SCARS ON BROADWAY

With System of a Down on indefinite hiatus and frontman Serj Tankian gone solo, Daron Malakian and John Dolmayan hope to make their mark with Scars on Broadway

By Mikael Wood

Ask Daron Malakian why he walked away from one of the most important bands in heavy metal and he’ll respond with a question of his own, one worthy of the great philosophers of our time: “What’s pussy to a porn star?”

It’s a sunny June afternoon in Los Angeles, and Malakian’s smoking pot in the lounge of a dimly lit recording studio while he takes a break from sequencing the self-titled debut by Scars on Broadway, the group Malakian formed with drummer John Dolmayan when the two musicians’ other band, System of a Down, went on hiatus following their headlining slot on Ozzfest 2006. Malakian brings up the porn star example to illustrate a point about a kind of “innocence” that he says System lost as a result of their success.

“We grew to expect certain things,” the singer-guitarist explains. “When we put out Mezmerize and Hypnotize [in 2005], we knew we were gonna get a lot of attention. Playing shows night after night in front of 15,000 roaring people—the first, second, third times it’s amazing. But after a while it starts to rub off, and then you need something else to take you there.” In the colorful language of Malakian’s metaphor, pussy no longer held any special meaning. So instead of pushing things further, he decided to take a step back—not all the way to square one, of course, but to a place where an audience’s adoration isn’t a sure thing.

“When people cheer after we play a song—and right now, no one at a Scars on Broadway show has even heard these songs—it’s like, Wow, they cheered!” he says. The first time he heard his new group on the radio, “I was like someone whose song has never been played on the radio before. I mean, I’ve won a Grammy! But this feels new again. That feeling that had been lost in System is back.”

Scars on Broadway (Interscope) does not sound like the work of a baby band. What it does sound like is one of the best albums of the year: Less metal and more rock and roll than System’s stuff, as Dolmayan puts it, the disc finds Malakian channeling the world’s current end-times vibe in 15 lean-and-mean jams that nod to the his disparate influences, which stretch from the Damned to the Kinks to Roxy Music. It’s an uncommonly assured debut, and though its hard-hitting riffs are certain to satisfy System of a Down devotees, its streamlined tunefulness should attract new listeners who couldn’t quite hang with schizophrenic System tracks like “Chop Suey!” and “B.Y.O.B.”

“The songs are amazing,” says Lisa Worden, music director at L.A.’s taste-making modern-rock station KROQ, which in May invited Scars on Broadway to play its annual Weenie Roast concert alongside Metallica and Bad Religion. “Daron sang in System along with [frontman] Serj [Tankian], so it’s got that familiar voice. It’s different, but not too different to where it would turn off System fans.”

Malakian says his goal for the album was not to pull a creative about-face but to “evolve from what I did” with Dolmayan, bassist Shavo Odadjian, and Tankian (who last year released a well regarded solo debut, Elect the Dead). “I’m a less-is-best person,” he insists. “People always focused on the complex parts of System, but as the writer of the band I always focused on the simplicity—on making those complex parts simple to listen to.” He points to a handful of tunes from Mezmerize and Hypnotize—“Lost in Hollywood,” “Lonely Day,” and “Soldier Side” among them—as examples of that effort. “I wanted to take that further with Scars.”

As on all of System of a Down’s records, there’s a pronounced political consciousness to the music on Scars on Broadway. Malakian references the president and war and religion and the environment, but he’s much more oblique than Tankian is on Elect the Dead. “Serj and I both do politics—we just have a different way of doing it,” he says. “I don’t write about issues. I’m not for or against anything. I’m like an announcer at a ballgame: He’s not picking teams; he’s not cheering for anybody. He’s just telling you what’s going on.”

Tankian’s absence looms large in Scars’ music. “Knowing Serj wasn’t gonna be there made a big difference in my writing,” Malakian says. For the first time in years, “I didn’t sit there and say, What would Serj do here?” He figures if System hadn’t decided to take a break, the band’s next album would have been less about the interplay between his and Tankian’s vocals and instead would have “turned into me singing my songs and Serj singing his songs. And that wasn’t where we wanted to be.”

Hanging out in his room at the Sunset Marquis in West Hollywood the day before Scars shoot the video for “They Say,” Dolmayan says that Malakian hasn’t ever really gotten the credit he deserves for steering System’s sound. “People unfortunately misunderstand the role of a frontman,” the drummer explains. “Serj is our singer, but it’s not a singer-songwriter situation. That created a problem.” (Tankian declined to comment for this article.) Scars on Broadway, Dolmayan says, “sets the record straight. It gives Daron the opportunity to do the producing and the writing and the singing, and makes it so that there’s no question about his vision.”

Malakian is hesitant to calls Scars his chance to prove himself. “It’s not like I had to show the world what I can do,” he says. “I’ve always looked up to the Jimmy Pages and the Pete Townshend—people who were a big part of their band but not necessarily the center guy. But I think the more I mature, I’m just feeling like I’m writing songs I need to sing myself.”

As for Dolmayan, the drummer wasn’t looking for a new drumming gig when System went on hiatus. Having moved from L.A. to Las Vegas a few years ago, he was looking forward to dedicating his time to Torpedo Comics, his growing comics-and-collectibles retail operation. “I needed a break to rediscover who I was,” Dolmayan says. “For so long I was John from System of a Down, and I just wanted to be John again. I needed some time to escape.”

Toward the end of 2006, Malakian called Dolmayan and told him he’d like him to play drums for a new band he was putting together called Scars on Broadway. “He sent me the music and it was so good that I said I’d be happy to play on a couple of songs on the album,” the drummer says. (Dolmayan also contributed to three tracks on Elect the Dead.) “But Daron said, ‘No, I’d rather you were just in the band.’”

By the time Malakian offered the job to Dolmayan, the guitarist had already gone through several drummers, none of whom brought to the band precisely what he was after. “Eventually I was like, Why don’t I just do this with John?” the frontman says. “That gave it an even cozier vibe. I like a sort of gang unity, so when John joined, the other people we got to be in the band knew they were joining a family.” (At the moment, the Scars on Broadway live band includes three additional musicians: guitarist Franky Perez, bassist Dominic Cifarelli, and keyboardist Danny Shamoun.)

In spite of the fact that they’ve played together for over a decade, Malakian and Dolmayan cut pretty contrasting figures. The former is small and shy; the latter is beefy and gregarious. Discussing the upcoming presidential election, Dolmayan outlines in comprehensive detail his problems with both the Electoral College and direct democracy, while Malakian is given to dreamier musings on what aliens would think if they landed on Earth and saw a man walking behind a dog on a leash.

Both men are dedicated to touring behind Scars on Broadway for the next year or so, but each reacts to the prospect of life on the road in his own way. “I love touring,” says Dolmayan, who enthusiastically describes hitting comic shops when in the United States and museums when abroad. “Daron hates to go to Europe—the food, the time difference. He stays in the hotel room.” “I’m not a big fan of leaving home,” Malakian confirms. “My favorite part of touring, aside from being onstage—or maybe equal to being onstage sometimes—is riding on the bus late at night. That’s calming to me when we’re on the road.”

Still, the two are in total agreement on at least one point: that Scars on Broadway are here for the long haul. “We don’t look at Scars as a side project, we look at it as a band,” Dolmayan says. “Maybe Scars and System will always piggyback—they’re great outlets for different emotions. I really like what we’re doing with Scars, and I wouldn’t want that to go away if System came back touring or did an album. I would wanna do both.”
Malakian is firmer. “You got a lot of kids out there that are bummed out that System isn’t doing anything,” he says. “I know System meant a lot to a lot of kids, and I appreciate that. But this is just the time in my life for me to move forward and move on. Maybe someday in the future we’ll get together and play live, but I really don’t have any urge or itch to write a record with System right now. I’m really happy with this band that I have right here. This feels right to me.”