System Of A Down’s Shavo Odadjian Says They’re “Testing the Waters” with 2025 Tour Plans
The concept of extensive touring and System of a Down have not been on the same page for a loooong time. It’s made each show since the late 2010s a special event, but recently the iconic nu metal band announced a baker’s dozen of live dates, including six in Chicago, Toronto, and East Rutherford, bucking the long-running trend of just a handful of shows taking place over the last few years.
It’s enough to make fans wonder if something’s percolating beneath the surface of the band that’s so famously been averse to writing new music and long tours thanks to disagreements among its ranks. Yet according to bassist Shavo Odadjian, it seems like the group might be “testing the waters” since everyone’s apparently getting along much better. At least, that’s what he said during a recent appearance on Trunk Nation With Eddie Trunk.
“We haven’t played a lot together for a while. We’ve been doing one or two shows a year since 2017. So, the relationships were not as great as they are now. It’s just everybody wasn’t on the same page. We’ve been talking. Everything’s great, knock on wood. Everyone’s happy. So we decided to test the waters and play some shows. And that’s what it is. There is no strategy to it, there’s no plan to do the rest of the world just yet.
“I’m not saying it’s not gonna happen; I’m not saying it is gonna happen. We told each other, ‘Let’s play it by ear, do these shows, see how we feel afterwards. If we don’t wanna do any more, we don’t do any more. If we wanna do more, we’ll do more.’ There’s no heavy responsibility on anyone, because I feel like a lot of it is just thinking too much, overthinking what could happen.
“Bad experiences have happened to certain people, and they kind of hold that as PTSD, I think. And now that things are better, we’re older, we’re, like, ‘Dude, no pressure, bro. Let’s just do it. If we like it, we do. If we don’t like it, we [don’t].’ ‘Cause you know what? Serj had a great time at Sick New World last year. We had such an amazing, fun show and everyone left the stage hugging. And so he called back, he’s, like, ‘Dude, I loved it. Let’s do more of these.’
“So that’s where that happened. We’re, like, ‘Let’s go.’ As long as everyone is down. Daron was down. So we decided, ‘Let’s test the waters. Let’s not just go full blast and start doing months. Let’s just test the waters with three shows.’ Those three shows turned to six.”
That’s certainly hopeful. It’s good to hear that the long-time bandmates have come around to playing well together again. Does that mean we’ll get new music? Probably not, but Odadjian said the possibility of more shows in the future are certainly not out of the question as long as everyone’s on the same page.
“We can do it. Look, for the last few years, we’ve been doing one or two shows. And we go and we rehearse two weeks for one show. I think that’s not smart. So six shows is better than one show to me. I’ll take it. I’ll take it, and I’m not gonna ask for more. I want it to happen organically. I think our band is that band — we can’t be told what to do. The more we push each other to do something, the less we do. So I figure the less we push, the more we’ll do. It should be done because we wanna do it, we love to do it, and that’s why we do it.”
System Of A Down tour dates
4/24 Bogota, Columbia Estadio Nemesio Camacho El Campin
4/27 Lima, Peru Estadio Nacional
4/30 Santigo, Chile Parque Estadio Nacional
5/3 Buenos Aires, Argentina Estadio Velez Sarsfield
5/6 Curitiba, Brazila Estadio Couto Pereira
5/8 Rio De Janeiro, Brazil Estadio Nilton Santos
5/10 São Paulo, Brazil Allianz Parque
8/27 MetLife Stadium East Rutherford, NJ (System Of A Down, Korn, Polyphia & Wisp)
8/28 MetLife Stadium East Rutherford, NJ (System Of A Down, Korn, Polyphia & Wisp)
8/31 Soldier Field Chicago, IL (System Of A Down, Avenged Sevenfold, Polyphia & Wisp)
9/1 Soldier Field Chicago, IL (System Of A Down, Avenged Sevenfold, Polyphia & Wisp)
9/3 Rogers Stadium Toronto, ON (System Of A Down, Deftones, Polyphia & Wisp)
9/5 Rogers Stadium Toronto, ON (System Of A Down, Deftones, Polyphia & Wisp)
