Against SERJ TANKIAN Leaving SYSTEM OF A DOWN

For nearly two decades, System of a Down has remained in a creative deadlock, releasing no full-length album since 2005’s Mezmerize and Hypnotize. While the band continues to tour sporadically and maintain a functioning friendship, deep-rooted creative and business disagreements — particularly between vocalist Serj Tankian and his bandmates — have kept them from recording together.

In his 2024 memoir Down With The System, Tankian revealed that in 2017, facing ongoing health problems and a worsening back injury, he told the band he wanted to tour less and even suggested they find a replacement vocalist to allow them to move forward without depending on his availability. He offered to help train the new singer and support the transition publicly, framing it as an amicable handover.

“I wanted them to be happy,” wrote Tankian. “I wanted them not to have to depend on my health, my back, or my willingness to spend months on the road each year for them to have this band that they wanted so much. These three guys meant more to me than System of a Down had ever meant — and they still do. Of course, I wanted me to be happy, too. It seemed like the solution was to ease myself out of the band while they invited in a replacement. I told them I’d even help train a new singer.

“‘Think about it,’ I said. ‘We can be the unique band that’s able to make this transition amicably, where the member of the band who’s leaving is 100 percent on-board with the new direction. I’ll do press and talk about it positively. I’ll make it clear that I support you guys.’ I don’t think the guys were totally shocked by my announcement.

“In fact, I almost sensed they’d expected it, or at least something like it. They didn’t dismiss the idea outright, but their collective response at the time was for me to essentially pump the brakes. They asked me not to announce that I was leaving the band. They promised not to pressure me into touring anymore. Management would merely present show offers as they came up. If I said yes, we’d do them. If I said no, we wouldn’t. End of story.

“It sounded reasonable enough to me. I sort of thought they’d forgotten about the whole idea of hiring a new singer, but a year or so later, John, Shavo, and I were at a fundraiser in Glendale, and this singer I knew got up and sang this beautiful Armenian song. Shavo was sitting next to me at the table. He leaned over and tapped me on the shoulder.

“‘By the way,’ he nodded toward the singer, ‘we tried this guy out as a singer. The only problem was that he couldn’t scream and growl.’ I was taken aback. Not that they had been auditioning replacements, but that they’d kept it a secret.

“‘Why didn’t you guys ever tell me?’ I whispered. Shavo shrugged. ‘I dunno.’ I turned toward Shavo, now looking directly at him. ‘Listen, he’s a good singer,’ I said. ‘I can literally take him in the parking lot right now and teach him how to growl. You should really consider him.’

“In more recent years, I pitched another friend to them as a potential replacement that they ought to seriously consider. But I don’t think they ever did.”

The other members initially asked him not to leave and instead agreed to present tour offers on a case-by-case basis. But Tankian was later surprised to learn that bassist Shavo Odadjian, drummer John Dolmayan, and others had quietly auditioned at least one potential replacement without telling him.

Malakian: “System Is Us Four”

Now, guitarist and primary songwriter Daron Malakian has addressed that period, speaking with Ultimate Guitar‘s On The Record podcast: “It was something that I never really wanted to do. For me, System of a Down is us four. If one of us four isn’t doing System of a Down, I don’t really wanna do System of a Down,” Malakian said.

Although Malakian admitted that the band did audition potential singers, he made it clear he was never personally invested in replacing Tankian: “People would think, ‘Oh, Daron is the one that would want that.’ I was the one that was most against it. I was, like, ‘I don’t wanna look to my left and see other people.’ System is System, and if that’s not gonna be System, then I don’t know if that’s the System I wanna be a part of.”

Malakian also disputed Tankian‘s account that one candidate was rejected because he “couldn’t scream and growl”: “[Serj] and I have never had this conversation of why it didn’t happen… Really the reason why it didn’t happen is I kind of was the one that was, like, ‘I don’t think I wanna pursue this. I don’t wanna do this without him.'”

Creative Differences Still Block New Music

The revelation underscores the long-standing creative impasse that has stalled new System of a Down music for nearly 20 years. In past interviews, Tankian has described wanting a more egalitarian songwriting process and a different business structure for revenue sharing — proposals that met resistance within the band.

Although System briefly reunited in the studio in 2020 to release two politically motivated singles — “Protect the Land” and “Genocidal Humanoidz” — to raise awareness for the conflict in Artsakh, the collaboration was short-lived, and no follow-up album materialized.

For now, System of a Down remains active as a live act, but as both Tankian and Malakian have made clear, the classic four-piece lineup is the only version of the band either of them wants to see — even if that means the studio silence continues.