System Of A Down are taking their upcoming North and South American tours as a chance to “test the waters” – see what bassist Shavo Odadjian had to say below.
Last month, System Of A Down announced their longest stretch of tour dates in years as they take over South America in April and May, and North America in August and September. The dates – all of which are sold out – will mark the first time since 2017 that the band are performing back-to-back shows for an extended period of time, having only played one or two shows a year in recent times.
Speaking to SiriusXM’s Trunk Nation With Eddie Trunk recently per The PRP, Odadjian shared that the tours will serve as a way for the band to see if they can return to a regular touring schedule: “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.
Odadjian continued: “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… 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.”
As for what this might mean for new music, Odadjian clarified that nothing’s set in stone per Blabbermouth: “We always will talk about it here and there, but I don’t know if this will happen or not. I mean, if it does, beautiful. But if it does, it needs to be amazing. It can’t just be us riffing. ‘Cause we’ve got a lot to live up to, bro. It’s a little nerve racking, a part of it. 20 years [ago], the last thing we did, won a Grammy. It needs to really be the greatest it could be. And I’m not saying it can’t be or we’re not up to it — we are.”
Odadjian went on add: “I can’t promise. We haven’t said anything. Like I said, man, there is no pressure. We said, ‘Let’s get together. Let’s play these shows, see how it goes.’ We haven’t done this many shows… Literally, we’re doing more shows this year than we have the last seven years combined. So, let’s do that first and see where that takes us.”
The group haven’t put out an album since their two 2005 releases: ‘Mezmerize’ and ‘Hypnotize’, and speaking with Metal Hammer last year, frontman Serj Tankian revealed he “became very passive” during the writing and recording process for those.
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That being said, he did recently seem more open to the idea of new material, saying that a new System record would be a “fresh start in a brand new way”.
Speaking to NME in December, however,Odadjian revealed that he was unsure what the singer meant by the comments, and said that the hopes of new music are still slim.
“I don’t know what he means by that,” Odadjian said. “We’ve done things a certain way in our career where it’s always going in a new direction. Every time we do something new, it’s in a direction you don’t expect. Process-wise, we’ll have to see when we get together. If it goes in a way that works for one person but not the others, we won’t do it. It has to work for all four of us.”
He continued: “Once that special time comes when we’re all in sync, we’ll figure out a way to do it. I’m not saying that it’s going to happen for sure – I don’t want people to turn this into clickbait like ‘Shavo says there’s a new record coming!’ I’m just saying if something happens, it will have to be in a way that all four of us are comfortable with.”
Although the band haven’t shared a full album in nearly two decades, they did share two singles – ‘Protect The Land’ and ‘Genocidal Humanoidz’ – in 2020. Both were shared in a bid to raise funds for Artsakh and Armenia after they came under attack from Azerbaijan and Turkey.
System Of A Down’s 2025 South and North American tour dates are:
APRIL 2025
24 – Estadio Nemesio Camacho El Campin, Bogota (Colombia)
27 – Estadio Nacional, Lima (Peru)
30 – Parque Estadio Nacional, Santiago (Chile)
MAY 2025
3 – Estadio Velez Sarsfield, Buenos Aires (Argentina)
6 – Estadio Couto Pereira, Curitiba (Brazil)
8 – Estadio Nilton Santos, Rio De Janeiro (Brazil)
10 – Allianz Parque, Sao Paulo (Brazil)
AUGUST 2025
27 – MetLife Stadium, East Rutherford, NJ – with KoRn
28 – MetLife Stadium, East Rutherford, NJ – with KoRn
31 – Soldier Field, Chicago, IL – with Avenged Sevenfold
SEPTEMBER 2025
1 – Soldier Field, Chicago, IL – with Avenged Sevenfold
3 – Rogers Stadium, Toronto, ON – with Deftones
5 – Rogers Stadium, Toronto, ON – with Deftones
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