System Of A Down‘s Daron Malakian has offered another update on the band’s long-awaited new album.
Late last year, bassist Shavo Odadjian revealed that the Serj Tankian-led rockers had been at work on “material that tops everything we’ve done”. He added that he couldn’t “wait to record” what would be the follow-up to 2005 albums ‘Hypnotize’ and ‘Mezmerize’.
System guitarist and songwriter Malakian revealed last month that Odadjian was in fact referring to material he’s “been sitting on and trying to figure out”, while claiming that the LP isn’t “happening anytime soon”.
“We tend to have different ways of wanting to do things,” he said of the group’s current working relationship.
Now, Malakian has named frontman Serj Tankian as the reason for the numerous hold-ups in a new interview with Talk Is Jericho.
“System had a certain way of putting together the albums and the music, and I guess that was me writing and all that, and producing the records, along with Rick [Rubin],” said Malakian.
“And Serj wants to do things a different way. And it’s not just me — it’s kind of three of us that don’t necessarily see eye to eye with where he would wanna take the band.”
He added: So that’s kind of where we’re at. A lot of people think it’s just between me and him, and that’s not really the case.”
Echoing comments made last month, he said that he doesn’t “hate anybody in [the] band”, but cites “creative differences” as the driving force behind the hold-ups.
“In our case, that’s the truth,” Malakian explained. “It really is a creative-difference type of thing where a few of us wanna take the band and where someone wants to take the band in another way.
“When it comes to happy holidays, Easters, birthdays, we’re all still cool, we all consider each other like a family.”
Listen to the interview in full here.
Back in summer 2018, Tankian explained how creative clashes had prevented progress on a new LP. “My only regret is that we have been collectively unable to give you another SOAD record. For that I apologize,” he said.