Serj Tankian Says a Short System of a Down Tour Could “Possibly” Happen
It’s been a looooong time since System of a Down‘s gone on a tour of any kind. Sure, they’ve done the handful of one-off shows here and there for the last 10 years, but a scheduled string of dates across the U.S. or some other part of the world? Nope. But it seems like it’s not completely out of the picture, according to a recent interview with frontman Serj Tankian.
During his recent appearance on LiveSigning with Rain Wilson (yes, Dwight Schrute), the Armenian singer said the idea of going out on a shorter tour or continuing with the occasional show was in line with what he wanted to do these days.
“I love performing, but especially the long [tours]… I think when you do a long tour, it’s not just physically exhausting, but it’s artistically redundant after a while, repeating the same thing. That’s why we’re really enjoying doing these one-offs. They’re special events, special occasions. We can’t do them everywhere. We can’t do them all the time. But performing becomes fun again in a way. And I had kind of lost that.
“And not just because of that reason, but I also had some back problems, back surgery and things that were hindering me from performing. I’m much better now. I exercise better, all of that stuff, so a lot of that’s been worked out. As far as touring somewhere in the near future? Possibly, I would say. I mean, I’m open to looking at stuff, but not thrilled about doing long tours at all, anywhere, just one-offs, or maybe a handful of one-offs with dates in between, personally.”
Tankian also shed light on the relationships that exist within the band, noting that despite creative (or political) differences among members, the four of them still have a respect for one another.
“Let me first say that [Tankian’s upcoming book Down With The System] goes into very detailed explanations of our relationships. But it also talks about some of the origination of songs and all of that. But one thing that I wanna clarify is, despite some of our creative differences, which has happened over the years, which is quite normal within a band, and the push and pull of songwriting and thematics and direction and all of that stuff — again, all creative differences — we have immense respect for each other.
“We just played a show called Sick New World in Las Vegas this last weekend. We had a blast. And it’s one of those things where life is complicated, and relationships, partnerships are complicated. They don’t work perfectly. But there is a certain special thing, bond, especially with System Of A Down, that I can never replicate elsewhere.”
So who knows? Maybe in the future we’ll get a short run of shows. One can hope, anyway.
