"It's called Foundations because it's the founding of my musical life." Serj Tankian's forthcoming Foundations EP to include early unreleased System Of A Down song

(Image credit: Francesco Castaldo/Archivio Francesco Castaldo/Mondadori via Getty Images)

System Of A Down frontman Serj Tankian will release Foundations, a new solo EP, in September, and it will feature one song written for the Armenian-American nu metal stars but never previously released.

Speaking to Metal Hammer while promoting his forthcoming autobiography Down With The System, set for release on May 14, via Headline, the singer explained that the concept behind the record stemmed from the deep dive he took into his musical journey while writing what he calls his "accidentally hatched philosophical memoir."

"It's five songs," he reveals. "We just shot five videos for it last week with members of the FCC, my back-up band, which was really fun, and we're going to put it out in September. We're actually going to start leaking some material as early as next month.

"The reason I'm putting it out is that archival nature of writing a book made me look into songs from different periods of time. So one of the songs is from early System days, for example, that I've never put out, that I'd never worked with System on. A couple of the songs are from my early 2007 /2008 solo record period, but didn't fit the record [Elect The Dead, released in October 2007]..

"It's an interesting retrospective of rock music that I've never released from different times, and it's called Foundations basically because it's the founding of my musical life," he continues. "They're very interesting songs, very different from each other: one is really heavy, one is like, really progressive, there's just different elements to each of them. But I think they work in tandem."

System Of A Down co-headlined the second staging of the Sick New World festival in Las Vegas last night, April 27. The LA played a 27-song set, which included the first performances since 2015 of CUBErt (from their 1998 self-titled debut album) and Bubbles (from 2002's Steal This Album!). The band also co-headlined the festival in its debut year, 2023.

The quartet will play their second show of 2024 when they co-headline a one-off event with Deftones at the Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, California, on August 17.

Artists

A music writer since 1993, formerly Editor of Kerrang! and Planet Rock magazine (RIP), Paul Brannigan is a Contributing Editor to Louder. Having previously written books on Lemmy, Dave Grohl (the Sunday Times best-seller This Is A Call) and Metallica (Birth School Metallica Death, co-authored with Ian Winwood), his Eddie Van Halen biography (Eruption in the UK, Unchained in the US) emerged in 2021. He has written for Rolling Stone, Mojo and Q, hung out with Fugazi at Dischord House, flown on Ozzy Osbourne's private jet, played Angus Young's Gibson SG, and interviewed everyone from Aerosmith and Beastie Boys to Young Gods and ZZ Top. Born in the North of Ireland, Brannigan lives in North London and supports The Arsenal.