER: Who’s better?
“Don’t do that! Ha ha ha! We play differently. I’m more disciplined, he’s more wild. He’ll go all in with nothing.”
What are your musical aspirations if System Of A Down never release another album?
Michal Szymula, Facebook
“I’m doing them! Seven Hours, that’s my aspiration, because we haven’t released anything, and I’ve found another outlet. I want to release as much music as I can with Seven Hours, whenever it’s time. I’ve found a great group of guys who are really talented, and they’re really nice people, which I’m very lucky to have.”
If SOAD did release a new album, could it live up to your existing releases?
Bomborombo_, Instagram
“The best question yet. I don’t know. I hope it does. I don’t think we’d release anything subpar, it’d have to be good, but good is an opinion, right? We might be expected to write another Chop Suey! but that’s not what we’d do. We’d write what we feel like writing at that time.”
Where’s your favourite place to tour and what’s your best tour memory?
Peter Papps, Facebook
“I like going everywhere, but I’ve been enjoying South America a lot. We’re about to go there with System and I just went there with Seven Hours. They’re such a welcoming, passionate people. It’s fun to play for anyone that enjoys music so much that they put their phones down.
Some bands do phoneless gigs. I like it, but the problem to me is that you’re taking something away from someone. Some people might disagree with that. I just like living in the moment. But, sometimes I find myself filming as well. Seven Hours were just out with Tool in Mexico and I caught myself filming moments, because their production is so wild!”
HAMMER: How about your favourite tour memory?
“There are so many! In System, we used to play pranks on each other. We used to draw on each other’s faces. You could not fall asleep in the front lounge! You fall asleep there, you don’t know what’s gonna happen.”
What’s the heaviest band you’ve got into recently? Donal Mathers, email
“Left To Suffer. Seven Hours’ singer, Taylor Barber, is their vocalist. They are badass! I’m actually, maybe, gonna do a feature with them at some point.”
Why are you a commie?
Msef24, Instagram
“I’m not. People think because System spoke against the government and for the people, it means we’re communist. I don’t have those beliefs. I stand for freedom, freedom of speech and being able to have opinions. I’m not right, I’m not left: I have my own beliefs. It’s the only way you can be in today’s world, because the extremists are so loud. I need to be able to say, ‘You might have a point, and you might have a point – let’s talk’, instead of saying, ‘No, if you stand here, I hate you.’ It might be more controversial if we were doing it from the start now, but I don’t like the way things are going with politics here. People are afraid to speak out about it.”
Why did you knock out [ex-Mastodon guitarist/vocalist] Brent Hinds?
euan_geddz97, Instagram
“I’ve been wanting to clear this up for a long time: I never knocked out Brent Hinds. That’s something Brent was told by I-don’t-know-who. We were in Vegas after the MTV Music Awards, and I was with my friend, [rapper] Reverend William Burke. Brent comes out of a taxi and he’s like, ‘Bro, I love you!’ He was inebriated, swinging his shirt. He kept coming up to hug me. He was very in-my-face. My taxi arrived, so I get in, and I look back, and he takes a swing at the dude I was with! He missed, but Burke did swing back. It was self-defence. Brent fell and hit his head and got knocked out. I was five, six feet away.”
HAMMER: Did anyone come to help?
“Security put me in cuffs and took me to jail, but I didn’t do anything! My shoulder got hurt. I said, ‘Check the fucking cameras! I did nothing!’ Once they did, the police came and let me go. I was there for, like, four hours.”
System are about to play their first full tour in seven years. What changed?
Sasha Ridley, email
“We’re older now, and we respect each other, and we’ve talked. We’ve noticed how social media, and the media in general, has swayed us. We’ve just turned everything off and… we’re grateful for each other. We love each other. Anything that has happened between us is minuscule. We’re just playing, doing what we feel like doing.”
Were there ever lyrics from [System’s main lyricists] Serj Tankian or Daron Malakian that made you go ‘WTF?!’
Ariel Colton, email
“Bounce. I wrote that song musically and Serj wrote the vocals, and it was called ‘PJs’. Instead of ‘Jump! Pogo pogo pogo pogo…!’, it was like, ‘Da! Pisha pisha pisha pisha…!’ I was like, ‘What the fuck are you saying, bro?!’ Actually, every album has shit where I say, ‘What the fuck is he talking about?!’ Ha ha ha! But that’s part of the beauty of Serj. He does that but there’s always something there for everyone to read into.”
If you could play bass in any band in the world, which one would it be?
Jane Walls, email
“System Of A Down.”
Seven Hours After Violet is out now via Sumerian.
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