BLABBERMOUTH.NET
SYSTEM OF A DOWN drummer
John Dolmayan, who is currently promoting his
"These Grey Men" solo album, spoke to
Dean Delray's
"Let There Be Talk" podcast about the band's stalled attempts to record a follow-up to its
"Mezmerize" and
"Hypnotize" LPs, which came out in 2005. Asked if there has been any talk about making new music with
SYSTEM,
John said (hear audio below): "I find it very unlikely. I'm not even sure I wanna do it anymore. It's just so much drama and bullshit. In a lot of ways, I'm just over it. 'Cause I fought really hard to get us to make an album over the course of the last 15 years. More than anybody else, I was calling people, 'Let's get together. Put the egos aside. Let's have meetings. Whatever it takes. Let's get in the studio. Let's just get in the studio and see what happens.' I just couldn't get it done. I failed."
He added: "Relationships break up all the time. And that's with one person. Try having it with four."
Pressed about whether singer
Serj Tankian and guitarist
Daron Malakian are primarily to blame for
SYSTEM OF A DOWN's inability move forward with a new album,
John said: "It's not just
Daron and
Serj. It takes four people to make this band, and it takes four people to unmake it. I think that we're all to blame. I could just blame
Daron and
Serj, because, quite frankly, they're the primary songwriters, so it's easy to blame them. But it's not just their fault. A lot of it is their fault, but it's not just their fault."
Dolmayan also discussed
SYSTEM OF A DOWN's touring acitivites and what it has been like traveling with his bandmates who don't always see eye-to-eye on things.
"Everybody pretty much does their own thing, but that's been the way it's been since day one, so it's not like that changed," he said. "For me, it's very odd, where we can put our differences aside to go on tour — we're having a great time onstage, we have a blast on tour — and then I say, 'Okay, well, you can put it aside for that, but you can't put it aside for [this].'
"Listen, I'm as confused as other people are," he said, circling back to why
SYSTEM OF A DOWN hasn't released any new music. "I'm more frustrated than everybody else. 'Cause at the end of the day, this is it — this is what my life's work is. And as much as I enjoyed making the covers album, and I'm glad people are digging it — it's getting a pretty good response — and it was a lot of fun to make, but I don't wanna have time to make a covers album. I wanna be so immersed in
SYSTEM OF A DOWN and the creative process of
SYSTEM OF A DOWN that there isn't even time for me to do that."
In 2018,
Malakian publicly accused
Tankian of not wanting to record, with
Tankian responding that creative and financial issues with
Malakian led to the stalemate. In a message on
Facebook,
Tankian wrote that
Malakian wanted to control
SYSTEM's creative process, take more of the publishing money and be the only band member to speak to the press.
Last year,
Serj told
Rolling Stone that the public airing of his dispute with
Daron didn't open up any more conversations about
SYSTEM's future. "I think it released a lot of tension and negativity," he said. "Everything became more public and open, and that was that. There were no further discussions."
SYSTEM OF A DOWN played a couple of live shows last May, including headlining slots at Columbus, Ohio's
Sonic Temple festival and
Chicago Open Air.
The band was scheduled to play a number of European festivals this summer, but all of those shows appear to have been canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic which is sweeping the globe.