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It's no secret that the members of System of a Down have had their differences, but the band seems to be in an okay place after recently playing the Sick New World festival and prepping a "once in a lifetime" show with Deftones at San Francisco's Golden Gate Park this summer. During an interview with Riann Wilson, frontman Serj Tankian addressed the "creative differences" SOAD have dealt with, explaining that in his upcoming memoir Down with the System he goes into “very detailed explanations of our relationships.”
“But one thing that I wanna clarify is, despite some of our creative differences, which has happened over the years, which is quite normal within a band, and the push and pull of songwriting and thematics and direction and all of that stuff — again, all creative differences — we have immense respect for each other,” he said. “We just played a show called Sick New World in Las Vegas this last weekend. We had a blast. And it’s one of those things where life is complicated, and relationships, partnerships are complicated. They don’t work perfectly. But there is a certain special thing, bond, especially with System Of A Down, that I can never replicate elsewhere.”
Elsewhere in the interview, Tarkian expressed his discontent with long tours. “I love performing, but especially the long [tours]… I think when you do a long tour, it’s not just physically exhausting, but it’s artistically redundant after a while, repeating the same thing,” he admitted. “That’s why we’re really enjoying doing these one-offs. They’re special events, special occasions. We can’t do them everywhere. We can’t do them all the time. But performing becomes fun again in a way.”
Tankian's memoir is set to hit bookshelves on May 14. He's also gearing up to release a solo EP called Foundations this fall and plans to drop its lead single on May 17.
Watch the full interview below.