System of a Down

System of a Down formed in Glendale, California in 1994, coalescing out of the Los Angeles Armenian-American community around vocalist Serj Tankian, guitarist Daron Malakian, bassist Shavo Odadjian and drummer John Dolmayan. All four members are of Armenian descent, and that shared inheritance became inseparable from the band's identity: from their earliest releases they used interviews, liner notes and their platform on tour to press for international recognition of the Armenian genocide of 1915, an activist thread that ran alongside broader songs about American militarism, the prison-industrial complex, drug policy and consumer culture. Musically they were unlike anything else that broke through in the nu-metal era. Tankian's delivery is unorthodox to the point of theatrical — sliding between operatic croon, guttural bark, nasal chant and outright yelping within a single verse — while Malakian's riffing draws on Armenian folk modes and odd, lurching meters, stitching together spasms of thrash, surf-rock lightness and abrupt tempo collapses. Malakian's own backing and co-lead vocals became a defining counterweight to Tankian's. Their self-titled 1998 debut, produced by Rick Rubin, established the template and built a fervent cult audience through relentless touring. Toxicity (2001) turned that cult into mass success, debuting at number one and eventually selling in the millions on the strength of "Chop Suey!", "Toxicity" and "Aerials". Its release came days before the September 11 attacks, and in the aftermath "Chop Suey!" appeared on Clear Channel's list of songs deemed lyrically questionable for airplay, pulling it from many US radio stations at the height of its momentum — a moment that only sharpened the band's reputation as politically inconvenient. Steal This Album! followed in 2002, assembling and reworking material that had leaked online. In 2005 the band released the two-part project Mezmerize and Hypnotize six months apart; both debuted at number one on the Billboard 200, a feat few artists had managed in a single year, and "B.Y.O.B." won a Grammy for Best Hard Rock Performance. In 2006 the band entered an open-ended hiatus, with members pursuing solo work — Tankian's own albums and film scoring, Malakian's Scars on Broadway. They reunited in 2011 for live shows and have toured steadily since, but strictly as a live act: a long-running deadlock over new material, rooted in creative control and differing visions for a sixth album, has kept the studio door shut. The impasse briefly broke in 2020, when the band released the charity double single "Protect the Land" and "Genocidal Humanoidz" to raise funds for Armenia during the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict — their first new music in fifteen years, and explicitly framed as a humanitarian rather than artistic reunion. Today they remain one of metal's biggest live draws, headlining stadiums and festivals worldwide with no new album, and no firm promise of one.