Topic: Interviews

In an answer of one of the questions, Serj said his new upcoming Solo Album is planned to be released by next late summer or early fall if everything worked as planned, the new album will titled "ELECT THE DEAD". Serj said he has plans to tour extensively and the album will probably released under his label.

NERD…DORK…GEEK…these are words we've all used before in one way or another to describe someone who we feel isn't really a part of the society we live in. Sure they're smart and all and we ask them to fix our computers from time to time, but they have an air to them that really provokes a feeling of animosity especially amongst metal fans.

However, our concepts of dorks, geeks, and nerds has changed irrevocably in the last 10 years or so. Geeks, nerds, etc were the kids who played Dungeons & Dragons, read comic books, played video games, taped their glasses together, and called each other by code names or 'alter egos'. Now some of our greatest heroes and influences are nerds and geeks! Samuel L Jackson is a huge comic book nerd, same with Quentin Tarantino. Bands such as Mudvayne and My Chemical Romance have members that are huge comic book nerds. So what is a geek then? What is a nerd? Does it even matter anymore?!

The answer is a resounding NO! Just ask John Dolmayan, drummer of System of a Down. A rabid comic book fan and collector for the last 12 years, much of John's pre-System of a Down life was spent buying, selling, and collecting comic books and toys to make ends meet. He still sells his comics at several comic conventions in California including the wildly popular San Diego Comic Con International.

System Of A Down's comics-loving sticksman gets artistic with a hand-drawn drum set.
[Stuff Magazine January 2007]

TAMA: Let’s just start out by talking about System’s newest records Mesmerize and Hypnotize. Can you describe what the writing and recording process was for those sessions?

Dolmayan: We officially started in the studio, I’d say three years ago, three and half years ago. But songs were being written [already], for example, Daron had written a lot of songs already up to 6-8 years ago. Depending on what songs they were; it was a long process, and every album is a long process. We went into Rick’s studio expecting to record one album, and we ended up recording two, which was a surprising experience for us. But once we got in there, it was flowing too well and we kept on going. It just seemed like more and more songs were coming out until we finally decided to do two albums.