System of a Down have been really playing with our emotions as of late. They started teasing us last November, but it turned out the tease was for new tour dates commemorating the 100th anniversary of the Armenian genocide.
Questions have constantly come up about the possibility of a new album, and there was a light of hope recently when bassist Shavo Odadjian not only hinted at a new record this year but said the band had songs already written for it.
Well, it seems like Shavo is much more excited than the rest of the band. They held a conference call today about playing Aremnia for the first time in their career during this tour and again, the question of new material was brought up. Billboard got this quote:
"We do want to get together after the tour to talk about writing, but who knows," drummer John Dolmayan told Billboard during a conference call to discuss the group's upcoming Wake Up the Souls tour, commemorating the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide during World War I. "Maybe things will happen on this tour that will inspire songs. … Anything can surprise you."
D'oh!
The rest of the call focused on the band's mission with this tour, which is to raise awareness for the Armenian genoicde:
SOAD frontman Serj Tankian added, "What's important to us is the fact that genocide still occurs today. There is no international, executable agreement irrespective of the Genocide Convention and many ad hoc committees around the world. There's nothing that all nations have signed that says when a genocide is occurring, all bets are off. … It's important to us to not just raise awareness, but to help bring justice to this cause." [..]
"This touris about the Armenian Genocide," he said. "You don't want to get too preachy. You want to provide information, but you don't want to push it down people's throats. So we will have some information available and we have some video presentations we put together that will be taking place during the show. … We've been very fortunate in that we're in a position we can entertain people and also give them information at the same time, if they're open to it."
You can see the band's full tour routing right here.
