Serj Tankian Dashes Hopes of a New System of a Down Album: “Screw Vocals”

It’s not exactly a secret that Serj Tankian is the reason there hasn’t been a new System of a Down album since 2005. I’m sure there are fans who wake up every morning and pray to whatever deity that the singer comes around. They may have even suspected, based on comments Tankian made last year, that they’re prayers were working.

Alas, based on this Tankian quote from a new interview with Expert magazine, it’s a likely bet that those fans are gonna have to pray harder:

“Screw vocals. I’m tired of it. During a conversation with a friend yesterday I came up with an idea: before we started making music, I was mainly known as a poet and vocalist. I wrote poetry every day. It was what I did constantly, what made me release two poetry books. In fact, I came to music from words. I wrote so many lyrics that it stopped being interesting. Not because there is nothing I want to talk or sing about. Sure there are topics I don’t want to write lyrics to but at least I can pull out some new emotions out of it. Poetry is always something that opens yourself up and supports self-determination. I just did it for too long. Now I am more interested in writing instrumental pieces of music.”

Per Rosenberg’s Theory of Reunions, which states that all bands reunite sooner or later, I do think, eventually, Tankian will either swing back the other way, or crave the spotlight/ego trip/money/whatever that comes with fronting a band as big as SOAD. I just don’t think that time is coming soon.

You can read the entire interview below.

Thanks: JHM