Drummer John Dolmayan Says Recent System of a Down Shows Were “Half-Assed”
In a move seemingly designed to both piss off his bandmates and discourage fans from buying tickets to System of a Down’s 2020 live shows, drummer John Dolmayan has said that he was “not proud”of the band’s recent “half-assed” performances.
The comments came during Dolmayan’s appearance on Drinks with Johnny, a new show hosted by Avenged Sevenfold bassist Johnny Christ:
“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. They [are the ones who] set up the equipment, they set up the lights, all the production. All this stuff has to be set up so that we can go up and do our jobs, which is to entertain you ultimately. And these guys all have to work when we’re not working. [Avenged Sevenfold] 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.”
He went on to address the reasons the band hasn’t made a new album since 2005’s Mezmerize and Hypnotize, reiterating what we’ve already heard from other members of the group: they’ve been unable to collaborate and compromise on their creative direction.
“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. In any industry, but more so in music, people get into their heads sometimes. You’ve gotta let things go in life. 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.”
So that all sounds terrific, eh? Nothing like one of the best bands of a generation turning to shit for no good reason.
Sigh.
While I go listen to Toxicity and weep, you can watch the entire chat below.
[via Metal Injection]
