System Of A Down came up in the late '90s and early 2000s when metal wasn't exactly the most popular type of music. The genre would eventual regain its footing as nü-metal took off big time in the 2000s, and would continue to chug along just fine up to the present day.
In an interview with Metal Hammer, System Of A Down guitarist Daron Malakian cited tours like Ozzfest and bands like Korn and Deftones for really bringing the genre out of the dumps and back into the spotlight.
"I'll be honest, we came up at a time where metal wasn't doing so well. When we first toured with Slayer, they weren't playing arenas – they were playing theatres in the US. We'd gone from metal being this huge thing in the 80s to the Seattle thing coming in and kinda killed off a lot of metal, like the speed metal bands of that time," said Malakian.
"That includes a lot of the bands I really loved. Even in the late 90s, it felt like it was more alternative rock that was popular, so this group of bands that you'd possibly call nü-metal, or alternative metal and events like Ozzfest really brought metal back to the mainstream.
"All these bands like us, Korn and whoever were getting played on mainstream radio and really helped put metal back in a good place. But then you had these bands that came along that all sounded similar and I think that's when it started to lose respect. It became cookie cutter and every label wanted their own version of whatever band was big at that time. Good luck finding four Armenian guys! The bands that came up in that scene to start with like us, Korn and Deftones were just trying to do something original and take metal to a whole other level, mesh in different things."
Elsewhere in the same interview, Malakian notes that he has the third Daron Malakian And Scars On Broadway (previously known as just Scars On Broadway) record all finished up, but hasn't had the time to get it out into the world. Daron Malakian And Scars On Broadway played their first two shows in five years earlier this month.
