“There were a number of labels looking at us when Rick and Guy both came and saw one of our shows at the Viper Room,” Tankian said.
In 1997, System recorded a three-song demo that caught the attention of Maverick’s Guy Oseary and Rubin, among others. At first they had trouble finding a drummer, but eventually anchored their rhythm section with John Dolmayan and developed a strong following in the Los Angeles community, which praised their quirky, bombastic sound. Suddenly, magazine editors were including the band in features about ethnic-centric metal and wrote pieces specifically about the rise of the supposed Armenian metal community, areas System of a Down had little interest in being associated with.Īfter the breakup of their earlier band, Soil, Tankian, guitarist Daron Malakian and bassist Shavo Odadjian formed System of a Down in 1994. Since they didn’t really fit in the nu-metal category, and couldn’t accurately be called funk rock, pundits scrambled for a category to slot them into and, without too much research, noticed that the members were all Armenian and had spoken before about their contempt for governments - especially Turkey - that still failed to recognize the Armenian Genocide in the early 1900s. Plus, they lacked any real vestiges of hip-hop. But System of a Down were vocally zanier and their guitars were more frenzied and metallic. Like Faith No More and Rage Against the Machine there were elements of metal, punk and funk on System of a Down’s self-titled debut, which came out June 30, 1998. In 1997, when System of a Down signed to Rick Rubin’s American Recordings, no one knew exactly what to make of them.
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