In any case, these are the words of the group’s drummer, John Dolmayan.
System of A Down’s last album dates back to 2005, with Hypnotize. The band then went on hiatus for 4 years. In 2010 they offered a few tours here and there with even two charity singles, ‘Protect The Land’ and ‘Genocidal Humanoidz in 2020, but the idea of a new album seems to have always been scrapped.
In 2021, Serj Tankian, the singer, however, had revealed that he had started working on a new project in 2015 but that in the end it did not materialize for “philosophical” reasons. These songs eventually ended up on his solo EP, Elasticity.
And in a new interview, Serj Tankian’s drummer and brother-in-law John Dolmayan said, “Serj hasn’t wanted to be in the band for a long time.”
“Honestly, we should have split up in 2006. I think we could have moved on, and if Serj didn’t want to rejoin the band at the time, we should have moved on and continued with someone else,” he specifies.
“But that’s what happens when you want to be fair and make things work. You leave out things that may be critical to the health of the group.”
He continues: “Maybe it would have been better if we had continued with another singer on an album or two, and then if Serj had come back if he wanted a little later. It probably would have been better. But here, I think we wasted 15, maybe 20 years of our lives waiting”.
