Daron Malakian of System of a Down (SOAD) commented on the band's brief intention to replace vocalist Serj Tankian a few years ago.
In his autobiography Down With the System: A Memoir (Of Sorts) , released in 2024, Tankian revealed that his disdain for touring led him to tell his bandmates to carry on without him in 2017.
At the time, the band wasn't in favor of the idea, but Tankian later learned that the group was looking for a new vocalist. The search took place at a charity event, but it didn't yield results, and so the vocalist continued with System of a Down.
Malakian, guitarist and vocalist, revealed in an interview with the Ultimate Guitar , On The Record , [transcription via NME ]: "It was something I never really wanted to do."
“For me, System of a Down is the four of us. If one of the four of us isn’t part of System of a Down, I really don’t want to be part of System of a Down. Did we think about it? Sure. But did we take the idea seriously? No. We tried. I don’t want to get into names. We tried, and whoever it was… it sounded good,” he continues.
According to the guitarist, people might think he was the member who most wanted this, but he denies it: "I was the one who most opposed the idea." Malakian also said he didn't want to "look to the left and see other people" when he was on stage. For the artist, "System is System, and if this isn't System then I don't know if it's the System I want to be a part of."
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