SOAD’s Shavo Odadjian has dropped his first song with new band North Kingsley

System Of A Down bassist Shavo Odadjian has released the first song by his new band North Kingsley.

The woozy, hip hop-influenced banger Like That? sees Shavo collaborating with producer Saro Paparian and frontman/lyricist Ray Hawthorne, and also finds him playing guitar as well as bass.

“I’m known for playing metal but you can’t say it’s just metal - it has a lot of other influences in there,” says Odadjian of the politcally-charged new song. “I did [2008 collaboration] Achozen with [the Wu Tang Clan’s] RZA and that was straight hip-hop. North Kingsley is right in the middle.”

Like That? is taken from North Kingsley’s upcoming debut EP, Vol.1, out August 14. It’s the first in a planned series of staggered EPs.

“We’re giving you songs you can marinade on, instead of 12 songs all at once,” says Shavo. “There’s going to be a clip for every song, something visually for you to vibe on. I directed videos for System, I do stage production visuals for the band so that’s important to me. Saro has an incredible eye for creating new things visually and I act almost how a producer would on that and we are going to drop merch with every release, so it’s more than just music.”

While there’s no sign of a new System Of A Down album, the band were recently confirmed as Download 2021 headliners alongside Kiss and Biffy Clyro.

(Image credit: North Kingsley)
Dave Everley

Dave Everley has been writing about and occasionally humming along to music since the early 90s. During that time, he has been Deputy Editor on Kerrang! and Classic Rock, Associate Editor on Q magazine and staff writer/tea boy on Raw, not necessarily in that order. He has written for Metal Hammer, Louder, Prog, the Observer, Select, Mojo, the Evening Standard and the totally legendary Ultrakill. He is still waiting for Billy Gibbons to send him a bottle of hot sauce he was promised several years ago.