If you were hoping System Of A Down’s sold out three city North American tour was a sign they’d be hitting the road again soon, you may have to wait awhile.
In a new interview, the band’s bassist Shavo Odadjian discussed how the band was simply “testing the waters” right now, seeing how they felt about playing together again before committing to larger tours.
He stated:
“We haven’t played a lot together for a while. We’ve been doing one or two shows a year since 2017. So, the relationships were not as great as they are now. It’s just everybody wasn’t on the same page. We’ve been talking. Everything’s great, knock on wood. Everyone’s happy. So we decided to test the waters and play some shows. And that’s what it is.
There is no strategy to it, there’s no plan to do the rest of the world just yet. I’m not saying it’s not gonna happen; I’m not saying it is gonna happen. We told each other, ‘Let’s play it by ear, do these shows, see how we feel afterwards. If we don’t wanna do any more, we don’t do any more. If we wanna do more, we’ll do more.’ There’s no heavy responsibility on anyone, because I feel like a lot of it is just thinking too much, overthinking what could happen”
He continued, saying:
“Bad experiences have happened to certain people, and they kind of hold that as PTSD, I think. And now that things are better, we’re older, we’re, like, ‘Dude, no pressure, bro. Let’s just do it. If we like it, we do. If we don’t like it, we [don’t].’ ‘Cause you know what? Serj had a great time at Sick New World last year. We had such an amazing, fun show and everyone left the stage hugging.
And so he called back, he’s, like, ‘Dude, I loved it. Let’s do more of these.’ So that’s where that happened. We’re, like, ‘Let’s go.’ As long as everyone is down. Daron [Malakian, System Of A Down guitarist/vocalist] was down. So we decided, ‘Let’s test the waters. Let’s not just go full blast and start doing months. Let’s just test the waters with three shows.’ Those three shows turned to six”
System Of A Down’s upcoming three city North American tour will kick off in New York City this summer and will bring Korn, Avenged Sevenfold, Deftones, Polyphia and Wisp along as support.