System of a Down made headlines when they released their first new songs in 15 years, “Protect the Land” and “Genocidal Humanoidz” in support of the Armenia Fund. The group’s Shavo Odajian and Serj Tankian both held an interview with Apple Music, where they discussed these songs’ success and revealed how drummer John Dolmayan got the ball rolling on the tracks.

According to Odajian, the entire band was in a bit of shock following the news that Azerbaijan launched a military offensive in the Artsakh region. Following Dolmayan’s text, everyone in the band immediately agreed to record this material.

“John took the initiative and said it,” Odajian  explained. “And, once he said it, we jumped to it. It wasn’t a delayed response. Like we let the text sit. The text was right away responded. And, to my surprise, everyone was involved. Everyone was into it.”

System of a Down’s Daron Malakian also had some music he had written, which allowed the band to produce two songs in such a rapid amount of time. Odajian explained that these tracks were both very time-sensitive, but he was glad in their results.

“Daron right away said, ‘Oh, I have something so we could save time,'” Odajian continued. “Because we could have gone in there. We could have sat there and written music. We all have stuff happening. We all have thoughts. But he had something ready to go. And this is so time sensitive. It was so time sensitive that I’m so happy that it happened the way it did.”

Malakian, Odajian and Tankian have been busy with other projects during System of a Down’s 15 year long recording hiatus. Tankian will be releasing a new EP this year, while Odajian and Malakian formed the groups North Kingsley and Scars on Broadway respectively.

Photo Credit: Mauricio Alvarado