Serj Tankian Admits Touring is “Not The Top Priority”
If you’ve been holding out all hope that System of a Down will get over their internal strife and go on a massive world tour, you should probably stop now. Because aside from the aforementioned issues that are keeping the band from putting out new material, it seems vocalist Serj Tankian is just over the entire concept of touring.
While speaking with the folks over at Revolver, Tankian revealed that aside from the upcoming performance at the Las Vegas-based festival Sick New World this coming April, it’s very unlikely that System of a Down will be doing a whole lot of additional touring.
Now, in the past a lot of the reason why System didn’t tour so much was because of Tankian’s health issues — specifically some back problems. Yet while his condition has gotten better, it seems like his heart just isn’t in it anymore when it comes to touring.
“Some of my back stuff is a lot better, in terms of health, which is cool. I have some other things I’m dealing with right now, which may or may not be affected by travel or touring.
“It wasn’t just a health-related decision as far as cutting down on touring, but also a lifestyle decision. Based on family and vision.
“I’ve been touring for 20-something years, on and off, of course. Not every year. And it’s fun, it’s profitable, it makes a lot of people happy in terms of being out there and sharing the music and [seeing] the reaction, and people really enjoying it and getting that feedback.
“But after years of doing it and the travel that’s involved, it’s one of those things where it’s not the top priority on my list in life.”
Honestly, I totally get it. Serj is a 56-year-old man who’s probably made an insane amount of money from Toxicity alone. Couple that with the fact that he’s been busy working on a memoir titled Down With The System, had just put out a digital release of his Invocations live album, and has done some scoring work on the side, he’s got plenty on his plate.
In fact, 2024 seems like it will be a productive year for Tankian, as some of his projects will finally have some fruit to bear.
“I am going to put some other releases out next year, as well. I’ve got another rock EP that I’ve been working on. That kind of harks back to different times. So a lot of the songs are from way back, that I just finished.
“A few songs from my first solo record, ‘Elect the Dead‘, times. A song from way before, like the early System days, that I never used. That for some reason never fit anywhere.
“So I’m going to do that, and I’ve got another collaboration and covers record that I’m putting together, maybe for next year if we can fit both in. And again, maybe [I’ll] just do one event for each. I’m not interested in going and touring for each. It’s not just for System, but for anything, really.”
It really seems like Tankian’s ready to move on to his next project, which means System may be going the way of the dodo soon. Who knows?
