SYSTEM OF A DOWN
Biography and discography of System of a Down, the Armenian-American band formed in Los Angeles in 1994, with a page for each of their five studio albums from the 1998 debut to Hypnotize in 2005, including running orders, CD details, liner notes and a record of their concerts in Japan.
Biography
SYSTEM OF A DOWN
Biography
System of a Down formed in Los Angeles in 1994. All four members are of Armenian descent, and the band is known for unpredictable songs that bring Middle Eastern and Armenian music into metal and punk, and for lyrics that swing from political protest to nonsense wordplay. Three of the five albums they made between their 1998 debut and Mezmerize and Hypnotize in 2005 went to number one on the Billboard 200, and "B.Y.O.B." won them a Grammy. They went on hiatus in 2006 and, since reuniting in 2010, have kept playing live without making another album.
Formation and signing (1994-1997)
Serj Tankian, Daron Malakian and Shavo Odadjian formed System of a Down in 1994, after their previous band, Soil, broke up. The name comes from a poem Malakian had written, "Victim of a Down". Odadjian argued that changing "Victim" to "System" would catch more eyes and would also file the band's records closer to their heroes Slayer in the shops, and Malakian agreed. The first drummer was Andy Khachaturian; John Dolmayan took his place in 1997.
The band built a following in Los Angeles clubs, and Sony Music Japan, which later released their albums there, writes that a three-song demo cassette sold 30,000 copies by word of mouth before they had a deal. Even so, label after label passed, seeing an all-Armenian band as a novelty that would not travel beyond its own community. Rick Rubin came to see them at the Viper Room and offered a contract. Malakian recalls that they had nearly signed with Universal, until a visit to its offices showed them nobody there knew what to do with rock, and in 1997 they chose Rubin's American Recordings.
The debut and the first trip to Japan (1998-2000)
The self-titled debut, produced by Rubin with the band, came out on 30 June 1998. Its singles were "Sugar" and "Spiders", and the open hand on its cover comes from a poster John Heartfield designed for the Communist Party of Germany. It sold only 3,000 copies in its first week but kept on selling, and went gold on 2 February 2000. The Japanese edition followed on 1 October 1998.
Early in 1999 the band supported Fear Factory in North America. The dates on the band's own site at the time ran from Houston on 14 January to San Diego on 5 February, with two nights at Irving Plaza in New York on 18 and 19 January; four songs recorded at Irving Plaza that month were added to a two-disc edition of the debut in June. According to the band's Japanese label, they played their first concerts in Japan, in Tokyo and Osaka, in April 1999.
Toxicity and Steal This Album! (2001-2002)
On 29 July 2001, ahead of their second album, they played the GREEN STAGE at Fuji Rock Festival, on a day that also had Tool and Eminem on that stage. Toxicity came out on 4 September and entered the Billboard 200 at number one with 222,000 copies sold in its first week, more than seventy times the debut's first week. A free show in their home city of Los Angeles was cancelled, and a minor melee broke out. The Pledge of Allegiance tour they were co-headlining with Slipknot, due to start near Chicago on 14 September, was pushed back to the 21st.
"Chop Suey!" was nominated at the 44th Grammy Awards and "Aerials" at the 45th. On 28 August 2026 the RIAA certified Toxicity seven times platinum, and on the same day "Chop Suey!" became the band's first diamond single. In early 2002, unfinished songs from the same period leaked online under the name "Toxicity II"; the band finished the recordings and released them on 26 November as their third album, Steal This Album!, which reached number 15 on the Billboard 200 and later went platinum.
Mezmerize and Hypnotize (2004-2006)
In January 2004 the band began writing in North Hollywood and then recorded with Rubin at the so-called Houdini Mansion in Laurel Canyon. They cut about 35 songs and decided to release them as two albums six months apart. Mezmerize, on 17 May 2005, entered at number one with 453,000 copies in its first week, and Hypnotize, on 22 November, also entered at number one, giving them two chart-topping albums in the same year. Both covers use paintings by Malakian's father, the artist Vartan Malakian.
"B.Y.O.B." from Mezmerize won Best Hard Rock Performance at the 48th Grammy Awards in 2006, and the following year "Lonely Day" from Hypnotize was nominated in the same category. In Japan both albums came out through Sony Music, and Mezmerize topped Oricon's international chart.
Hiatus and reunion (2006- )
The band went on hiatus in August 2006. Tankian made solo albums, Malakian and Dolmayan formed Scars on Broadway, and Odadjian started Achozen. Since reuniting in November 2010 they have toured without making a new album. In 2015, the centenary of the Armenian Genocide, they played the Wake Up the Souls tour and closed it on 23 April with a free concert in Republic Square in Yerevan, the Armenian capital: their first show in Armenia, nearly two and a half hours and 37 songs long.
On 6 November 2020 they released "Protect the Land" and "Genocidal Humanoidz", their first new music in fifteen years. When war broke out in Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh), Dolmayan called his bandmates back to the studio, and the proceeds went to help Armenians. In 2025 they played stadiums in North and South America, and they lined up stadium shows in Britain and Europe for the summer of 2026. They announced a 2027 tour of Australia and New Zealand with Faith No More.
The members
Serj Tankian (vocals, keyboards), Daron Malakian (guitar, vocals), Shavo Odadjian (bass) and John Dolmayan (drums). The band's Japanese label notes that Malakian has written most of the music and Tankian most of the lyrics. On Mezmerize and Hypnotize the two share the vocals, and Malakian sings lead on "Lonely Day". Dolmayan joined in 1997, replacing the original drummer, Andy Khachaturian.
Discography
The five studio albums, in order of release. Each has its own page with the running order, CD details and liner notes. The band also released the two-song Protect the Land / Genocidal Humanoidz on 6 November 2020.
| Released | Title | Label |
|---|---|---|
| 30 June 1998 | System of a Down | American Recordings / Columbia |
| 4 September 2001 | Toxicity | American Recordings / Columbia |
| 26 November 2002 | Steal This Album! | Columbia / American Recordings |
| 17 May 2005 | Mezmerize | American Recordings / Columbia |
| 22 November 2005 | Hypnotize | American Recordings / Columbia |
Concerts in Japan
According to the profile kept by their Japanese label, Sony Music, the band played their first Japanese concerts in Tokyo and Osaka in April 1999, with great success. This site has not been able to confirm the dates in a primary source, so those nights are not listed as shows. On 29 July 2001 they played the GREEN STAGE on the third day of Fuji Rock Festival '01; the date and the order of the bill come from the festival's own 2001 timetable.
| Date | Venue | Event |
|---|---|---|
| 29 July 2001 | Naeba Ski Resort (Niigata) | FUJI ROCK FESTIVAL '01 (GREEN STAGE) |
About the sources
This page is based on the band's official site, systemofadown.com (its release list); the artist profile and product pages of their Japanese label, Sony Music; the band's 1999 tour dates as the Internet Archive kept them; the official Fuji Rock Festival site (its 2001 timetable); Billboard's chart records and articles; the RIAA certification database; the Grammy Awards' official site; articles in Loudwire, Revolver, Rolling Stone, Consequence and Blabbermouth.net; MusicBrainz; Wikidata; and the Spotify entities' own data. The English Wikipedia was used only as a starting point, and every fact taken from it was checked against one of these sources. Release dates are the ones on the band's own release list; the Japanese editions' dates and catalogue numbers are on each album's page.
Trivia
The band's Japanese label, Sony Music, dates their first concerts in Japan, in Tokyo and Osaka, to April 1999. On 29 July 2001, five weeks before Toxicity came out, they played the GREEN STAGE on the third day of Fuji Rock Festival; the festival's own timetable for that day lists Tool and Eminem after them on the same stage.
The band has four Grammy nominations and one win. "Chop Suey!" was up for Best Metal Performance at the 44th awards in 2002 and "Aerials" for Best Hard Rock Performance at the 45th in 2003; "B.Y.O.B." from Mezmerize won Best Hard Rock Performance at the 48th in 2006, and "Lonely Day" from Hypnotize was nominated in the same category the following year.
The band took its name from a poem Daron Malakian had written, "Victim of a Down". Bassist Shavo Odadjian was convinced that changing the first word to "System" would catch more eyes and would also put their records next to their heroes Slayer in the racks, and Malakian had no objection. When people asked him in the early days to describe the music, Malakian has said, he would tell them it was as if Slayer and the Beatles had had a child.
For the two or three years they were selling out Los Angeles clubs, nobody would sign them. Daron Malakian has said labels accepted that an Armenian band could draw the city's large Armenian community but asked who would listen in countries where people did not know what an Armenian was. The offer finally came from Rick Rubin, who saw them at the Viper Room and remembered it as a show so funny and intense that he could not stop laughing. The band had nearly signed with Universal, but the posters on the walls of its offices told them nobody there knew what to do with rock, and they went with Rubin.
The 1998 debut sold just 3,000 copies in its first week, then kept selling steadily, reaching about 764,000 by the time the second album, Toxicity, arrived in September 2001. Toxicity entered the Billboard 200 at number one on 222,000 copies. Billboard added a note that, because of the emergency situation in New York that week, incorrect data had at first been used to compile the chart, which had shown the band at number two.
In early 2002 more than a dozen unfinished songs from the Toxicity period began circulating online as "Toxicity II". Making the best of a bad situation, the band hurried to finish the recordings for the holiday season, wrapped them in a bare sleeve modelled on a home-burned CD-R and called the result Steal This Album!, a nod to the political activist Abbie Hoffman. Sony Music Japan's note on its own edition tells the same story: the leaked recordings were all unfinished, so the band recorded them properly for an urgent release.
"I-E-A-I-A-I-O" from Steal This Album! was reportedly called "KITT" at first, and it owes a debt to Knight Rider. John Dolmayan has told the story behind it: at about twelve he ran into David Hasselhoff walking out of a Los Angeles liquor store with a soda, shouted "Knight Rider!", and got a "Hey kid" and a cowboy-style finger point in return. He told Serj Tankian, and the encounter, the name of the liquor store included, went into the lyrics.
Mezmerize and Hypnotize are one work released six months apart. Rick Rubin has said he recorded about 35 songs with the band and could not get them down to a manageable number. Daron Malakian said he would have felt uncomfortable handing someone a CD with 25 songs on it, and Rubin reasoned that in an age when people rarely listen to a whole album, the only way to get the music properly heard was to hand it over a little at a time. Each half runs between 35 and 40 minutes.
News
SYSTEM OF A DOWN Appear To Be Teasing A Los Angeles Stadium Show As Projections And Posters Go Up Across The City
The teasers appeared throughout Los Angeles over the past week and seem to point to 2027. No official announcement has been made yet.
SYSTEM OF A DOWN Celebrate 25 Years Of 'Toxicity' At Beyond The Streets In Los Angeles, October 13-18
The event was announced on the band's official YouTube channel.
Play videoTOM MORELLO And SYSTEM OF A DOWN's SERJ TANKIAN Perform AUDIOSLAVE's "Like A Stone" In Tribute To CHRIS CORNELL At Power To The People 2026
The performance came during Morello's set at Merriweather Post Pavilion on October 3. Tankian was also on the festival bill.
System Of A Down To Mark 25 Years Of 'Toxicity' With A Los Angeles Exhibition From October 13
"System Of A Down x Beyond The Streets: Toxicity 25th Anniversary Exhibition" runs for a week at the Beyond The Streets gallery, with rare artifacts and ephemera from the Toxicity era, immersive installations and exclusive merch. It is free and open to the public for its entire run.
FALLING IN REVERSE Release First New Song In Over A Year, 'Joseph', With SLIPKNOT's COREY TAYLOR And SYSTEM OF A DOWN's SERJ TANKIAN
The band's first new song in over a year features guest vocals from Corey Taylor and Serj Tankian, the first time the two have performed together on a song. The title comes from singer Ronnie Radke's middle name. Both guests also appear in the official video, directed by Jensen Noen.
Play MVSYSTEM OF A DOWN Officially Release “Johnny” To Streaming Platforms
A new vinyl reissue marking the 25th anniversary of “Toxicity” brings the long-unavailable rarity “Johnny” to digital streaming services.
Play MVSYSTEM OF A DOWN's "Chop Suey!" Becomes The Band's First-Ever Diamond Single
The RIAA's August wave of certifications took the single to 10x platinum, making it the band's first Diamond-certified single.
System Of A Down Have Just Had A Fourth Song Hit 1 Billion Plays On Spotify
“Aerials” joins “Chop Suey!” (2 billion), “Toxicity” (1.6 billion) and “Lonely Day” past the mark.
Play MVSYSTEM OF A DOWN’s Serj Tankian Appears On Chilling Cover Of DAVID BOWIE’s “I’m Afraid Of Americans”
Tankian guests on the newly released cover version.
SYSTEM OF A DOWN And FAITH NO MORE Announce 2027 Australia/New Zealand Tour
The joint tour was officially confirmed by both bands.
Current Members
Current line-up as listed by the band's Japanese label, verified on 2026-10-01.
Albums
System of a Down's fifth album, out on 22 November 2005: the second half of the two-part work begun with Mezmerize, and their second number-one album that year.
System of a Down's fourth album, out on 17 May 2005: the first half of a two-part work completed by Hypnotize, and a number-one debut on the Billboard 200.
System of a Down's third album, out on 26 November 2002: sixteen songs from the Toxicity era, finished by the band after unfinished versions leaked online.
System of a Down's second album, out on 4 September 2001. It brings in sitar and banjo and leans far more on melody and singing than the debut did.
System of a Down's debut album, out on 30 June 1998: thirteen songs produced by Rick Rubin with the band, including the singles Sugar and Spiders.