System Of A Down has apparently tried a few times since their last full length record to write new material. The band did manage a pair of benefit singles in 2020 to support Artsakh/Armenian relief efforts but have been unable to produce anything else.
In a recent interview on “But That 1% with Sona Oganesyan,” singer Serj Tankian discussed the band’s lack of output and what’s causing it.
“I would say there is no album that is written,” he said about possible unreleased material. “So years ago — and this is outlined in the book — but years ago, there was a try of coming to minds with myself and the guys in the band. I tried to come to them with what I call jokingly a manifesto, and saying, ‘Listen, if we’re going to move forward, let’s do things in a more egalitarian fashion. Let’s equally split publishing. Let’s equally bring in songs’ — especially the creators, mostly Daron and I, Shavo as well. And everyone gets a veto on songs, like all these amazing kind of, you know, theoretical, positive, egalitarian terms.”
The singer continued: “Apparently it doesn’t work in a metal band. You know? The joke is on me. So it didn’t work. But at that time I invited Daron over. Many times, we had dinner at my house, and I would have him play me music that he had written and I would make notes about that music and send it to him, and I would send him music. I would play him music that I had written.”
“And so at one point, we had a band meeting — a very long one — and we didn’t come to terms on stuff, but the guys wanted to work on some of those songs. I was in New Zealand. And so they started working in a rehearsal studio on some of those songs, which included Daron’s songs and a few of mine, if I’m not mistaken. Nothing was recorded. And they had sent it to me, I was in New Zealand at the time. They had sent me a recording to listen to. And nothing, like when I say recording, I’m talking about like a tape from a rehearsal studio, you know, not a recording per se. Um, I would say that ‘Genocidal Humanoidz’ was probably one of them, if I’m not mistaken. I don’t remember if ‘Protect The Land’ was one of them. I don’t remember maybe, probably not, I would say. But you know, some of those, a lot of those are Daron songs, and some of them he may have released recently and some of those are my songs which I released, probably on ‘Elasticity’. So that’s the story. I mean, there is no ‘record.’”
