System Of A Down, having other nicknames such as System and SOAD, is made up of members either from the middle east or have Armerian ancestry but were born in America. They formated in 1994. It is formed up of four members, as listed below:
Serj Tankian — Lead Vocalizion, Keyboards
Daron Malakian — Only Guitars, Back Vocalization
Shavo Odajian — Only Bass, Rumored Back Vocalization
John Dolmayan — Drums, only silent (not rumored though) member
Their main goal in formed System was to get people educated about the Genocide of 1915, whom one of their great-relatives was involved in. From their first debut in 1998 to their last in 2005, System has been, but never received, a runner-up for four grammies. When System was first beginning to develop, only Daron and Serj were at the source. It wasn’t actually called System Of A Down yet but was called SoiL but not in any way related to the “SoiL” Chicago had cooked up. Other members that were involved in the mostly unheard band were Dave Hakoypan (who was the bassist) and Domingo Laranio (whom was the drummer). Around the end of SoiL’s existence, Shavo then became involved in their music fiesta.
Now, System Of A Down was originally proposed as Victims Of A Down based on a publishing Daron had made. Shavo, however, did not like the idea as he thought “System” had a better position. Before John came into the scene, System had a one-time drummer when they had produced their underground, non-public 1995 demo. His name was Andy Khachaturian. Tracks on the demo included PIG and Honey along with Toast and many others. System had made three compact, unheard demos with two drummers before they finally got in touch with whom would work with them until they went on hiatus, Rick Rubin.
Rubin’s interest was made when he had seen System’s performance at the “Whiskey A-Go-Go” in 1997. They were then signed onto American Recordings, which was a subdivison of Sony Music Entertainment. System’s first work fell onto the shelves June 1998. It was plainly titled, System Of A Down and the band had fun with a lot of it’s tracks (Sugar for example). System played along with many popular rock bands at that time, such as Metallica. In 2000, System represented a memory of Black Sabbath by making a cover of the hit Snowblind. Between 2001 and 2003, System released two other albums titled, Toxicity and Steal This Album!
The album has seen a sell of more than 12 million albums sold around the world. Toxicity‘s reputation was still running strong when 9/11 took place, though one of their songs titled, Chop Suey! was forced off the air because of it’s political involvement. Toxicity eventually made it up to a multi-platinum by the end of 2001. Steal This Album! was released in November of 2002, which their last album would be released on the same month three years later. The difference in the appearance of the album was it contained no booklet, as did most of the CD’s contained. Along with the CD’s successful release, a music video entitled, Boom! was made, directed by Shavo Odajian and Michael Moore.
System’s next design would be quite unique, even more than how Steal This Album! was designed! Mesmerize and Hypnotize were released, with them both coming out the same year, but six months apart in the same year. The first made it’s debut in May of 2005 and the second made it’s debut in November of 2005. In May of the following year, System announced to the world that they would part from each other, or in smaller words, go on hiatus. There have been many interviews and many quotes from each indivdual member. The follow up of System is still to be discovered, although rumors were made they might have attended the Eurovision 2009, taking place in Russia.
