That Time Daron Malakian Pretended to Be a Random Fan and Told a Magazine How Great System of Down Are
The Instagram account @moshermags, which is devoted to sharing noteworthy excerpts from vintage metal magazines, has uncovered quite a doozy: a 1999 issue of Kerrang! in which System of a Down guitarist Daron Malakian, then 23-years-old, passed himself off as a random fan so as to sing the praises of his own band.
Malakian’s ploy was part of an article about that year’s Dynamo Open Air in the Netherlands. Fans who attended the fest were asked which band at the fest had given the best performance, and which band was the biggest (presumably positive) surprise. Malakian answered SOAD to both questions, adding that “If you guys missed System Of A Down, you missed everything. They blew me away.”
Of course, there’s the possibility that the editors of Kerrang! and/or the article’s author were in on the gag. But it’s far more amusing to imagine that Malakian pulled a fast one on them.
Funnily enough, 1999 was the only year System of a Down ever played Dynamo. The festival’s final year was 2005.
You can listen to an audio recording of SOAD’s entire set below.
[via Metal Injection]
