New System Of A Down Music Emotionally Inspired By War In Iraq

06/19/2003 4:00 PM, Yahoo! Music
LAUNCH Radio Networks

(6/19/03, 4 p.m. ET) -- System Of A Down guitarist Daron Malakian has been writing music for the follow-up to the band's Toxicity, and he has over 25 musical compositions written. Malakian said a lot of his inspiration for the new music comes from the emotions of having family in Iraq during the recent war.

"The last two or three months or whenever that happened was probably the toughest time of my whole life," Malakian said. "Because it was like not knowing what's going on until we got a phone call. And we get a phone call, and they're OK and we can breathe a little bit. For one month I didn't know if a bomb dropped on my grandmother's house or, you know what I mean? I didn't know. It could have. It brought out a lot of good material--not necessarily political music, just emotional music, you know?"

Even though Malakian's family was safe and sound, the pain of war hit home when relatives of one of his best friends were innocent bystanders killed in the war.

Malakian says that while he has 25 System Of A Down tunes written, he hasn't gotten together with the rest of the band to start the lyric writing and recording process.

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