Speaker 1: Pushkin. Darren Malachean first made his name as the enigmatic
Speaker 1: guitarist and songwriter behind System of a Down. Between nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety eight and two thousand and five, the band released
Speaker 1: five albums, three of which debuted at number one on
Speaker 1: the Billboard Charts. In two thousand and six, System announced
Speaker 1: an indefinite hiatus. Eager to keep creating, Darren launched a
Speaker 1: new project, Scars on Broadway. Their debut album arrived in
Speaker 1: two thousand and eight to critical acclaim. Since then, he's
Speaker 1: reunited with System for a series of live performances, including
Speaker 1: a recent South American tour that drew massive crowds. Their
Speaker 1: final stop in South Polo, Brazil attracted an estimated seventy
Speaker 1: five thousand fans. Now, after seven years in the making,
Speaker 1: Darren is releasing Addicted to the Violence, their third Scars
Speaker 1: on Broadway album, featuring what he considers some of the
Speaker 1: best songs he's ever written. On today's episode, Lea Rose
Speaker 1: sits down with Darren to talk about why he believes
Speaker 1: he was destined to be a rock star and how
Speaker 1: his parents' journey from Baghdad to Hollywood helped make that
Speaker 1: dream possible. He also explains what people often misunderstand about
Speaker 1: his relationship with System frontman Surge Tonkien and reveals the
Speaker 1: surprising contrast between this outrageous on stage persona and who
Speaker 1: he really is off stage. This is broken record, real musicians,
Speaker 1: real conversations. Here's Lea Rose with Darren Malachean.
Speaker 2: Let's talk about this new album, so Scars on Broadway.
Speaker 2: Album it's called Addicted to the Violence to first album
Speaker 2: in seven years. And I was curious, like, since it
Speaker 2: sounds like you've been working on the songs for a
Speaker 2: little while, and I was curious if in that process,
Speaker 2: because we live in such a tumultuous time, just every
Speaker 2: day just brings something new, something different, something that is,
Speaker 2: you know, more shocking than maybe the next day. Did
Speaker 2: any of those songs that you were writing. Did the
Speaker 2: meaning sort of change for you?
Speaker 3: The thing is, I didn't write these songs necessarily during
Speaker 3: these times. Some of these songs I wrote many, many
Speaker 3: years ago, but they still kind of relate to the
Speaker 3: world we live in. I think there's always some kind
Speaker 3: of chaos in the world, whether it was twenty years ago,
Speaker 3: ten years ago, five years ago, I think, one hundred
Speaker 3: years ago. So I think chaos and I think that's
Speaker 3: something that's been kind of that's always been there during mankind.
Speaker 3: So that's why I think. But you know, not all
Speaker 3: my songs are about chaos. But you know, the Idol
Speaker 3: track is called Addicted to the Violence. But I can't,
Speaker 3: you know, sit there and say every song on the
Speaker 3: record is about the same thing, and it is about
Speaker 3: there was this theme. Because I write songs. I always
Speaker 3: tell people write I write songs, I don't write albums,
Speaker 3: And those songs end up on albums. But I wasn't
Speaker 3: writing those songs for an album. That right makes sense.
Speaker 3: So at some point when I get off my ass
Speaker 3: and I'm like, let me, let me record some of
Speaker 3: these or you know, I play around them. I entertain
Speaker 3: myself with my songs. I don't really write them for
Speaker 3: anybody else. The fact that anybody else outside of me
Speaker 3: likes them is a complete bonus. They're usually just for
Speaker 3: me to begin with. The last thing I think of
Speaker 3: when I write a song is I can't wait till
Speaker 3: everybody hears this. It's just completely If I didn't have scars,
Speaker 3: if I didn't have system, I would still be doing this.
Speaker 2: Do you remember the first time you saw somebody react
Speaker 2: to something that you wrote.
Speaker 3: It was when I was a teenager. I used to
Speaker 3: have a group of friends that were because I wrote
Speaker 3: songs when I was like thirteen fourteen. You know, I
Speaker 3: started playing guitar when I was like twelve, and I
Speaker 3: started writing my own songs at around thirteen fourteen, fifteen
Speaker 3: years old. And my group of friends they were not
Speaker 3: and still aren't. All my friends are plumbers. They're all
Speaker 3: because they're all my old high school friends. And all
Speaker 3: my old high school friends weren't musicians. They were more
Speaker 3: kind of tough guy kind of you know, that's the
Speaker 3: kind of crowd I hung out when was like, we
Speaker 3: fought a lot out of school, and we were just
Speaker 3: we were those guys.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So we'd get together group of friends and I'd played
Speaker 3: my song's original songs that I had written when I
Speaker 3: was like maybe fourteen years old, more kind of folky,
Speaker 3: sometimes ballady type. Lonely Day, you could say, is a
Speaker 3: song that is kind of in that world of the
Speaker 3: type of songs I used to write at that time.
Speaker 3: And sometimes one of my friends, who's probably somebody that
Speaker 3: you wouldn't see, get very emotional or you know, that's
Speaker 3: just kind of the group that I was in would
Speaker 3: like get emotional after I sang one of my songs
Speaker 3: that like could get together or a party or whatever.
Speaker 3: And I could see that, like my song touched touched them.
Speaker 3: And it was then that I realized, Yeah, I love music.
Speaker 3: I've always loved music. I started collecting records when I
Speaker 3: was like four or five, really young. But it was
Speaker 3: then that I realized that but my path in music
Speaker 3: was it wasn't about being a shredding guitar player. It
Speaker 3: wasn't about even an instrument. At the end of the day,
Speaker 3: I realized the instrument is just a tool to bring
Speaker 3: out these songs. Writing songs is my strength. This is
Speaker 3: something that I can do and I love to do,
Speaker 3: and I do it myself, but it seems to touch
Speaker 3: other people as well, even though that's not why I
Speaker 3: wrote those songs, but it does, and that's how I
Speaker 3: kind of that's my focus kind of stayed through all
Speaker 3: these years. Like even if you you know, read my
Speaker 3: interviews from twenty years ago, I'd always say that I'm
Speaker 3: a songwriter. I write songs, I compose songs. That's what
Speaker 3: I did for System, so I do for Scars. That's
Speaker 3: my you know, in music, you got a lot of
Speaker 3: different you got the people who are technical musicians, You've
Speaker 3: got the composers, you got producing, and there's so many
Speaker 3: musicians that are just better musicians than I am. But
Speaker 3: if you put me in a room with musicians, I
Speaker 3: can make I can make those musicians sing together with
Speaker 3: my song.
Speaker 2: Mm hmmm.
Speaker 3: Because you guys, you got guitar players who are amazing
Speaker 3: guitar players, but they can't write songs.
Speaker 2: Do you like amazing guitar players?
Speaker 3: Like?
Speaker 2: Do you like super technical players?
Speaker 3: I appreciate it, but it's not what I want to
Speaker 3: do or even I have moments where I'll listen to
Speaker 3: somebody like that. But if I want to talk about
Speaker 3: like my I was always into drums more than I
Speaker 3: had drums and vocalists, and I am into guitars. But
Speaker 3: if I had to pick like guitar players, I like
Speaker 3: like I like Roy Buchanan, I like Jerry Garcia. Oh nice,
Speaker 3: just dudes that aren't necessarily But you know, growing up,
Speaker 3: I used to really love Randy Rhodes, But as I
Speaker 3: got older, the guitar players I enjoy listening to are
Speaker 3: not necessarily shredders there, And when I do a guitar
Speaker 3: soul in a song, it's usually kind of melodic. I
Speaker 3: like the melodic kind of guitar players, So yeah, I mean,
Speaker 3: but the guitar for me is just a tool to
Speaker 3: write songs. I've written plenty of songs on synthesizers and
Speaker 3: just maybe a vocal comes out first, never really focused
Speaker 3: on it being you know, the guitar, being like I
Speaker 3: really have to perfect this instrument or anything like that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's so interesting. Does it feel for you like
Speaker 2: when you're up on stage? Is it an outlet to
Speaker 2: get something out and to express something.
Speaker 3: When I'm on stage, there is a personality that comes
Speaker 3: out of me. I don't fake it, It just comes out.
Speaker 3: And that dude, that dude's really different. Like I don't
Speaker 3: know how to explain it. But the second I walk
Speaker 3: onto that stage, you put a microphone and the guitar
Speaker 3: on my shoulder, and I start turning into a much
Speaker 3: more confident version of myself and I'm comfortable up there.
Speaker 3: I've always loved performing. Performing is also something that you know,
Speaker 3: aside from the songwriting, I consider myself a performer as well.
Speaker 3: But it's it's it's something that is just all of
Speaker 3: it has just come natural to me. It's never been
Speaker 3: something that I think about too much. It just happens.
Speaker 3: I get on stage and I say shit that I
Speaker 3: would never say real life. I do things that I
Speaker 3: would never do in real life. I could see, like
Speaker 3: when I see pictures of me, I see the way
Speaker 3: I am on stage. You know that guy dances, that
Speaker 3: guy screams, that guy yelled, that guy does all these
Speaker 3: things Like I don't dance. I'm kind of really, kind
Speaker 3: of mellow most of the time. It's almost like that
Speaker 3: guy is not a good representation of who I am
Speaker 3: in real life. But that's who comes out. That that's
Speaker 3: who comes out when I walk on to stage, and
Speaker 3: and that's cool. But you know, he just I'm glad
Speaker 3: he stays there.
Speaker 1: Is it?
Speaker 2: Is it? Is it therapeutic for you?
Speaker 3: Like? Does it?
Speaker 2: Does it achieve something? Help you work through something? Whereas
Speaker 2: I'm thinking of your friends, like your friends maybe aren't
Speaker 2: as vulnerable and expressive as you, like, I feel bad
Speaker 2: for people who don't have that outlet like you have
Speaker 2: this amazing outlet.
Speaker 3: He too, No, it is therapy. I look, I'm sure
Speaker 3: everything that's there is here, but I can't express it here.
Speaker 3: The same way, you know, and then it feels comfortable
Speaker 3: to let loose and be angry, be you know, sometimes
Speaker 3: I'm completely stupid. I say some stupid shit up there.
Speaker 3: Sometimes I'm funny, like, uh, you know, Sarah. Sarah will
Speaker 3: come to me after the show and he's like, dude,
Speaker 3: you had me laughing the old time, like I could
Speaker 3: barely fucking say out laughing, you know. And the rest
Speaker 3: of the band, you know, they they have like I turned,
Speaker 3: I say something. I turned to my band and they're
Speaker 3: all like laughing because they didn't know I'm gonna say that.
Speaker 3: I didn't know I was gonna say that, and it
Speaker 3: just you know, I'm the audience doesn't know what's about
Speaker 3: to happen. And there's just different sides that, you know,
Speaker 3: and even in the songs that I write, Yeah, I
Speaker 3: can't sit there and say that, you know, whether it's
Speaker 3: System or Scars, that it's just like pure I mean metal,
Speaker 3: because it's not.
Speaker 2: No, it's not. It changes, it's changed a lot.
Speaker 3: There's all kinds of emotions that human beings go through. Yeah. Uh,
Speaker 3: you have your like I said, you had your funny times,
Speaker 3: you have your stupid times, you have your sad times.
Speaker 3: You have your angry times, you have your times that
Speaker 3: you're concerned out society. I mean, and you're this person
Speaker 3: and you're living in this world. And for me to
Speaker 3: just be like, well, I write angry music and it
Speaker 3: would it wouldn't seem honest to all of my emotions
Speaker 3: and all of the human emotion that's out there. And
Speaker 3: and so when I'm writing songs, I never like put
Speaker 3: a wall and say, well that's that doesn't fit in
Speaker 3: this rock metal world or that doesn't and so you know,
Speaker 3: and then sometimes I'm expressing like Killing Spree for example,
Speaker 3: the song is like, you know, it's very heavy riff,
Speaker 3: kind of driving song, but if you listen to the
Speaker 3: way I'm singing the song, it's very cartoon cartoon like
Speaker 3: you know, uh wow ow how wow. You know, there's
Speaker 3: all these and so there's like this series and the
Speaker 3: topic is maybe some thing that's kind of serious. The
Speaker 3: song is kind of heavy, but the emotion that I'm
Speaker 3: singing with is kind of like not heavy, not serious.
Speaker 3: It's cartoon cartoon esque. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I love that. Yeah, I was thinking. One song that
Speaker 2: stood out to me was The Shame Game.
Speaker 3: Oh cool, Yeah, I like that.
Speaker 2: I love that song. Yeah, I think that might be.
Speaker 2: That's one of my favorites on the album. But that
Speaker 2: like how you were saying, it's not all heavy, it's
Speaker 2: not all metal. That's definitely a different sound, kind of psychedelic.
Speaker 3: It's exactly.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's what I thought. It feels sort of like
Speaker 2: I mean, it's hard to classify, but I was thinking
Speaker 2: kind of like nineties kind of psychedelic. But that song.
Speaker 2: I think that song's gonna sound super good live.
Speaker 3: Thank you. Yeah, proud of that one. You know. I
Speaker 3: tend to really enjoy those type of songs, and I
Speaker 3: feel like as I go into my writing, I kind
Speaker 3: of write more of those type of songs these days
Speaker 3: than I do the heavier stuff. And Scars kind of
Speaker 3: system has that stuff too, Like I wrote when I
Speaker 3: wrote Aerials, Uh, you know, a song like Atua has
Speaker 3: both of those things in it, Like this, the verses
Speaker 3: are very kind of you could say, uh, everly brothers
Speaker 3: Simon and gar. Then we go into you don't care
Speaker 3: about how I feel I don't, and it turns into
Speaker 3: this metal thing and goes in and out of that
Speaker 3: lonely day lost in Hollywood.
Speaker 2: So lost in Hollywood for sure.
Speaker 3: Scars kind of especially the first album you know, kind
Speaker 3: of has more of that kind of stuff in there. Yeah,
Speaker 3: people ask me to compare Scars to System. I would
Speaker 3: always say, Scars kind of moved into a more rock
Speaker 3: direction and and you'd have those dark moody, more of
Speaker 3: those dark moody, mid tempo kind of songs, songs like
Speaker 3: Insane on the first record Babylon.
Speaker 2: I Love Babylon.
Speaker 3: Like System, we didn't make any more records, but I
Speaker 3: was still going into that direction, and you can see
Speaker 3: it and mesmerize and hypnotize them that direction. So if
Speaker 3: if System continued to make records, I could see that
Speaker 3: System would have moved into that direction. But since there
Speaker 3: we kind of took the hiatus and didn't make the
Speaker 3: records anymore. Scars took me into that direction, right, and
Speaker 3: so that's why you know you hear it moving into
Speaker 3: a more rock direction. Babylon. Babylon is you know, my
Speaker 3: family was in all the wars in Iraq during you know,
Speaker 3: the first Bush, the second book. They were there during
Speaker 3: Iran Iraq War. So it's kind of a song about
Speaker 3: me and my family and my connection to my family
Speaker 3: in Iraq and my concern running to Babylon like to
Speaker 3: you know. And then there was a there's a line
Speaker 3: that's like, I like the way we slept on rooftops
Speaker 3: in the summertime, if we were And so that line
Speaker 3: comes from when I was a kid, my parents would
Speaker 3: always tell me, in the summer, people because it's so hot,
Speaker 3: people would sleep on the roofs, you know. And when
Speaker 3: I went to I went to Iraq when I was
Speaker 3: in like fourteen years old, and it was in the summer,
Speaker 3: and I was like, I would like to sleep on
Speaker 3: the roof because I always I always heard about that
Speaker 3: from my family. So I did. And so a few
Speaker 3: nights at my I think it was my uncles or
Speaker 3: my aunts, I can't remember, but we slept up on
Speaker 3: the rooftop in the summertime. So that was like a
Speaker 3: lived experience that I had that I you know, was
Speaker 3: in the lyrics of the song Oh yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: How was Iraq different than what you had imagined it
Speaker 2: would be like when you were living in Hollywood. You're
Speaker 2: living in la and you imagine what life was like there.
Speaker 2: How was it different actually being there than what you
Speaker 2: thought it would be like?
Speaker 3: Well, I had probably the same perception as most Americans
Speaker 3: would maybe you know, maybe a little different because my
Speaker 3: parents were from there. But you know, I thought I'm
Speaker 3: going to a place where it's like sand and camels,
Speaker 3: you know, honestly, Yeah, But no, there was a it
Speaker 3: was a city, there was cars, There was a city,
Speaker 3: like a very different kind of city, a very different
Speaker 3: kind of vibe obviously because of you know, Saddam and
Speaker 3: all that stuff. But like it was, you know, just
Speaker 3: not as modern as where I was used to growing up. Yeah,
Speaker 3: more modern than I thought it would be at the
Speaker 3: end of the day.
Speaker 2: Do you remember questions people asked you about Hollywood or
Speaker 2: about la it.
Speaker 3: Was I was fourteen years old, such a yeah, totally.
Speaker 3: But I remember, you know, I had all my metal
Speaker 3: cassettes and all the stuff, because that's you know, I would.
Speaker 3: I would just I took a bunch of like rock magazines,
Speaker 3: metal magazines, and I took a bunch of my cassettes
Speaker 3: and I would listen on my headphones. I just remember
Speaker 3: when I would like show and Slayer was extreme for
Speaker 3: that time in the United States in nineteen eighty nine.
Speaker 3: You know, yeah, player was like pretty extreme for your
Speaker 3: average metal guy at that time. But I would sort
Speaker 3: of show the Slayer show No Mercy, and they would
Speaker 3: they would almost like question, It's like, is this even music?
Speaker 3: What is this even? Like I said, it was even
Speaker 3: extreme for the United States at that time.
Speaker 1: We'll be back with more from Darren Malackean and Leah
Speaker 1: Rose after the break.
Speaker 2: Do you still listen to hard music? Like, do you
Speaker 2: find that as you've gotten older, has your music taste
Speaker 2: has it gotten a little softer? Or can you still
Speaker 2: listen to hard music?
Speaker 3: I've always listened to all kinds of music. I could.
Speaker 3: There isn't much that's new in metal that I'm really
Speaker 3: gravitating to, Like I don't, I don't, I don't. I mean,
Speaker 3: I'm I don't. I'm not talking shit about any of
Speaker 3: the bands, but it's just I don't. It's it's not
Speaker 3: turning me on.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, yeah, no, I get that.
Speaker 3: But uh, I've always had a My taste in music
Speaker 3: has always been like this place, that place. It was
Speaker 3: just always been all over the place, you know. When
Speaker 3: I was a teenager, yeah I was more metal. But
Speaker 3: as I got older. But when I say older eighteen
Speaker 3: nineteen twenty twenty one, I started listening to Bowie, the Beatles,
Speaker 3: Grateful Dead, stuff, that wasn't stuff that people turned me
Speaker 3: on to yet at that point in my life, or
Speaker 3: I didn't get turned onto yet. Yeah. And the thing
Speaker 3: about me is I just I go through I mean
Speaker 3: so many different kinds of music every other week, Like
Speaker 3: this week I'm into like or this five months or
Speaker 3: six months dub reggae, oh cool, Yeah, like kick Uppy
Speaker 3: and these cats and the like. I go through phases
Speaker 3: of like Miles Davis and uh, you know, I sese
Speaker 3: phases that I've always gone through in my life, you know,
Speaker 3: my twenties, like the goth bands that I was listening
Speaker 3: to the early eighties, goth cool. When I was writing
Speaker 3: mesmeriz and Hypnotized. Back in the day, I was really
Speaker 3: into a black metal Norwegian. And I have to say,
Speaker 3: if I listen to heavy music or metal music, if
Speaker 3: you want to, you know, it's usually my go to
Speaker 3: is black metal. I there's melody in the music, it's
Speaker 3: it's there's just something that I really love about black
Speaker 3: metal music. When it comes to what I listened to.
Speaker 3: If I was to you know, I'm gonna turn on
Speaker 3: something heavy, you know it would be dark Throwneh, satiric,
Speaker 3: con immortal, those.
Speaker 2: Cool have you ever met any those guys, Like have
Speaker 2: you been over to Norway and like played with any
Speaker 2: of those guys.
Speaker 3: I'm very close friends with Satyr from Satyra Khan. I
Speaker 3: have been for probably twenty five years now. He's still
Speaker 3: keep in touch. He's I don't really have that many
Speaker 3: friends that are in bands. I have acquaintances, but nobody
Speaker 3: that I really regularly keep in touch with. Joey from
Speaker 3: Slipknot was a friend of mine, and you know, it
Speaker 3: was tough to lose him every so often. I'd been
Speaker 3: from Dillinger Escape Plan and I kind of talk. But
Speaker 3: Satyre from satirra Khan is somebody that I really keep
Speaker 3: in touch with or you know, our friendship is a
Speaker 3: little closer and more personal. And I really respect his band.
Speaker 3: I love his band. I'm a fan of his band.
Speaker 3: And that whole scene to me is one of the
Speaker 3: last great metal if not the last great metal music
Speaker 3: scene that I can recall.
Speaker 2: And when were they active, like around what years.
Speaker 3: Uh nineties up until now? A lot of those bands,
Speaker 3: yeah still but early nineties. Because there's two waves of
Speaker 3: black metal. There is the first wave with the bath Ory, Venom,
Speaker 3: Celtic Frost that was in the early eighties kind of.
Speaker 3: And then there was the second wave of black metal,
Speaker 3: which came in the early nineties with Mayhem, Dark Throne,
Speaker 3: Satiric Kron was part of that. But a lot of
Speaker 3: black great bands. You know, a lot of people kind
Speaker 3: of you know, they see the imagery and they see
Speaker 3: all that stuff. But the music you listen to the music,
Speaker 3: it's really melodic and it's kind of like classical music cool.
Speaker 3: There was a mood. There was a scene same with
Speaker 3: the like I mean, I know a lot of people
Speaker 3: like to you know, lup Us in with new metal,
Speaker 3: but that is the scene that we came up in.
Speaker 3: And even in Los Angeles, you know that kind of
Speaker 3: music Corn Deftones. When we first heard it and we
Speaker 3: were part of it, we were being honest, we were
Speaker 3: being original. We were you know, it was something. It
Speaker 3: was a scene that I guess wasn't even meant to
Speaker 3: be a scene, right. It just accidentally happens that all
Speaker 3: these bands and they share these things in common, they
Speaker 3: share a sound in common, and then what ends up
Speaker 3: happening is it becomes popular. And when it becomes popular,
Speaker 3: it starts becoming kind of cookie cutter, and it becomes
Speaker 3: something at that time out labels these days I don't
Speaker 3: even exist or they don't. But like at that time,
Speaker 3: the label wanted to next System of a Down and
Speaker 3: I was like, that's funny because none of you motherfuckers
Speaker 3: wanted to sign us.
Speaker 2: Yeah right, you know.
Speaker 3: But now that we're thing, you know, being Armenian is
Speaker 3: really cool now, isn't it. Like when we were coming
Speaker 3: up there like, well, you guys are Armenian. I don't
Speaker 3: know if anyone's gonna get what's an Armenian? You know?
Speaker 3: And now that we were signed there was funny because
Speaker 3: at that time not anymore, but like people were looking
Speaker 3: for is there an Armenian member in that band? Like really, yeah,
Speaker 3: it kind of funny, man. But all of these bands
Speaker 3: I just mentioned the original ones, the ones that were
Speaker 3: the first. We're not cheesy, We're not We're doing something unique.
Speaker 3: I remember when I first heard the first Corn album,
Speaker 3: I was like, dude, this is fucking different. It's heavy. Yeah,
Speaker 3: the way that it sounds is even different. The way
Speaker 3: that it's produced is different. It was like something I'd
Speaker 3: never heard before. But then ten thousand bands came out
Speaker 3: copying Corn and that's what turns it into oh, and
Speaker 3: then it gets labeled as a genre. Yep, you metal,
Speaker 3: Like we never called it that. And I hate genres.
Speaker 3: To me, all music is the same.
Speaker 2: I know the thing about the genres though, Like I
Speaker 2: understand that because I hate genres too, and I know
Speaker 2: musicians hate genres. But if you're like a journalist or
Speaker 2: you're trying to write about this stuff, it's like it's
Speaker 2: helpful just in those terms.
Speaker 3: Look, the notes on a piano where I'm a guitar
Speaker 3: are all the same. It's like a cow and a
Speaker 3: cow has like beef, and I give beef to the
Speaker 3: guy who makes Mexican food and he's gonna make Mexican
Speaker 3: food with the beef. And give beef to the guy
Speaker 3: who makes Armenian food. He's gonna make Armenian food with
Speaker 3: the beef. And you know, and so it's how it's
Speaker 3: the music is presented. Yeah, and as you know, it
Speaker 3: turns in I don't know, it's kind of weird. Music
Speaker 3: turns into like how you know, Mexican food or a
Speaker 3: Median food. I mean, but for me, I don't know, man,
Speaker 3: the kind of music I write, whether once again system
Speaker 3: of announced Scars on Broadway, I feel weird. I like
Speaker 3: being put into like a genre because yeah, there's heavy
Speaker 3: stuff that's going on, but once there are songs on
Speaker 3: the same album that don't even fit the genre likely
Speaker 3: and shame game. I don't feel like I all my
Speaker 3: songs fit into the same place. Yeah, and so when
Speaker 3: you put me in a genre, I'm like, Okay, maybe
Speaker 3: you could put that one in that genre, but how
Speaker 3: about that one? Like So that's why genre bother me
Speaker 3: because I don't feel like I always fit into them.
Speaker 3: I don't feel like all my songs fit into the
Speaker 3: same ones totally.
Speaker 2: I wonder, like, how has it been for you since
Speaker 2: you've had the experience of releasing albums that have been
Speaker 2: super successful through traditional record companies and also releasing albums
Speaker 2: through independent because you released it on your own label, right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well it's not really label just do you do
Speaker 3: it yourself kind of thing.
Speaker 2: But yeah, which do you prefer, Like, are there advantages
Speaker 2: to the major label system that you see now or
Speaker 2: do you prefer just DIY?
Speaker 3: They were both fine because nobody ever told me what
Speaker 3: to write ever. Rick never did, the Columbia Never Records
Speaker 3: never did. We kind of did our own thing, and
Speaker 3: I wrote the songs that the kind of songs that
Speaker 3: I wrote, and nobody ever like said, well, you got
Speaker 3: to be more like lymp Biscuit. And because lymp Biscuit
Speaker 3: was so big when we were coming out, you know,
Speaker 3: and so we were kind of coming out and just
Speaker 3: doing our thing and gaining and gaining and gaining and gaining.
Speaker 3: And uh Rick told me a story where he when
Speaker 3: he went to the head of K Rock once and
Speaker 3: I don't know, I think he played them Chop Suey
Speaker 3: and and he the person that was ahead of K
Speaker 3: Rock at that time. I don't know if he still
Speaker 3: is or she still is or isn't. He told Rick
Speaker 3: that this song will never be played on this station
Speaker 3: and this band will never be played because they just
Speaker 3: it does not they're not what we do, you know,
Speaker 3: type of And I guess soon after that, Chop Suey
Speaker 3: became like the biggest song in the freaking you know,
Speaker 3: on K rock or on their station, and we didn't
Speaker 3: do anything to conform to Oh, you know what, then
Speaker 3: I should write a song that you're gonna like feel
Speaker 3: like fits in.
Speaker 2: Nothing like that song.
Speaker 3: Still, yeah, thank you, But we never had to deal
Speaker 3: with so when it comes to like major labels or
Speaker 3: radio stations or anything like that. So the difference is
Speaker 3: that there is like a machine that's pushing your shit. Yeah,
Speaker 3: that world at that time. You know, I haven't really
Speaker 3: dealt with the label for quite some time, so I
Speaker 3: don't real I don't know what kind of power, what
Speaker 3: kind of thing they have now, But at that time
Speaker 3: they had power. Yeah, and they push your stuff. And
Speaker 3: next thing, you know, their MTV at that time was
Speaker 3: still playing videos, and they played Chop Suey and you know,
Speaker 3: you get.
Speaker 2: Like crazy that video was always on.
Speaker 3: And so the machine was doing its thing. When I'm
Speaker 3: doing it myself, there is no machine. I hire a publicist,
Speaker 3: let's put some money into this, you know, and and
Speaker 3: the fans or the streams or people buying vinyls pretty
Speaker 3: much bring back and pay for the stuff that needs
Speaker 3: to be paid for a video. You know, all these
Speaker 3: things cost money. Sometimes going on the road, you know,
Speaker 3: it costs money because SCARS doesn't get the same guarantees
Speaker 3: as system does. So we still need buses, we still
Speaker 3: need all this stuff. So this what I do with SCARS,
Speaker 3: it's kind of yeah, I run it, but it's funded
Speaker 3: by the fans. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2: And also I mean, you have the benefit of when
Speaker 2: you go out with System that can help fund it too.
Speaker 3: Sure, I have a separate thing that when Scars, any
Speaker 3: money comes in from Scars, I put it into that
Speaker 3: and I'm like, this is the Scars you know, Piggybank.
Speaker 2: Okay, that's cool. So you can actually see what's being generated.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and what I put back into the band and
Speaker 3: what I.
Speaker 2: I guess tell me the story of Scars, Like when
Speaker 2: you started the band. I know the first album came
Speaker 2: out in two thousand and eight.
Speaker 3: Where were you.
Speaker 2: At professionally, Like, why did you decide that was the
Speaker 2: time to start the band?
Speaker 3: Well, I knew System was not going to be making records.
Speaker 3: I didn't know that we were never going to make records,
Speaker 3: but at the time we were like, okay, we're taking
Speaker 3: a hiatus, and for me, I was like okay. I
Speaker 3: at that time, I mean, I was used to like
Speaker 3: I have an outlet for my songs, and my outlet
Speaker 3: for my songs was System. So Scars kind of started
Speaker 3: even before I knew there was going to be a hiatus.
Speaker 3: I was like, here, I want to do this second
Speaker 3: band kind of thing. I tried out a lot of
Speaker 3: different renditions and different musicians and different things before I
Speaker 3: got to work. I got on the first Scars record,
Speaker 3: but when System kind of took the hiatus, I was like, well,
Speaker 3: I gotta do something here. I can just sit here
Speaker 3: on my hands. I have songs, and so it just
Speaker 3: seemed like the natural thing to do is like, Okay,
Speaker 3: let's take this band that I was kind of working
Speaker 3: on already and put a little more focus into it.
Speaker 1: Well, last break and we're back with the rest of
Speaker 1: Darren Malachean.
Speaker 2: Do you think that the fact that your parents are
Speaker 2: both artists, how does that influence the way that you
Speaker 2: make your art? Do you think there's any connection to
Speaker 2: the way you approach your work as a songwriter, as
Speaker 2: a singer, as a producer. Did you inherit any approach
Speaker 2: from your parents? Is there any commonality?
Speaker 3: I watched my dad paint paintings my whole life, and
Speaker 3: my dad has never done an art exhibition. He has
Speaker 3: a house full of hundreds of paintings that he paints,
Speaker 3: but he paints them for his He's always trying to
Speaker 3: like find something new, but it's not about showing anybody else.
Speaker 3: And I think that's where I get my thing from.
Speaker 3: Is where I would do it regardless, because I've seen
Speaker 3: him do it regardless. Yeah, I mean the only thing
Speaker 3: that I like, I'm the one that like put his
Speaker 3: stuff on my album covers or system album covers, Like, well,
Speaker 3: Mesmeriz hypnotizes my dad's stuff.
Speaker 2: Oh wow, I didn't know that all.
Speaker 3: The star stuff is my dad's stuff. Oh cool. But
Speaker 3: his stuff on his own is very different than that stuff.
Speaker 3: That's me pushing him in a direction because I'm like,
Speaker 3: it's an album because this stuff's very abstract. So his
Speaker 3: approach is I approach. I mean, that's just kind of
Speaker 3: watching the way he does it. And it wasn't like,
Speaker 3: well I'm gonna watch him and take that. It's just
Speaker 3: in the house. This is ye, this was how we
Speaker 3: did things. This is how it was. My mom when
Speaker 3: she was in Iraq was a sculptor and and she
Speaker 3: does she did, but when she came to the States,
Speaker 3: my mom is the responsible one, yeah, in the things.
Speaker 3: So she was kind of like saving the money and
Speaker 3: working and my dad worked too. But like you know,
Speaker 3: if it wasn't for my mom, like we would have
Speaker 3: just been like homeless problem bohemian art. Yeah. So luckily
Speaker 3: she has a side to her that was very responsible
Speaker 3: and organized, so she kind of had to leave her
Speaker 3: art to the side. And but you know, she's one
Speaker 3: of those people that will sit there and then like
Speaker 3: ten minutes can draw your face.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 3: Very she went to school for art. That's another thing
Speaker 3: where it's a little different with my dad and my mom.
Speaker 3: My dad never went to school for I never went
Speaker 3: to school. But my mom is more training as an
Speaker 3: artist in that way, but through the ears, like she
Speaker 3: she is an artist, but had to kind of put
Speaker 3: her art to the sode for Yeah, got understand. He
Speaker 3: came from Iraq with nothing. Yeah, like nothing and uh
Speaker 3: coming from bag Dad to Hollywood, yeah, you know, and
Speaker 3: uh so you know they they had to make some
Speaker 3: sacrifices and it's it's I know, this is a crazy
Speaker 3: fucking thing to say, and and but it's true that
Speaker 3: since I was a kid, this is what I do
Speaker 3: now is what i've I always was like, since I
Speaker 3: saw all the early bands that I was in to,
Speaker 3: it was an obsession and it was something that I
Speaker 3: was interested in, and it was always like music was
Speaker 3: always a big deal in my life. And even as
Speaker 3: a kid, in my head, I was like and I
Speaker 3: I guess I had the maturity as a kid to
Speaker 3: think this way. But it was like I knew what
Speaker 3: kind of sacrifice my parents had made. I knew that
Speaker 3: my parents were both artists, and it felt like this
Speaker 3: like was your like it's my destiny, like to to
Speaker 3: become one of these, like this musician or whatever it is.
Speaker 3: And then as I got older, you know, eight, nine, ten,
Speaker 3: eleven years old, I would start telling people like I'm
Speaker 3: going to be in a band one day. I'm going
Speaker 3: to do this. Like I mean, as a really young child,
Speaker 3: it's crazy. Anybody, anybody who knew me at that time
Speaker 3: will tell you he's not fucking like he said that,
Speaker 3: and he kept saying it. And as I got older,
Speaker 3: people would say like, well, you know, one of the
Speaker 3: chances that that's gonna happen, and I go in my head,
Speaker 3: I was like, this is why my parents moved here. Wow,
Speaker 3: that's how That's how my head was saying, this is
Speaker 3: why this was like this is all supposed to fucking
Speaker 3: happen and and yeah, then then when they would tell me, oh,
Speaker 3: you know that's a long shot or your Armenian and
Speaker 3: no Armenians ever made it in that kind of thing,
Speaker 3: and I was like, just watch, I have this crazy confidence.
Speaker 3: Like even in high school. They sent me to a
Speaker 3: thing and.
Speaker 2: I was like a prophecy.
Speaker 3: It's it's weird. You know, it happened. And when it happened,
Speaker 3: I got like panic attacks because I was like, Jesus,
Speaker 3: this fucking happened until this day, till this day. I
Speaker 3: get on stage and we just went played South America.
Speaker 3: It was like sixty people, and I was still.
Speaker 2: Saying those crowds in South America.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but till this day, I'm like, dude, this fucking happened.
Speaker 2: Man, who does that happen for? I mean, do you
Speaker 2: know how many people have that dream?
Speaker 3: Yeah? You know what?
Speaker 2: But that's crazy? Like how what was your parents' reaction
Speaker 2: to your success?
Speaker 3: They'll tell you the same thing. They'll say, he was
Speaker 3: always into this, he was always saying he's gonna do it,
Speaker 3: and and they're obviously when you're like fourteen years old
Speaker 3: and you're telling and you're dropping out of high school
Speaker 3: and you're failing all your classes, and you know, you
Speaker 3: run with a crowd that's like you know, fighting and
Speaker 3: all this shit your parents and you're telling your mom,
Speaker 3: I'm going to be a musician. And these are two
Speaker 3: artists that are have been struggling artists their whole lives,
Speaker 3: so they know what the artist life is, right. Yeah,
Speaker 3: Oh they were worried. And it's funny because me and
Speaker 3: my mom talked about this just two or three days ago.
Speaker 3: She's like, at some point, she told me, I realized
Speaker 3: that this is what you want, this is what this
Speaker 3: is what you are. And she said I would be
Speaker 3: be like she's you know, she's religious in some ways.
Speaker 3: She said, like I felt like I would be like
Speaker 3: sinning if if I stood in your way. Yeah, what
Speaker 3: you felt like this was your calling in life, you know.
Speaker 3: And so she's like, at some point I just let
Speaker 3: it go and I and I supported, and she did.
Speaker 3: I wouldn't be here today without my mom's support.
Speaker 2: She's a good mom.
Speaker 3: Oh, she's she's amazing. I owe her everything, like she
Speaker 3: would give me. I didn't have a job, i'd have shit.
Speaker 3: And when I was sixteen, I started playing in bands
Speaker 3: that we needed rehearsal studios, you know, and I would
Speaker 3: have to ask her and we weren't rich, but she
Speaker 3: would give me rehearsal studio rent every month so I
Speaker 3: can do what I do She knew that I loved music,
Speaker 3: so she would let me take her credit card and
Speaker 3: go to the record store and buy me records because
Speaker 3: she knows that all I did was sit in my
Speaker 3: room and listen to record yeah yeah, And she supported
Speaker 3: that man and so so watching my dad as an
Speaker 3: artist shape me in one way. But my mother's support
Speaker 3: is like priceless, especially their Armenian Armenians, you know. And
Speaker 3: then at some point I started painting my hair fucking
Speaker 3: pink and when nail and all this fucking shit. These
Speaker 3: people are from Iraq, you know, like that.
Speaker 2: Takes guts on your part. Though I was, you know.
Speaker 3: As an Armenian guy. There was and even my friends
Speaker 3: they didn't look like that. They did interest yeah that
Speaker 3: so yeah, I mean I just it felt natural to me.
Speaker 3: It felt right, you know. The music I was listening
Speaker 3: to at the time was like, you know, in my
Speaker 3: eighteen nineteen twenty twenty, I was like loving a lot
Speaker 3: of god like alien sex been and you know, when
Speaker 3: you're young, you're kind of looking at people, you know,
Speaker 3: I like that style. I like that. So that style
Speaker 3: and that style and that style kind of together and
Speaker 3: make my own little style. Do the same with the
Speaker 3: songs I write, you know, I take you know, I
Speaker 3: like that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it's like a pastiche.
Speaker 3: I think the bands that do something unique do that.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Oh, even if you listen to like Van Halen, for example,
Speaker 3: you know, you're yeah, it's rock, it's shredding, but like
Speaker 3: David Lee Roth's vocals are not your typical fucking rocky
Speaker 3: you know. He brought in a lot of different kinds
Speaker 3: of things in that style, and.
Speaker 2: That's part of the reason they're so good.
Speaker 3: Yeah. They So you messed this, meshed, that messed it,
Speaker 3: and you make this new thing because everything is inspired
Speaker 3: by something.
Speaker 2: Yea.
Speaker 3: It's the bands that copy that are kind of like, okay,
Speaker 3: I could tell you listen to Tool because sound like Tool,
Speaker 3: you know. Yeah. But the bands that kind of bring
Speaker 3: their influences in worlds together and create this new thing
Speaker 3: and you're like, well that sounds familiar, but that mixed
Speaker 3: with that, I never heard that before, and so you
Speaker 3: make some new thing with that.
Speaker 2: That's exactly what System was. It was so new and
Speaker 2: so different.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and we all are very different people in System,
Speaker 3: and I think that also kind of comes out, yeah,
Speaker 3: in in this in the dynamic, in the band, Like,
Speaker 3: it's the personality and our band are completely not Each
Speaker 3: one of us is nothing like the other.
Speaker 2: That first, I'm glad you guys are able to still
Speaker 2: tour and still do what you're doing. And I know
Speaker 2: fans are so appreciative of it. And you can see
Speaker 2: that in those massive crowds in South America. That was
Speaker 2: what was that experience for you, Like being on stage
Speaker 2: with those crowds.
Speaker 3: The response was going to South America. You're always like, dude,
Speaker 3: those are probably the best fans in the world. I
Speaker 3: mean the way they are so passionate. Yeah, So before
Speaker 3: I went there, I would always tell everyone, like, dude,
Speaker 3: I'm going from this quiet life to like that. And
Speaker 3: and when it comes to like there is like two
Speaker 3: hundred and three hundred people outside the hotel room. Really
Speaker 3: like it was the second you stick your head out
Speaker 3: of the window, it's like, you know, yeah, it's it's.
Speaker 2: That's like the stuff you see from like Madonna and
Speaker 2: Michael Jackson back in the.
Speaker 3: Day, like that. It is it's like that. And uh,
Speaker 3: but this time around, because we'd been there before, Yeah,
Speaker 3: this time around the crowd so they would bring these
Speaker 3: flares and it was a lot of them, so I
Speaker 3: posted that and I posted, oh, check out the Pyro.
Speaker 3: I wrote something like the Pyromaniacs in Peru or something
Speaker 3: like that. But what in every show we did after that,
Speaker 3: it was like the crowds started one upping each other
Speaker 3: with the players and the fires, and then they started
Speaker 3: they started seeing footage of people breathing fire into the thing.
Speaker 3: So then I made it a thing where I was like,
Speaker 3: because we never have Pyro on stage, So I turned
Speaker 3: and said, if you notice that we don't have any
Speaker 3: Pyron stage, but our fans they break the fire, you know.
Speaker 3: And so by the time we got to that last
Speaker 3: show in sal Paulo, it was it was a scene
Speaker 3: that I never see that with my band or I
Speaker 3: never seen that anyone else's band.
Speaker 2: I've never seen a crowd that big.
Speaker 3: I mean I've seen crowds that big. I just never
Speaker 3: seen that much fire.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the fire and then it's smoky too, so it
Speaker 2: creates this like really spooky ambiance, like it's like you're
Speaker 2: in hell.
Speaker 4: But it's like, yeah, so I don't know, man, I mean,
Speaker 4: you know, we haven't put out an album with the
Speaker 4: System in so many years and for.
Speaker 3: And it feels like it's in when I go outside
Speaker 3: and I meet the fans, I'm not meeting people that
Speaker 3: are my age. I'm meeting people that are eighteen wow
Speaker 3: for thirty around that age where some of these people
Speaker 3: were not even born when our last album came out. Crazy.
Speaker 3: So the fact that the music has still you know,
Speaker 3: it's it's still lived with people, and some people are
Speaker 3: either rediscovering or just or just discovering it, you know,
Speaker 3: I means it means a lot to me. Man. Obviously,
Speaker 3: as someone like I told you before, like dreamt from
Speaker 3: a really age to that you know, was this is
Speaker 3: my life, this is what I'm going to do, and
Speaker 3: and it's still happening. And I'm this many years in
Speaker 3: and I have you know, I got two bands that
Speaker 3: seem like you know, when when we get I get
Speaker 3: I get a response, and we get a response with
Speaker 3: these bands, and uh, it's still something that you know,
Speaker 3: sometimes people who do it as long as I've been
Speaker 3: doing it kind of be like, oh, yeah, that is
Speaker 3: what it is. But it's not like that for me, man.
Speaker 3: For me, I'm like, I still can't believe this is happening. Cool.
Speaker 2: So when you do run into people and you have
Speaker 2: more time to talk to them beyond like, hey, can
Speaker 2: I get a picture? What are people asking you about System?
Speaker 2: Like what's the most common thing people ask?
Speaker 3: Well, when I meet them face to face like that,
Speaker 3: they don't really ask me anything. There I mean South America,
Speaker 3: they were shaking and crying wow. And so I'm like,
Speaker 3: I always have to be kind of like, you know,
Speaker 3: I try to ask like what's your name? Personal, make
Speaker 3: them realize that I'm a human being. Likes I'm like,
Speaker 3: this feels like I'm some cartoon character you know that
Speaker 3: came in front of their eyes, just you know, try
Speaker 3: to put them at ease, show them I appreciate them.
Speaker 3: But obviously the question that comes the most when it
Speaker 3: comes to System is like, well, you guys going to
Speaker 3: make another album and you know all that stuff, And
Speaker 3: for now, I'm happy we got those albums. Like I said,
Speaker 3: people have just discovered it. People rediscovered it, or people
Speaker 3: have lived with it and it's become the fabric of
Speaker 3: some of their lives and that's cool, man. And so
Speaker 3: I don't really entertain the whole Like if you've talked
Speaker 3: to me maybe like ten years ago, I might have
Speaker 3: like a little bit more like, oh, I wish wish
Speaker 3: it maybe, Yeah, how much time has passed. I'm kind
Speaker 3: of like, I don't know. I mean, if it happens,
Speaker 3: it happens. I'm not really pushing for it so much. Yeah.
Speaker 3: The thing is, we really get along as as friends,
Speaker 3: and we always have as friends. But then when banned
Speaker 3: politics comes into the thing, that's when the resentments come
Speaker 3: in and all this shit comes in, and we're kind
Speaker 3: of like hanging out again as a band, which we
Speaker 3: hadn't done. You know, Sarah and I hadn't really hung
Speaker 3: out that much in the last quite some time. But
Speaker 3: the se and I text each other and I see
Speaker 3: each other serge and I feel friendly and friends and
Speaker 3: have kind of reconnected that And I don't know, I
Speaker 3: don't want something. I'm enjoying that.
Speaker 2: So that must feel so good.
Speaker 3: It does because I never hated any one of my
Speaker 3: band members. You know, we each had certain issues with
Speaker 3: each other within the band, but take the fan out
Speaker 3: of the situation, I think we all really like each
Speaker 3: other as people and as friends. Yeah, that's why it's
Speaker 3: like it call some bands stay together and make records together,
Speaker 3: but they can't stand each other through all the years.
Speaker 3: We don't have that like, we've never been the guys
Speaker 3: that were like, well, I can't be in the same
Speaker 3: room with that guy. Yeah, it's never been that way
Speaker 3: with System, And I think fans need to hear that,
Speaker 3: because fans think that Sarage and I hate each other
Speaker 3: and they pick sides. They're like, I'm on team Sarage
Speaker 3: and I'm on team Darren, and it's like, you guys
Speaker 3: don't realize that we love each other, Like we we
Speaker 3: don't hate each other. You guys don't need to get
Speaker 3: on teams. You guys like us both.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they love conflict and it.
Speaker 3: Becomes the That's the sad thing for me is because
Speaker 3: it becomes clickbait and it becomes all this crap and
Speaker 3: I'm like, it's not really showing an accurate picture of
Speaker 3: what we're really like and how we really feel about
Speaker 3: each other.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I'm happy to hear that. I'm happy there's
Speaker 2: love there and that you're reconnecting. And I don't know
Speaker 2: that sounds like a step in the right direction. Maybe
Speaker 2: something will happen. If it doesn't, it doesn't, I mean,
Speaker 2: you have your you haven't a whole nother outlet, and
Speaker 2: you know you've made do.
Speaker 3: Yeah. And another thing is when there's so much of
Speaker 3: a gap between that last record and then something if
Speaker 3: we it just for me, I like to see evolution,
Speaker 3: and when we stopped, Scars became my new evolution with
Speaker 3: my writing, and those albums will be those albums, and
Speaker 3: they've lived with people for such a long time that
Speaker 3: anything we do it feels like it might even be
Speaker 3: criticized and be like, well it's not as good. Well,
Speaker 3: different times.
Speaker 2: It's going to be compared, for sure, Like.
Speaker 3: There's something nostalgic about the old stuff, and you can't
Speaker 3: fuck with nostalgia at the time.
Speaker 2: No, I know, it means so much to so many people.
Speaker 3: Years have gone by and years of people living with that,
Speaker 3: and so you can't just make up years that that's
Speaker 3: something that is just organic and the natural way that
Speaker 3: things moved, you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but you guys have always been so authentic, Like
Speaker 2: whatever comes out will be authentic.
Speaker 3: I'm not saying it would suck. Yeah, really fucking good,
Speaker 3: it might be. I have so many songs that if
Speaker 3: the band wants to do that, yeah, I have music
Speaker 3: that I already know would be on that that's not
Speaker 3: going to happen. I will take that music and put
Speaker 3: it onto a Scars record, and the two songs that
Speaker 3: we did a few years ago, protect the Land, well,
Speaker 3: Protect the Land was supposed to be on Addicted to
Speaker 3: the Violence, but because there was the war in arts off, yeah,
Speaker 3: and we wanted to say something because we had a
Speaker 3: platform and nobody was talking about it. So we all
Speaker 3: out on the phone and we're like, well, maybe we
Speaker 3: should release two songs. And I was like, I have
Speaker 3: a song that's about that, like and I didn't even
Speaker 3: and I wrote that song before the conflict happened. It's
Speaker 3: just weird. Yeah, that is weird and so uh out.
Speaker 3: And so I was kind of like willing, like, okay,
Speaker 3: I'll take that song off the Scars record, And well,
Speaker 3: we had it recorded. I had all my vocals on
Speaker 3: that song are from my Scars recording. We just had
Speaker 3: John play the drums and Shallo play the bass and
Speaker 3: Sarah's kind of sang with me. But my vocals from
Speaker 3: that track are all from my Scars session. So the
Speaker 3: song was pretty pretty much the same, yeah, except we
Speaker 3: brought in different people to perform it. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 3: I'm proud of that. It's cool that we did that.
Speaker 3: But if I didn't take that to System. It would
Speaker 3: have been a SCAR song. If Mesmerized and Hypnotize never
Speaker 3: became System Records Lost in Hollywood Lonely Day maybe, I
Speaker 3: mean by all of that shit would have been Scar stuff.
Speaker 2: I wanted to ask you, speaking of of those albums,
Speaker 2: I want to ask you about Soldier Side Yep. Was
Speaker 2: there a read that's such a beautiful song? Was there
Speaker 2: a reason you put that just thinking about the track list?
Speaker 2: Was there a reason you put that as the last song?
Speaker 3: Well, the intro of Soldier Side comes in in the
Speaker 3: beginning of Mesmeriz and then the rest of the song
Speaker 3: is the last song. We didn't know that it was
Speaker 3: gonna be a double album when we were in there
Speaker 3: recording the songs. Neither, and I didn't know that when
Speaker 3: I was writing the songs. The thing with me is
Speaker 3: I always brought in a lot of songs. Yeah, Toxicity
Speaker 3: had Toxicity, but then we had steal this album. But
Speaker 3: all the steal this album stuff was from Toxicity sessions.
Speaker 3: And that's just because I would just bring in so
Speaker 3: many songs, because for me, I was like just writing
Speaker 3: like crazy focused and here guys, and and uh, let's
Speaker 3: pick the best ones. You know. Yeah, And so same
Speaker 3: with Mesmerise Hypnotize. I came into like thirty songs or more.
Speaker 3: We still have stuff that we hadn't even haven't even
Speaker 3: released off Mesmeriz and Hypnotized, and nobody's heard that. We
Speaker 3: listen back to and were like, shit, we forgot we
Speaker 3: had this. Uh, well there you go.
Speaker 2: You got a little at least an EP. Maybe put
Speaker 2: that out.
Speaker 3: That's peak System, We'll see it's some of it. I
Speaker 3: felt like just wasn't good enough to be on the record,
Speaker 3: you know, yeah, you know. What we did with Steal
Speaker 3: this album was those songs we felt like weren't as
Speaker 3: good as maybe the ones on Toxicity, but then somebody
Speaker 3: leaked them and they were leaked in a way that
Speaker 3: we're like, well, we didn't want them that So what
Speaker 3: we did was go back in the studio and make
Speaker 3: them as good as what should have been on Toxicity.
Speaker 3: So we rearranged. We did that, so if we ever
Speaker 3: did that with the Mesmerize, and that's something we would
Speaker 3: have to do with those songs as well, because there's
Speaker 3: something I don't know. I look at him and I'm like, ah,
Speaker 3: this could be better. That could be better. So they
Speaker 3: need to be redone that's ever gonna happen. But going
Speaker 3: back to the Soldier Side thing, so we had the
Speaker 3: thought of it making a double album came up along
Speaker 3: the way, and so in my head, I was like,
Speaker 3: why don't we use the intro portion of Soldier Side
Speaker 3: as the intro for Mesmerized and then end the album
Speaker 3: with the song and it yeah, yeah, yeah, So if
Speaker 3: you've heard both records and then you hypnotize and that
Speaker 3: comes back at the end the way it starts already
Speaker 3: in the beginning, it just book ended both of the
Speaker 3: records and a kind of creative in a very If
Speaker 3: I was a listener, I would be like, wow, that
Speaker 3: just came back from that, like you know, And and
Speaker 3: the records were also not released together. There was months
Speaker 3: or I don't remember how Yeah, they were apart. So
Speaker 3: I just thought it was just this cool emotional thing
Speaker 3: that would happen to the listener. Yes, if they if
Speaker 3: it all comes back at the way end of the
Speaker 3: second one. You know.
Speaker 2: I love when artists are thoughtful like that, you know,
Speaker 2: because there are a lot of listeners who appreciate that, well.
Speaker 3: You're creating a painting at the end of the day,
Speaker 3: and once again going back to my dad, and now
Speaker 3: I see records and how I see albums. You're creating
Speaker 3: this work. It's not just okay, individual songs, but it's this.
Speaker 3: It's an album. And I know people nowadays don't have
Speaker 3: attention spans on, but I still make albums like I
Speaker 3: want the album to flow song into song into song,
Speaker 3: and there's a reason why I ended it that way.
Speaker 3: Like Addicted to the Violence is the last song, the
Speaker 3: final track, but it's the last song on the record,
Speaker 3: and it's this really kind of for me. The song
Speaker 3: has this epic the keyboards and the mood, but the
Speaker 3: way the song ends and it just goes bone and
Speaker 3: it reminds me of like the day in the Life
Speaker 3: of the Beatles, where it just kind of ends and
Speaker 3: it feels like an ending, like duh yeah, And I
Speaker 3: wanted the album to end with that vibe it felt.
Speaker 3: I don't know that that's just the picture I wanted
Speaker 3: to paint, you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, No, that's cool. Who We've been thinking about this
Speaker 2: just at Broken Record, talking to other people I work with,
Speaker 2: And this is a random question, but curious where you'll
Speaker 2: go with it. Who do you think are the best
Speaker 2: Like the five best American bands.
Speaker 3: Jesus van Halen. For me, I I love van Halen
Speaker 3: and it ain't because like, it ain't because my favorite
Speaker 3: part of van Halen is Alex and Dave to me,
Speaker 3: and that's weird coming from a guitar player. Yeah, I
Speaker 3: love Alex van Halen like I'm a huge fan of
Speaker 3: his drumming, uh and David Lee Roth as a vocalist.
Speaker 3: And it's just to me, it's such a complete It's
Speaker 3: what like a great rock band should be. Is that
Speaker 3: energy of the first all the David Lee Roth stuff,
Speaker 3: you know, pick but then you know Grateful Dead. I
Speaker 3: love the Grateful Dead. Uh shit. And even people ask
Speaker 3: me questions like this, I always walk away and I'm like, shit,
Speaker 3: I should have mentioned that guy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I know. It's it's hard to be put on
Speaker 2: the spot. But it's also kind of like, yeah, it's
Speaker 2: an interesting thing because a lot of you go to
Speaker 2: like British bands usually, but American is a whole different thing.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Fuck man, I didn't expect the questions.
Speaker 2: So I no, no. And then you could think, like,
Speaker 2: you know, do the Beach Boys count?
Speaker 3: Oh? Yes, thank you, I don't know do they they do? Yes?
Speaker 3: They do.
Speaker 2: Okay, so the Beach Boys, and then what about newer bands?
Speaker 2: Does Nirvana? Is Nirvana one of the best guns and roses?
Speaker 2: You know, there's so many places you can go with it,
Speaker 2: Sly in the family Stone, Yeah, Earth Wind and Fire
Speaker 2: do they count?
Speaker 3: Yeah? All count? Yeah? I mentioned there is good stuff.
Speaker 3: It's great. But you know, everyone has their taste on
Speaker 3: you know, who they think is the best. Like, you know,
Speaker 3: Nirvana was a great band, but yeah, impact me as
Speaker 3: much as you know some other people. Man, you know,
Speaker 3: I don't know. Did you love great you know?
Speaker 2: But yeah, do you go to dead shows? Did you
Speaker 2: used to go to dead shows?
Speaker 3: Not a lot. I wasn't like following them, but I would.
Speaker 3: I saw them at the La Sports Arena when Jerry
Speaker 3: Garcia was still alive and I was on mushrooms, so
Speaker 3: it was really good.
Speaker 2: They're so good. They're just like a good band to
Speaker 2: have just playing in the house like throughout the day.
Speaker 3: American Beauty is one of the just one of my
Speaker 3: favorite albums, man. Yeah, from up to Bottom is I
Speaker 3: know they're known as a jam band, but yeah, these
Speaker 3: songs on those records ripple yeah, Oxa.
Speaker 2: Ray Yeah, Oh I love that you love that. That's
Speaker 2: so nice. I wouldn't have expected that.
Speaker 3: Great, great songs, some of my favorite songs. But you
Speaker 3: said the Beach Boys, you know, early Beach Boys. I
Speaker 3: love of the twenty twenty album is such a good
Speaker 3: fucking album. I love it. I know Pet Sounds is
Speaker 3: the one that everyone talks about, But there's more to
Speaker 3: the Beach Boys than just Pet Sounds. Man. Yeah, local harmonies, Uh,
Speaker 3: I don't know. Great bands. I don't know the Everly
Speaker 3: Brothers considered as a band, I don't know. They inspired
Speaker 3: so many people like those, you know, Aside from bands,
Speaker 3: you have just a lot of individuals in American rock
Speaker 3: that you know. Obviously Elvis, Neil Neil Young.
Speaker 2: He's Canadian though.
Speaker 3: Oh okay, But when people ask me about some of
Speaker 3: my favorite guitar players, I always bring up Neil Young. Yeah,
Speaker 3: he's not a shredder, you know, he does his thing,
Speaker 3: but I love that thing. Oh, let's not forget the
Speaker 3: Ramones should be.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the Ramones are so awesome.
Speaker 3: Ramos definitely should be mentioned in.
Speaker 2: That They're so awesome. I love them.
Speaker 3: A lot of great punk bands, the Dead Boys, the Misfits,
Speaker 3: all American bands, Bad Brains, Yeah.
Speaker 2: Were you into like hardcore like New York City hardcore
Speaker 2: or the bands coming out of DC. Were you into
Speaker 2: that too, sure? Like Minor Threat, Yeah, like Fugazi and
Speaker 2: all that. Oh cool? Was there anything else you wanted
Speaker 2: to say or talk about with a new album that
Speaker 2: we didn't cover?
Speaker 3: You know, it's just I don't put out albums a lot,
Speaker 3: but when I do, it's something I really believe in. Like,
Speaker 3: for example, if ten years down the line people ask me, well,
Speaker 3: what are some of the most proudest moments you had
Speaker 3: as a songwriter, the song Addicted to the Violence will
Speaker 3: come up, just like Aerials or just like anything I've
Speaker 3: done with System, just like Babylon is one of the
Speaker 3: those songs. There's a song called Till the End on
Speaker 3: the second Scars record. These songs that I've had, these
Speaker 3: moments where I'm very kind of you know, you have
Speaker 3: a lot of children, but some of your children kind
Speaker 3: of you have this pride. I don't have any children,
Speaker 3: but I'm saying what I'm saying. People who have a
Speaker 3: lot of children, you know, you have some that you
Speaker 3: might be a little bit more proud of than So
Speaker 3: there's stuff on this record like Shame game or addicted
Speaker 3: to the violence, or it's just if you ask me
Speaker 3: ten years from now, I guarantee I will tell you
Speaker 3: that those songs will fall into the group of songs
Speaker 3: that I'm very very proud of in my history or
Speaker 3: in my you know, discography, or.
Speaker 2: That's awesome, it's awesome you can still do it, and
Speaker 2: that you still have this band and that you have
Speaker 2: you have so much pride in the new music that
Speaker 2: you're making.
Speaker 3: I wouldn't put it out if I didn't have that.
Speaker 3: I second guess myself constantly, and I'm very picky about
Speaker 3: what I put out there. Dude. I have a roll
Speaker 3: index of songs. I have albums worth of songs that
Speaker 3: I'm still tinkering with. Yeah, playing with people are like, well,
Speaker 3: it takes forever for you to take put out albums,
Speaker 3: and I'm like, well, when I put out an album,
Speaker 3: that album is forever.
Speaker 2: Yeah, No, that's real.
Speaker 3: So I will take forever to make sure that that
Speaker 3: song is finished. Or you know, if you're cooking food
Speaker 3: is ready to eat, Yeah, you know, it's it's not
Speaker 3: half baked, it's ready to god, it's ready to be absorbed.
Speaker 3: Taking it and and I make that decision. Yeah, I
Speaker 3: see it, and I see well, it's finished and it's
Speaker 3: ready to record, and if it takes me forever to
Speaker 3: do it, I will take forever to do it. To
Speaker 3: put out something that's going to be forever out there.
Speaker 2: Makes sense. Yeah, that makes sense.
Speaker 3: Cool.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for your time. I appreciate you talking.
Speaker 3: It's yeah good.
Speaker 1: This an episode description, you'll find a link to a
Speaker 1: playlist of our favorite Scars on Broadway and System of
Speaker 1: a Down tracks, and also some of Darren's favorite black
Speaker 1: metal cuts. Be sure to check out YouTube dot com
Speaker 1: slash Broken Record podcast to see all our video interviews,
Speaker 1: and be sure to follow us on Instagram at the
Speaker 1: Broken Record Pod. You can follow us on Twitter at
Speaker 1: broken Record. Broken Record is produced and edited by Leah Rose,
Speaker 1: with marketing health from Eric Sandler and Jordan McMillan. Our
Speaker 1: engineer is Ben Tollinday. Broken Record is the production of
Speaker 1: Pushkin Industries. If you love this show and others from Pushkin,
Speaker 1: consider subscribing to Pushkin Plus. Pushkin Plus is a podcast
Speaker 1: subscription that offers bonus content and ad free listening for
Speaker 1: four ninety nine a month. Look for Pushkin Plus on
Speaker 1: Apple Podcast subscriptions, and if you like this show, please
Speaker 1: remember to share, rate, and review us on your podcast
Speaker 1: app Our theme music's by Kenny Beats. I'm justin Richmond.