Now revealed what needs to happen in order to have another album by System Of A Down

System Of A Down drummer John Dolmayan again discussed the band’s potential to release a follow-up to its 2005 “Mezmerize” and “Hypnotize” LPs during an appearance on the most recent episode of the But That 1% With Sona Oganesyan podcast. Since breaking its hiatus in 2011, the Serj Tankian-led group has gone on sporadic tours, but they haven’t released a new full-length album.

I told Daron the secret sauce of how to get an album done.

Is it tomato sauce?

Bring your songs in last.

Oh. My bad.

Well, traditionally when we go in to record, Daron would bring his songs in, ’cause he’d have a lot of them. They were very well thought out. They were the most complete. And what I would do, if I was Daron, if I was giving Daron advice, which I’ve actually given him this advice, and I said, ‘Why don’t you just tell Serj, ‘Bring your songs in first. We’ll go through all your ideas.’ And then Shavo, you bring in all your ideas. And then Daron, you bring in your ideas last. What’s the difference? But that olive branch says ‘I care about your songs more than I care about my own, and I’m gonna have you bring in yours first.’ Now, most of Daron’s songs are gonna end up on the album. He’s the best songwriter I’ve ever seen in my life. And Serj is a prolific lyricist. And believe it or not, many of the songs you like most in System first came from Shavo — the riffs, the movements originated with Shavo. So we’ve got a lot of strength there that if we just allow everyone to have their time and not at the last part, ‘We’ve already got 30 songs. Bring in your five, and it’s the last thing we do.’ Well, that belittles that person’s contribution, and then they feel that way after the fact. That’s why I’m saying it’s after the fact that the ill feelings come into play. And that would be my suggestion — just bring yours last. Yours are gonna be great.

It would be cool if everyone contributed equally, but perhaps that’s not realistic.

But what if Serj wrote 12 great songs and they were better than the ones Daron wrote? So make a mediocre album that’s not our best to placate people? What you’re saying is — that sounds like DEI [a diversity, equity and inclusion initiative] to me. If it’s not the best, then why are we using it? We’re the ones that decide what the best is for that album. And our producer, who’s Rick Rubin, and our manager chimes in. For example, with ‘Toxicity’, we all had a list of 44 songs that we recorded, and we all put the ones that we wanted to be on the album. I’d say 80 precent of it we all agreed on. So it’s the last four songs, really, that are up for debate. So if that’s the case, who cares who wrote it?

If it was up to Dolmayan, here’s how it would go.

We would do the tours that we already have planned, which we’re going to, and then in 2027 we would block off six months. We would go into either Daron’s house, my mouse or Serj’s house or Shavo’s house in a studio that we have in one of those houses, which we all have our spaces, and we would work on a new System album with no rules. And I would say, ‘Serj, bring in all your songs first. Then Shavo, bring in all your riffs and songs next, and then Daron, bring all yours last. And I’ll put absolutely no limit on how many songs you can bring in or timeline of how long that’s gonna take. And then we would go in and make a new record.

That doesn’t sound too bad at all.