System Of A Down‘s drummer John Dolmayan provided feedback in an interview with Avenged Sevenfold bassist Johnny Christ‘s ‘Drinks With Johnny‘ show. Dolmayan admitted that the quality of System of a Down’s stage production and live experience suffered due to not being a fully active band. He said, “I’m gonna be honest with you — we played a couple of shows that I was not proud of recently, because we didn’t put in the practice, and we had, like, a skeleton crew.”
Comparing System of Down to Avenged Sevenfold’s touring styles, Dolmayan said, “Avenged does it the right way — they’ll do an album cycle, they’ll do a hundred shows, or whatever it is in that cycle, which means they can employ these people for a year to two years. System does it the complete opposite way and half-assed. We employ people for three to four weeks, which means we get who’s available as opposed to who we wanna work with long term.”
Working in an organization or in a band, one can feel the confines of human relations on a day to day level. Dolmayan provided some insight on the inner sanctity of his working life with System of Down, “We’ve been enormously successful with each other. So, ego gets in the way a lot. It gets in the way of relationships, it gets in the way of business relationships, and sometimes you lose sight of why you started to do something together.”
While reflecting on his years of experience, he shares, “You have to let things go in that you’re gonna offend each other, you’re gonna have problems. Every relationship has them. So you’ve gotta get past it and get out of your own fucking way ultimately, and System just hasn’t been able to do that. We have some things that have gotten in the way of doing what we do best.”
In his side project, These Grey Men covers he has enlisted Serj Tankian, who will guest on covers of David Bowie‘s “Starman” and Talking Heads‘ “Road To Nowhere.” Dolmayan has also secured Rage Against The Machine/Prophets Of Rage, etc. guitarist Tom Morello and Avenged Sevenfold frontman M. Shadows. Regarding the side project, he says, “I’m not a songwriter, but I can arrange the fuck out of songs. So, I arranged these songs in a way that I thought was interesting and I listened to songs that I thought maybe there was a lack. Or what would I do if I played this song? What would I do if I was presented this song?”
System Of A Down European/UK Tour
06/03 – Ziggo Dome – Amsterdam, NET
06/05 – Rock am Ring – Nurburg, GER
06/07 – Rock im Park – Nuremberg, GER
06/08 – Waldbuhne – Berlin, GER
06/10 – Nova Rock Festival – Nickelsdorf, AUT
06/12 – I-Days Festival – Milan, ITA
06/14 – Download Festival – Donington, UK
06/16 – O2 Arena – Prague, CZE
06/17 – Laszlo Papp Sports Arena – Budapest, HUN
06/19 – Hallenstadion – Zurich, SWI
06/23 – Ericsson Globe – Stockholm, SWE
06/25-27 – Provinssirock Festival – Seinäjoki, FIN
06/30 – Tauron Arena – Krakow, POL
07/01-04 – Resurrection Fest – Viveiro, SPA
07/02-03 – VOA Heavy Rock Festival – Lisbon, POR
Photo Credit: Mauricio Alvarado
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