In a radio interview, System of A Down guitarist Daron Malakian opened up about the band's issues. All four members recently came together to record two new tracks protesting shell attacks in the Republic of Artsakh, “Protect The Land” and “Genocidal Humanoidz.”
Reports say that Malakian and Serj Tankian are having creative and commercial differences. Malakian previously said in an interview that “it’s kind of three of us that don’t necessarily see eye to eye with where Tankian would wanna take the band”.
When asked about the possibility of a new record from the band, Malakian said, “It’s not that simple, I guess. I wish it was. It should be; it should be. But it gets a little bit more complicated than that. I don’t wanna get into, like, ‘Well, it’s this person and that person.'”
He continued, “We did these new songs for a noble reason, and we did this for the right reasons. We didn’t make any money off this. It was totally for the noble reason of our country needs us.”
He added, “We did do these two songs which were written previously in a really comfortable, smooth way. Everyone got along. It was cool. I personally do walk away and say, it’s a shame that certain things can’t come together to make a new record happen.”
Meanwhile, NME reported that the band's “dynamic is additionally complicated” by drummer John Dolmayan's strong Republican views.