With their latest record dating back to the double effort “Mezmerize” and “Hypnotize”, the band has been touring intermittently since 2010, and while fans are openly insistent on a new album, no such thing has materialized.
Recently, frontman Serj Tankian has revealed that SOAD are preparing a big announcement for next year, leading fans to speculate if a massive tour would be in order, or some new music to follow up the 2020 singles “Protect the Land” and “Genocidal Humanoidz”.
In a new interview with Metal Injection, however, the singer doesn’t seem too keen on touring, especially when confronted with the possibility of doing anniversary runs for “Toxicity” or “Steal This Album!”:
“‘Toxicity’ by itself is too short to play as a set. Right, so that’s one. But second is that I have, you know, based on my health issues and kind of redundancy in doing the same thing over and over again in terms of touring, it’s something I’m not very interested in doing at this time. Not just for System, for my own stuff, for orchestra or solo stuff. I just haven’t been touring. I also had back surgery last year.”
“I’ve got certain issues that I’m getting over that are health issues that are affecting my mobility. I mean, I walk fine and I’m able to do stuff and I could perform. But the travel of a tour really, really affects me at this point. That and, to be honest with you, it’s not in my creative purview, you know? So a show here and there we’ve done and might still do. But as far as doing a specific thing, it’s not really something where I’m at right now.”
As an alternative, Tankian proposed the idea of one-off events that would give him more joy:
“When you’re doing a full tour, those first two or three shows are really exciting, you know? Because you haven’t toured in a while and you’re playing the sets. You’re out there and you’re moving around and then you got the same set on the fourth show, fifth show, sixth show. By the 10th show, it’s fucking, what’s that movie? The Bill Murray one? ‘Groundhog Day’. You know, it becomes ‘Groundhog Day’.”
“And you still have fun because it’s a different audience, different city and all that, but it becomes a bit automatic, mechanical, a bit. And to me, that’s redundant artistically. Having one show that’s in a special place, done in a special way, is more interesting.”
Finally, confronted with the inevitable question regarding a new SOAD album, the singer said:
“It’s always a compliment [to be asked about a new System of a Down record]. It’s kind of like someone saying, I mean, I don’t know. If you’re an architect and you design this incredible museum and everyone comes back to you and says, ‘when are you going to do a museum again?’ And you’re working on, I don’t know, industrial projects at this point or whatever, but you’re like, oh yeah, I’m grateful that you like that design. That’s rad, you know? And I guess when the opportunity comes up to do a museum again, I’ll do a museum again and that’s exactly what it is.”
